When my company was infected with Xerpes, I was working three days a week, and I got to enjoy a lot of hobbies.
I live the nomadic lifestyle, and I felt like I had great work-life balance.
This week, my boss asked me to do something over the weekend.
You should report him to HR.
This is Dalton Plus Michael and today we're going to talk about how to tell whether your company is recovering from Xerpes.
So as I'm sure you've seen from our previous video, we did a video on Zerp zero interest rate phenomenon.
This was the kind of shorthand term for the crazy period of time around COVID where money was thrown around like trees and funds were doing amazing and KPIs and metrics didn't matter.
And now we're in the recovery.
And a really intelligent founder coined this phrase, Xerpes, and I just friggin love it.
It's just the analogy works so well.
So that founder said, Xerpes, I'm giving him the credit.
how to tell whether your company is recovering from CERPIs because all companies had to live through this CERP experience.
Yeah, whether it was the huge big tech companies all the way down to the two person startups, it had a profound impact on everybody basically.
And like, you know, to be really clear, if you're working in a company that is effectively recovering from CERPIs,
You should probably keep staying there.
Your stock is going to be worth more.
If you are working at a company that's not effectively recovering from Xerpe's, have you considered starting a stock?
That equity might be worth more.
Yeah, not the worst idea.
So how can you tell your company is recovering?
Well, one of the most obvious things is turnover on the executive team turnover at the top, which is again, normally you're like, Oh, this is a bad thing.
We are arguing that is probably a really good thing.
Well, I would say that there's a type of executive that comes into a company that's made it.
Like a big company person.
A company, a person who's used to a infinite resource scenario with little accountability.
And that kind of person is a mere paper cut inside of Google.
and it is a massive flesh eating virus inside of a scaling up startup.
And that kind of person needs to go.
And I would also say there's another point here.
You'll often see the founders doing more.
It's like the founders wake up one day and they're like, oh no.
I have to run this company.
And all of these people I hired are actively burning us to the ground.
So I have to like wake up out of my stupor, start running my company again, and need to like get into sort of a wartime mentality.
I need to get real about the situation.
Well, and what I hate is that like oftentimes there's an immune response to the founder in their own company.
Where the organizers are like, whoa, whoa, whoa, you hired us to do these things.
Like you shouldn't be sticking your nose in.
You shouldn't be working on products.
I'm your head of product.
You shouldn't be working on marketing.
I have a head of, I have a CMO.
So it's almost like the founder gets boxed in.
Which is like, it's like, well, you know, if that person is doing a great job, you're right.
The founder shouldn't have to worry about it.
What if the person's doing a bad job?
the founder's whole nose, face, body should be involved.
To give them the benefit of the doubt, they were hired at the height of Zerp to execute on a strategy that in the cold light of current environment is not a strategy they want to work on.
That's giving them the benefit of the doubt, but it still doesn't mean it's a good fit.
No, still a bad fit, but not their fault.
So this executive turnover slash founder more involved thing,
great sign your company is recovering from Xerpes.
Let's talk about a sticky one here.
Something that some people may not love.
We are recording this from the Y Compteter office.
We have returned to office.
I think there was this moment at the height of Xerpe when people are like, you know,
We're never gonna have offices anymore.
We should just tear down the office buildings.
Let's turn them all into apartments.
Some of the founders love it.
They're like, oh, I can just live in a tropical island.
Tropical islands are great.
Let's point out, I will create a world for you, Dalton, where this idea is correct.
In a world where we can only be inside of our houses because everyone fears death going outside.
We probably don't need offices.
And I would argue San Francisco lived in that world for a long time.
And so if a company is doing return to office,
Again, you may not love it personally, but it is a sign that the senior management has gotten real and has gotten religion on how to get their company back on track.
And if you are an ambitious person working in these places, you should be relieved because it's a sign.
Your equity might be worth something.
And that you're recovering.
The senior management got real.
