Why you should stop worrying about being lazy
Bill Gates said it best: “I’ll always hire a lazy person to do a hard job. Because a lazy person will find an easy way to do it.”
You hear a lot about how tirelessly software founders work. Most major companies retell stories of how in the early days their founder stayed up all night to build products, create pitch decks, and strategize. You hear about how they rose to the top by sheer will and work ethic.
Not me.
In fact, I might be one of the laziest founders in all of Silicon Valley. I don’t want to spend all night working. I don’t want my employees to either. And it’s a philosophy I developed before I became an entrepreneur 12 years ago.
Prior to founding JotForm, I was a programmer for a media company in New York. That’s where I learned that good lazy programmers work smart and find solutions to complex problems. They get rid of unnecessary parts and repetition.
I want to change the conversation around what it means to be lazy in the first place.
We unfairly blame laziness for obesity, unemployment, depression, and underperforming students. Then we laugh at it when it manifests as Homer Simpson or Garfield the cat.
But really, laziness is just someone not doing what they don’t want to do. And what’s so wrong…
