Heroics can exist without them being a standardized thing. There are occasions when you need people who are willing to move mountains to get something done, and demonizing those kinds of efforts and the people who engage in them will make them scarce when you actually are in need.
a founder should be 'trying to' make a quality product that fits a need, not 'disrupt an industry' - 'industry disruption' is a consequence, not a goal - if one is seeking the latter without focusing on the former, ones priorities are skewed, and likely for reasons of promoting one's own self-importance.
This 1000%.
The frequent use of the term "disrupt", just shows how much the culture has descended into degeneracy. When entrepreneurs and their backers are no longer making even a pretense toward things like progress, improvement, or even just running a profitable business, you know things have gotten bad. It seems like the model now is, "Hey, let's see if we can f--- up industry X, who cares if we actually improve anything or if our business is even viable, so long as we turn some established part of the economy on its head."
This is an extraordinary claim.
How so? I would argue that folks using millions of dollars in investment capital with no real goal other than to cause disruption, regardless of whether it helps anyone or even creates a viable business, is what's extraordinary.
Think for a second what a dumb goal 'disruption' is on it's own. That's what bored 15 year old's do to amuse themselves, they disrupt and break things simply to see something, anything, happen. As an earlier commenter pointed out, disruption is often a side effect of making a large change in an industry, typically in business this has meant changing something for the better.
When the side effect of causing disruption becomes the main goal of a business owner rather than creating value of some sort, I really don't know what to call that other than degenerate behavior.
Founders building potentially billion dollar businesses (not $10m lifestyle companies) need to have a psychotic drive to achieve that goal.
That often creates tough work environments in the early stages of the company. To many people, failing to build that billion dollar company is the same as outright failing completely. They’ll do whatever it takes to get there. I’ve worked with engineers and designers that like this type of environment. I’ve worked with others that thought they did until it came time to actually pull an 80 hour week.
EDIT: Several downvotes, but only one reply. If you have issue with anything I said I'd appreciate a response.
Irrespective of whether one is building a potentially billion dollar business or 'only' a 10m lifestyle company, the goal and focus should still be on the usefulness of the product and fitting market need, and not 'disrupting an industry' with the product as a side goal - if it's the latter, it indicates the priorities are skewed; from experience, usually when 'heroics' are involved or priorities are skewed, it's ego to blame and not some external requirement.
Further, 'heroics' are context-dependent - if the external requirement actually requires what would be 'heroics' in a normal situation, 'heroics' are simply 'duty' in that case, and there exists a 'that case heroics' that would still be 'heroics' (and therefore indicative of likely-ego-driven skewed priorities)
Maybe you meant something more like "extreme" ?
Both can be true. You've no doubt seen the CEO/psychopath studies.
If a manager says they don’t want heroics, it’s not reasonable to assume that they actually do want heroics but they’re somehow trying to communicate that to the team by speaking in opposites.
If someone says they want one thing then asks for the opposite, verbalize that you were following the original directive. Have a conversation like professionals and sort it out.
This HN comments that treat employers and managers like a foreign species that will only lie and abuse you are really not healthy. Learning how to establish healthy professional relationships with your managers as actual human beings is a critical workplace skill.
"I can't believe an organization would _praise_ the rockstar mentality"
"If an organization doesn't praise the rockstar mentality, they are lying".
As others have noted, I tend to take people at their word. Of course, you can also ask people on the team during the interview process if they feel like that's true or not.
Not that they didn't praise rockstars, but they specifically came out against them.
The only that's said that is you.
How does that work? Sincere question.
It's "correct" to say "work-life balance" and "no heroes", but it doesn't generally NEED to be said in any normal circumstance; that they do say it is often because they do want the opposite of those things so they feel the need to point it out.
To me it's a form of the same thing that name-callers have when they call their adversaries names and you realize the charge they're levying against others is exactly what they themselves are/are doing; because they know they have whatever bad quality it's on their mind.
If this isn't a warning sign of a spectacular failure, I don't know what is.
Not to mention praising it, after all the ink spilled on "rockstar" "ninja" types and how bad they are, yet they still get kudos and praise.
If you ever have a manager that espouses the "we don't want the heroic cowboy type here", run, because that's EXACTLY what they want.