And I think this is like,
I hate having to argue about this because there's so much empirical evidence.
Collections of people who are closer to each other.
And it's obvious that cities create productivity.
Having a team close to one another obviously creates productivity.
And we can talk about that.
And it's like, it's funny because people always want to quantify it.
So like, you know, you run into someone at the water coolers, but it's just like having a deeper connection with the people you're working with.
And I think we can all agree.
You have a deeper connection with people who you see in physical world than on Zoom screens.
Having a deeper connection with people you're working with gives you the ability to potentially be more productive.
And the meta point I would make on this is even if you personally are one of the butt-butt-butt people about this, the sign that senior management is getting religion about this and is willing to do it, it means you're working on a good place with a winning culture that senior management is like, hey, I know some people may be grouchy about it, but we're doing this.
That's a sign that they've gotten real.
They're willing to have some people be upset about it, but they're going to do the right thing anyway.
Again, I think that's a good sign.
One would argue that a big part of Zerp was using money to not have to make any hard decisions.
Give everybody everything.
This is kind of making a hard decision, which is, again, a sign of critical thinking.
Next one, Vandy projects.
Anyone working inside of a company knows
when they encounter a project that exists, the best one I love to get someone a promotion.
What is the opposite of building something for the customer?
And like using company resources, it's like, I don't wanna call- To justify the promotion of someone.
It's like, here, build this thing.
Okay, I'm gonna throw this in the trash.
All of your hard work is gonna get me promoted though.
You're taking company resources to produce something that could only benefit yourself.
It'd be like if you stole office supplies and sold it on Etsy.
It's like if you stole money from a bank and put it in your bank account.
Because that's kind of what you do.
I don't know if we're going to win this argument.
But basically, there's a lot of people and a lot of companies
who are like, I need a team and I need resources and I need budget for blah, blah, blah project.
And the whole thing is a self perpetuating.
I need resources to do things so that I can get more resources to do things.
And basically the game you're playing is how many people can you get in your org reporting to you so you continue to level up.
Now, Dalton, I don't want to blame those people because I would argue that that machine, that system that they're trying to optimize was created on purpose or not by the founders of that company.
And so those founders trying to correct that system is a good thing.
And so if you're working at a place and you're noticing that the people that we're doing this are gone.
Or at least doing something more useful.
And you're just like, we're not going to do this stuff anymore.
It's a sign that senior management
Is being intentional about the culture and the system of work and not copying.
Especially not copying the big companies.
This is prevalent in the big companies.
I used to get this DoorDash thing and free haircuts and massages and, you know, 16 days of personal, you know, mental health time and blah, blah, blah, blah.
and those things are going away.
My company doesn't respect me and is not looking out for my best interests, right?
Again, it's the sign of just like getting real.
And I think what the senior management is looking for from employees is employees that are like, yeah, I want to work at a real place.
I want to work on real products that help real customers.
I want to be paid for my work and compensated.
But please don't treat me like a child.
And don't treat me as this fragile person who can't take care of myself.
And who can't make, who has to be shielded from the harsh world.
It's kind of like treating people like adults.
Well, it's weird because like, I think some of the analogies that maybe you rightfully expect from a government, like you expect a government to create a social safety net.
You give up taxes and you give up certain rights to your government.
And maybe you expect that in return.
The company workforce is not a government.
Let's not have similar expectations.
It's not responsible for your social welfare.
And let's be clear, you're not required to work in it.
We're required to pay taxes to the government, so hey, our expectations that we need to get some shit in return.
That company, it's not the same relationship.
And I think that somehow got flipped.
And you know, hey, I understand that during a pandemic, shit's scary.
And a company trying to step up and do right in a scary moment for their employees makes sense.
But like, it also makes sense that when things aren't scary, maybe some of those practices get taken away.
And so it's a really good sign if those HR benefits are starting to get edited.
And it's like, have you seen this genre of TikToks?
Which, again, I'm pretty sure it's pretty clear the people that make them.
