Recalling LinkedIn’s early days, Reid Hoffman said employees were encouraged to go home and have dinner with their families. Then, after dinner with your family, open up your laptop and get back in the shared work experience and keep working,” Hoffman said. Would you close your laptop after dinner—or open it again and get back to work? LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman believes the answer can be very different when you are working at a startup. But the workday was not necessarily over. “Go home have dinner with your family.
He said the goal was to give people time with their families while keeping the team focused on the work needed to build the company. “Work life balance is not the startup game,” he said, adding that startup work is intense. Simply put, Hoffman believes that building a startup often requires work beyond regular office hours. His idea was not that employees should completely avoid spending time with their families. Instead, he described an arrangement where everyone could take a break for dinner and then return to a shared online workspace later in the evening. In a Stanford discussion, Reid Hoffman explained that this was designed as a company-wide approach, rather than allowing only parents to leave early and potentially feel left out of important work. Hoffman has been clear about his views on startup culture. He has argued that startups operate in a competitive environment where companies are trying to grow quickly and survive. Hoffman has also argued that working at a startup is a choice and that not everyone has to choose that path. His views, however, have also sparked debate. For many workers, the idea of returning to work after dinner raises questions about personal time and the boundary between work and family life. Reid Hoffman’s quote is ultimately about the level of commitment he believes is needed to build a startup. In his view, a young company competing for success cannot always follow the schedule of a regular nine-to-five job. The message is not necessarily that everyone should work after dinner. Rather, it reflects Hoffman’s belief that people who choose the startup path may have to accept periods of intense work and make trade-offs that are different from those in more established companies. Get the latest technology news and updates. Download the TOI App.