Earlier this week, I wrote a feature for the paper about how some employers are providing workers with widescreen monitors in an effort to boost productivity. One such employer was Jason Calacanis, an entrepreneur and the CEO of Mahalo.com. He had recently written a blog post that revealed his steadfast belief in the link between screen size and productivity:
I've been pushing the concept of the two monitor *minimum* for a while
now. At Mahalo the least amount of real estate you can have is two 24"
monitors, and we're starting to push folks to three monitors (one 30 inch Dell and two 24 "wing men").
It's so clear that three monitors makes people UBER productive.
Calacanis also recently spoke about how he chooses his employees. A story and video are here. "I try to scare people in the interview," he said. Also, one question he asks is, "How would you feel if you had to come to work three weekends in a row because the servers keep going down?"
That question makes sense if you read a blog post he put up, “How to save money running a startup (17 really good tips).” When it first appeared, #11 read:
Fire people who are not workaholics... come on folks, this is startup life, it's not a game. don't work at a startup if you're not into it--go work at the post office or stabucks if you want balance in your life. For realz.
After he was criticized, Calacanis changed it to this:
Fire people who don't love their work... come on folks, this is startup life. don't work at a startup if you're not into it--go work at the post office or stabucks if you're not into it.
Personally, I'm glad he ditched the “For realz.” But lest you think the man has no sympathy for workers, he also made these recommendations:
Buy everyone lunch four days a week and establish a no-meetings policy. Going out for food or ording in takes at least 20-60 minutes more than walking up to the buffet and eating. If you do meetings over lunch you also save that time. So, 30 minutes a day across say four days a week is two hours a week... which is 100 hours a year. You get the idea.
Allow folks to work off hours. Commuting sucks and is a waste of time for everyone. Let folks start at 6am or 11am and you'll cut their commute in half (at least in LA).
Clearly, the start-up life isn't for everyone.
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Gus Wah from Somewhere, Canada writes: Apparently Mr. Calacanis has used all three monitors to hone his grammar and spelling. And somewhere in his busy day, he's not forgotten the importance of blogging time to demonstrate this.
- Posted 07/04/08 at 7:54 AM EDT | Alert an Editor | Link to Comment
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