Yeah, they're not just during the trigger.
Yeah, it's basically like, we should make one of these.
But they're like, oh, hey, come join me while I do no work.
And they're like, OK, just showed up getting free coffee.
And it's like the day in the life is they do nothing.
The better ones are when they're working on vacation.
They're like, they're not on vacation.
They're just in the pool.
The correct immune response for you is a colleague of these people is to probably be like, wow, I should get a new job.
And it should, again, it should be refreshing.
If you're starting to notice this being put aside.
And hey, some people are going to be disappointed.
Some people have adjusted to a lifestyle that's not sustainable.
And when the company is like, hey, we don't need you anymore,
And like, once again, I still blame the fucking founders because like, I don't think that was reasonable to start, but you, what's better, like not correcting the error, or correcting the error, right?
fake work jobs make a lot of people sad and it is dystopian it is like the matrix or it is like you're a drone in a machine where you're like I do work that doesn't matter I don't even need to work no one cares about my work output
That does not create happy people that are satisfied with society.
Not good for mental health.
Not good for mental health.
And so I think it's really good to feel like you're working somewhere where your colleagues, your management, the founders of the company, whoever it is, take things really seriously and they themselves are not checked out.
That should be motivating.
And if you don't feel like you work at a place like that, maybe you should consider working somewhere else or starting your own company.
Because I think you'll be a lot happier.
Here's a controversial one.
You know, during peak Zerp Dalton, when my company was infected with Xerpes, I was working three days a week and I got to enjoy a lot of hobbies.
I live the nomadic lifestyle and I felt like I had great work-life balance.
This week, my boss asked me to do something over the weekend.
I have to work more is assign your company's recovery from Zerpeas.
It takes a lot of hard work to make a good company happen.
And especially in these kind of large, scale-up-y, pre-IPO companies, there's a lot of work to do.
Like, it's so easy to think
You're at Google when you're not at Google.
And you have to turn your eyes on and your brain on for five seconds and then be like, oh, this isn't Google.
I have to work really hard.
I'm still part of making this thing happen.
This thing could still not make it.
Well, and the hangover isn't over.
Again, I think this is part of why we're making this video now, not like a year ago, is
Zero interest rate stopped a while ago, but there's a lot of slow unwinding of all this stuff.
It's literally taking years for the course correction to happen.
Well, and I mean, if we're just telling an employee for a second to be strategic,
Hey, make, one, it's great if you're working at a company that's recovering from Zerpe.
Two, can you be on the right side of the recovery?
Like, you don't want to be seen as part of the problem.
You want to be seen as part of the recovery.
And what I will say is that maybe you feel burned because those efforts during Zerpe weren't rewarded.
But if you're at the right kind of company, those efforts will only be rewarded more and more now.
like and we see that in spades like when people wake up and they start taking account for hey what have you done.
Eventually the hard workers get ahead.
Eventually they get ahead.
All right, so I think we want to summarize this kind of how we said in the beginning.
It might be hard if you're working at a company recovering from Xerpes.
Like your lifestyle might be taking a hit if you're actually doing this so that you can make a great product, serve customers, make the world a better place.
actually learn skills, be a part of a team that's doing things, you're going to learn a lot more.
I mean, this is like the decision between going to a challenging school and not challenging school, right?
Like you're going to learn more challenging school and you're going to learn more around people who want to be at a challenging school.
You're going to learn more.
You're going to have so much more fun being with people who want to work hard versus people who want to be on permanent, nomadic, whatever.
you know, deal with it and consume the benefits of that.
And if you are the company that is not recovering from Xerpes and there's evidence of Xerpes everywhere, what do you do?
Yeah, you might want to find a different job.
You might want to start a company.
You might want to bootstrap.
You might want to work for yourself.
Like, yeah, if you want to live a very flexible lifestyle, there are ways to work for yourself and pull that off.
Be careful where you are because it might not be around forever.