75% Of Jobs Are Worthless

Bullshit Jobs, Hoodrat Stuff, and Dunbar’s Number - March 24, 2022 (about 3 years ago) • 12:58

This My First Million episode reflects on the nature of work and company size. Sam and Shaan discuss the concept of "bullshit jobs" and the efficiency of smaller teams. They explore the dynamics of startups versus large corporations, including innovation strategies and leadership styles.

  • Bullshit Jobs: Sam introduces the concept of "bullshit jobs," positing that many white-collar jobs are unnecessary for a company's function. Shaan agrees, drawing on his experience with Twitch's acquisition of his company. He recalls questioning the CEO about the number of employees needed, suspecting the company was bloated.

  • Startup vs. Corporate Strategies: Shaan recounts a conversation with Emmett Shear, former Twitch CEO, about the company's seemingly slow pace of innovation. He explains that Shear saw this as a strategic advantage, allowing smaller startups to experiment while Twitch observed and acquired or replicated successful ventures. Sam contrasts this with the mission-driven nature of small startups, where everyone is deeply invested in the cause. He acknowledges the difficulty of maintaining this ethos as a company grows, requiring leaders to "act" and inspire even when the reality is less exciting.

  • Dunbar's Number and Company Size: Shaan introduces Dunbar's number (150), the theoretical limit of meaningful relationships a person can maintain. He connects this to Sam's observation about the shift in company culture around 50 employees. Below 50, the "cause" is a primary motivator, while above 50, individual motivations become more prominent. Sam uses the example of a child stealing a car to illustrate the thrill of "hoodrat stuff" with friends, comparing it to the early stages of a startup.

  • Hoodrat Stuff in Startups: Shaan and Sam reminisce about the "hoodrat" tactics they employed in their startup days, like Sam's aggressive negotiation tactics and Shaan's informal information gathering from competitors. They acknowledge that these methods are often discouraged in larger, more established companies, where processes and legal considerations take precedence.

Transcript:

