Trevor Gilbert wrote The Midwest Mentality for Pando Daily and is, to put it bluntly, a terrible closed-minded look at Chicago specifically and “The Midwest” in general. It is probably the most disappointing piece of “journalism” I’ve read on the internet for quite some time (I don’t include most things about Apple here because it is almost systematically terrible).
Matt Moog has written a rebuttal of sorts over at Built in Chicago, so make sure you read that retort.
Here are some choice quotes:
Instead of working on a startup 24/7, employees take the weekend off and don’t work through the night. It doesn’t help in the creation of amazing technical feats, but it does allow people to have lives.
Yup, not burning your staff out is definitely something that should be avoided. Also, don’t forget that good stuff only happens to those who sacrifice themselves to a startup.
Not high school marriages, but rather the idea of getting married at age 21 is no big deal. That’s fine, but it also means that the ecosystem can’t rely on the insane work hours of the independent, no responsibilities generation. Instead, you have a number of people who would normally be able to work into the night, but instead need to go home at 7 or 8 to spend time with their kids and families.
Once again, let’s kill ourselves when we’re young so that we can get married later! Spending time with family is a bad thing because you are not worshipping at the alter of the startup and burning yourself out!
Yes, many people see this as a plus. “You work too much” is something I hear all too often from my non-startup inclined family members. That is a valid argument, but it also is the type of argument that holds an entire ecosystem back.
Riiiiiiight. Not burning yourself out is definitely going to hold the ecosystem back. Isn’t it just as likely that an ecosystem is being held back because its members work themselves to the point of being incapable of doing any good, real, meaningful work after a short time?
I can’t believe this article. Truly meaningless tripe.