After watching an interview with Jason Calacanis, I can safely say that I would never want to work for him, and never want to model my company to be anything remotely like his. Don’t get me wrong, I am not knocking Jason personally, I just think his work values are wack. Correction, I think his values (or those that I can see by his public persona) are wack.
There I said it.
In a world that is flat, where the best technical talent can go anywhere, who on earth would want to go and work for a company whose CEO specifically states that he has no interest in employees that want ‘balance’. Talk about a shitty job experience.
The worst part about all of this, is that I am yet to see Jason produce the ‘high quality’ product that his supposed “abnormal” (his words, not mine) work ethic produces. Perhaps that’s valuable in journalism where you have to fight for the best leads to break the best stories - so I can see how that MIGHT be applicable at Weblogs, Inc. but even that is pushing it.
Jason also equated not wanting to sell your soul and work 80 hour weeks to being ‘normal’, i.e. it’s not exceptional and you don’t produce outstanding results being ‘normal’.
I guess when you have F U money, you really can say and do anything without caring about the repercussions, but I don’t think Jason realizes that the best leaders inspire (not intimidate).
I am yet to hear of anyone ‘brag’ that they work at Mahalo. All the instances I have seen of people discussing their jobs at Mahalo, it has usually been followed with ‘….yeah…I know’.
I am still in disbelief that he really believes this.
But…I guess, coming from the guy that thought he could pay for Digg’s top users, it isn’t much of a shock.