Start TimeSpeakerText
Sam Parr
So, there's this book that I've been meaning to read. It's on my to-read list, and it's called *Bullshit Jobs*. The premise is that, I think it was a professor or some guy from the School of Economics in London or something like that. His whole idea, and I'm again recalling this from memory—I didn't research this much—is that most jobs out there in the world, at least in the white-collar sector, are just kind of unnecessary. To summarize, take a company like HubSpot, Amazon, or Twitter. What would happen if you laid off two-thirds of the people? Would anything change? Do we think anything would change other than the company just making more profit? This guy says that, in most cases, yeah, it would actually run just fine. Most of the jobs that you have are just worthless, and I kind of agree with him.
Shaan Puri
I agree
Sam Parr
I kind of agree. I don't have knowledge of it other than just personal experience, but it does sound like it.
Shaan Puri
And it's hard because there are no counterfactuals. You don't get to run the test. You can't split test and run both versions to see which one ends up better. But I've had this inkling for a while. When we were getting acquired by Twitch, as part of it, they said, "Hey, your whole team is going to come in for a day of interviews, and that's going to decide if we take your whole team or not." I had to do my interview as well. So I'm going in there, and the classic job interview structure is that they ask you a bunch of questions for 95% of it. Then, in the last 5%, they say, "So, do you have any questions for us?" You're supposed to say something that shows off another strength of yours in a different way. I had one genuine question that I asked every single person. They were kind of taken aback. Some thought I was a jerk, while others reacted well, saying, "Oh, that's refreshing." I could tell some people were slightly offended by my question. My question was, "How many people work at Twitch?" They would respond, "I think we're at 1,800 or 2,000 people now." Then I asked, "How many people do you think Twitch needs to hit its goals?" I phrased it something like, "How many people do you think should work here?" So I asked the CEO this question too. I give him credit because he prioritizes the truth over being right. Getting it right is way better than just being right. But he's also a fierce debater, so he's not just going to lay down and say, "Oh, you know what? Yeah, you're right. I changed my opinion." He took the question, but I would say 9 out of 10 CEOs would get quite offended by this question because it implies you've mismanaged the company by bloating it.
Sam Parr
a great it's a great question I would not be offended
Shaan Puri
He was not offended either. He was like, "That's a good question." He said, "I think like 22,100." So he was like, "Yeah, I think we're a little short of what we need to hit his goal." His take was basically like, "You know, I'm not saying we have all the right people or the most talented people, or that there aren't people here who are underutilized or just kind of, you know, the fat." That wasn't really his point. It was like, "I think we can be this ambitious, and to do that, we would need, you know, like 22,100 awesome people working in unison." I still think he was wrong. I think, you know, the company could have operated...
Sam Parr
On a third example, I would have followed up with a few questions. The first one would be: "Okay, but do you think that you need to hire 22,100 people? Because you know that only 10% of them are going to be actually value-added, and you just have to hire the rest in order to find that 10%?" Then I would say: "Is it possible that you think you need 22,100 because you really only need like 20% effort from all those people, and that's what your expectation is?" Finally, how much does redundancy come into play here? How many people are you just paying, and you just don't want to mention to them, but you're paying them to sit on the bench? When the person next to them quits, they are just ready to roll.
Shaan Puri
Right, yeah. I didn't follow up that hardcore about it, but I think those are very valid points. Also, one thing I kind of learned from him was, let's take that redundancy one. It sounds bad, right? It sounds like, "Oh man, you're paying a bunch of people to kind of do nothing, just sit around."
Sam Parr
no it's insurance
Shaan Puri
And he's like... that was exactly his take, which is, I think it was on speed. I was complaining about how slow we were going, and he's like, "Speed?" He said, "Going slow is sometimes a feature, not a bug here." And he's like, "Or like innovation." I was like, "Oh man, we're not really innovating; everybody else is." He didn't say this outright, but I gathered this through our conversations. There are some things we're going to innovate on, but actually, the optimal strategy here is to let a bunch of startups go out and try to innovate. Then, if anything works, we can either buy them or clone them. That is actually the best way for us to innovate. It's free, and we get way more experiments done by super caliber, you know, super hungry, motivated people like startup founders and their teams who are laser-focused on just that one thing. They'll try radical experiments that we would never otherwise do, and we don't have to fund it. We can sit back and watch it, and then when we're ready, we can either try to acquire them, partner with them, or if they don't want to do either of those, we can build our own and just use our distribution and our brand. You know, we have millions of users, so we should be able to outcompete them from there.
Sam Parr
and my issue with I
Shaan Puri
think that's actually it is the optimal strategy
Sam Parr
I agree with emmett I think on most things I I imagine I would totally
Shaan Puri
By the way, I should say I'm not putting words in his mouth. This is what I gathered from a bunch of different conversations. I'm sure he would disagree with like 40 or 50% of what I just said. So, I'm paraphrasing him poorly.
Sam Parr
yeah and it's just like your opinion on your takeaway
Shaan Puri
my take of his takes
Sam Parr
