They also had a policy that everyone should spend at least 4 hours every week (outside of the 40 hour work-week) doing some personal project, or learning. The more the better. (it was a recommendation, not a requirement, and there was no monitoring).
Well what I had in mind was a bit more ambitious than four hours. It did not infringe on their bottom-line (I wasn't using their tech or competing with my day-job; it was completely unrelated). But for me they were like "Oh, no, no ... we were just kidding. We really didn't mean that you should do something in your free time".
The encouragement to do something in free-time is a lie! ... they know most of the engineers don't do that. But if someone actually does something, then the lie gets exposed.
Try it yourself. Take them up on their offer and see what happens.
I'm not going to open a can of worms here but lemme suffice by saying this:
With success comes maturity, and a startup turns into a corrupt, org-chart, white-elephant company. 90% of the employees end up being cronies that are pushing paper. The remaining 10% are the real engine of the company (cz the revenue stream has to be maintained somehow and real work still needs to be done). But those 10% need to be kept under the thumb at all cost, made to feel they're not good enough no matter what they do; otherwise they might start questioning wtf's going on in the rest of the company. Let's just say that I was one of those 10%. They did whatever they had to do to make an example out of me. I got my freedom, but I actually feel worse for the other hard-workers who were left behind.
They also had a policy that everyone should spend at least 4 hours every week (outside of the 40 hour work-week) doing some personal project, or learning. The more the better. (it was a recommendation, not a requirement, and there was no monitoring).
Well what I had in mind was a bit more ambitious than four hours. It did not infringe on their bottom-line (I wasn't using their tech or competing with my day-job; it was completely unrelated). But for me they were like "Oh, no, no ... we were just kidding. We really didn't mean that you should do something in your free time".
The encouragement to do something in free-time is a lie! ... they know most of the engineers don't do that. But if someone actually does something, then the lie gets exposed.
Try it yourself. Take them up on their offer and see what happens.