And I think I would agree with... oh, I bet I would agree with a lot of what he thinks. My issue is, when you're a small company, like under 50 people, you're all in it. A lot of times, you're in it for a mission; you're in it to achieve something. I think that you can get away with just being in it because people just like being in the thick of it with their friends. They just like the action. When you get a little bit bigger, I think it's less mission-oriented and it's just a job. But you still have to put on this face to inspire people, and it kind of sucks because the truth is, I know that a lot of you are only working 40%, and that's okay with me. I baked that into this. I know that a lot of you aren't working at all, but you're really just here in case the guy next to you quits, and then hopefully, you're going to train the next person. I know that a lot of you want to innovate and try these new things, but that's not really what we're going to do. We're going to keep doing the same stuff, just a little bit better. Then maybe, every once in a while, I'm going to have a team that makes something totally new. I know all of this, but it's tough figuring out how to navigate it and to say what I just said in a really inspiring way. Or, unfortunately, you just have to lie. You gotta lie or...
Shaan Puri
is actually the best way
Sam Parr
Yeah, you just have to act, pretend, and be a politician a little bit. I find that to be incredibly challenging, but I think it's incredibly necessary.
Shaan Puri
Yes, you’re spot on. You are spot on with what you just said.
Sam Parr
do you think you could do it
Shaan Puri
you know the I think the thing you said so you have you ever heard of dunbar's number
Sam Parr
yeah what's it mean again
Shaan Puri
So, Dunbar's number is basically 150. That's the number meant to represent how many people you know—how many people you are familiar with. You know their names and faces. How many people can one person actually know, right? Like, if someone says, "I have 6,000 friends," well, you don't really know 6,000 people. Dunbar's number used to be 150. It's like in a tribe; you could know up to 150 people. Beyond that, you don't know everyone in the tribe. Then tools like social media came out, which are like tools for the human body to do more. You might be able to know and keep up with more than 150 people now because Facebook makes it easy with the news feed, photos, and their names listed there. You get to see it all the time. I think what you're saying is your version of Dunbar's number, which is 50. Below this is Dunbar's number. Below 50, the people who are there are like, you know, down for the cause. The larger group obviously cares about themselves, but a bigger factor—either number one or number two—can be the cause.
Sam Parr
Even just like, you know, that kid who said he wants to do "hood rat" stuff with his friends. That could be the cause. Like, I just wanna...
Shaan Puri
I just
Sam Parr
It's just there was a viral video, like, years ago. They interviewed this 9-year-old who stole his grandmother's car and crashed it. The guy asked, "Why did you steal her car? That's really bad of you." He responded, "I try to be good, but sometimes I just like doing hoodrat stuff with my friends, like smoking cigarettes and driving cars." Play the video! You gotta play that really quick. Can you play it?
Shaan Puri
Along the way, he ran over two mailboxes, hit two parked cars in a Costco parking lot, and struck two moving cars near Walmart.
Hoodrat Kid
I want to do it because it's fun. It's fun to do bad things and drive into a car.
Shaan Puri
well did you know that you could perhaps kill somebody
Hoodrat Kid
yes but I wanted to do hill rise stuff for my friend
Shaan Puri
first of all
Sam Parr
that's how I feel about startups
Shaan Puri
The YouTube feature for this podcast just took us to a whole new level already. The first one is great. Second, we need to pull the clip of "Yeah, just sometimes I wanna do hoodrat shit with my friends." That needs to be a sound clip, Ben, that you could just play when Mir and Sam are talking about something dumb that we're doing. So just go ahead and cut that one out. That's that.
Sam Parr
The best part about startups is that I don't care if it's ad tech, I don't care if I'm selling clothing. You could feel like...
Shaan Puri
that shit
Sam Parr
When you're pulling stuff off and you're kind of fibbing to people, like, "Yeah, you know, we really care about our customers," but your team is just three of you. You're just trying to pretend that you're a big deal. That's hoodrat stuff, and I love doing that with my friends.
Hoodrat Kid
but I wanted to do hoodrat stuff with my friend
Shaan Puri
By the way, have you struggled to do that now that you're a big enterprise? You know, a SaaS company that's worth $1,000,000,000? And "hood ratchet" is now frowned upon. You're like, "I just... you know, yanked it." I yanked it! And they're like, "You just yanked it, Sam. Why did you do that? We have a process for that." You know, I can definitely think of like two or three examples where I was bragging about something I did that was like the startup scrappy thing on Twitch.
Sam Parr
well I
Shaan Puri
Would just be like, "Yeah, like, you know, for example, there was a competitor. I went and talked to the founder, and I was like, 'Yeah, you know, I basically found out a bunch of their numbers.' I was like, 'Oh yeah, you know, they're growing this fast. This is how they're doing blah blah.' And they're like, 'Well, how do you know that?' I was like, 'Well, I talked to him. I told him I was interested in blah blah blah.' And they're like, 'Oh.' I was like, 'What?' And they're like, 'Well, you know, we just usually don't do hoodrat shit.' Basically, it was like the reward I thought I was creating was, 'Well, we're going to need to talk to legal, and also Corp Dev is going to have to... you know, we have a guy whose job is to have those conversations. We typically sign a letter of engagement before... you know, like whatever.' It was not the exact example, but like things that in the startup, when I was doing my startup, I would be so proud of my hack about whatever. I remember once I was negotiating a partnership deal, and basically, I was just really negotiating for every inch. As a startup, I used to love winning a deal, getting a good deal for ourselves. They were just like, 'You know what? We'd rather just use our standard deal. It's more favorable for him, so he'll be happy, and we don't have to let you negotiate deal by deal on these things.' In general, we don't really want you negotiating directly with the person. We have partnerships with people who do that.
Sam Parr
you're like
Shaan Puri
the guy
Sam Parr
That's been negotiating. You're like the Big Lebowski guy. It's like, "Dude, you need a tow? I'll get you a tow. I can... I’ll get you a tow if you need a tow."