To dot-com or not to dot-com--that is the question.

We at Livelyhood had a very basic question we wanted answered: Why is it that so many people working in supposedly liberating technologies are putting in some of the longest hours in America today?

Cyrus Mistry, an employee at Trilogy Software in Austin, Texas:

When Livelyhood last spoke with Cyrus, he was working an average of 17 hours a day in order to get product out the door. Weekends mean nothing to Cyrus and his colleagues, who are constantly canceling dinner dates as they openly devote their hearts and minds to their 24-7 demanding jobs.

But don’t go designing a virtual picket sign just yet. According to Cyrus and many like him, such long hours are a welcomed part of an exciting job they wouldn’t trade for the world. To them, it’s not just the stock options, but the flexibility, project ownership, challenge and chance to be surrounded by alike-thinking colleagues and projects where they can make an impact that more than make up for missed zzzs.

Why do software coders and dot-com designers do it? What drives the drivers of the new economy? And can this trend possibly be good? First, let’s assess the scene.

Livelyhood asked Cyrus and his colleague from Trilogy Software, Danielle Rios, to explain:

Q: Why do you do it?

Cyrus: Why do I do it? I love it. I love being at work. It’s hard to explain, but I just love coming in every day, and I think that when that stops there’s a problem.

Danielle: I used to work at IBM, a larger company, and my life was pretty much 9 to 5, right? People thought I was crazy if I wanted to pull all-nighters, and things like that. But I just always have, because of Stanford [where Rios went to undergrad]. You have to –you’re doing problems that you totally have to work all night sometimes to finish.

And so, I had a normal life [at IBM]; it was just not exciting and not fulfilling…

Q: Why is this fun?

Danielle: Trilogy is all these kids – mostly kids, young people at least, totally smart, focused on a huge goal and going after it. And every day, that’s what drives me to get up in the morning and drive 80 miles an hour to work, and get here as soon as I can, because I want to know what’s going on. And it’s not, "Oh, I’ve gotta put in my time and punch the clock and get out of there; it’s "I’m here to make a difference and I’m totally making an impact."  And that’s what drives me. That’s what makes it fun. It’s---it’s my life.

Q: What do you get out of it?

Cyrus: Well, there’s a certain sense of accomplishment. You’re fulfilling whatever sense of responsibility [I] have for the company, for the work that I do…It’s not quantifiable, I don’t think…You get a sense of ownership, too. To some extent it’s the creative process. I’m sitting down and I’m typing; I’m programming and I get to see that work that I’ve got done. So, I would say that the main draw is that is actually a creative process.

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At the time of these interviews, Danielle was doing "eight to midnights" for the entire month and continued on to work twelve-hour days, including weekends.

Are all dot-commers up for this kind of commitment? And can it possibly be healthy?

One employee at an online syndication startup, Elizabeth, who wishes to have her full name withheld, says no.

"It’s something that I don’t necessarily agree with, because my work ethic is that your life should come first and job should come second, whereas a lot of my colleagues consider that their job is their number one priority in their life. I mean, I know people that get there at 6 in the morning and don’t leave until 9 at night and have lost girlfriends and boyfriends because of it--have failed relationships. But on the other hand they are making a killing. When it does pay off and your company becomes successful and profitable, you look back and think that all the time and energy and hours was worth it."

It can be hard for those employees who do want a balanced personal life outside of work to hold the line in the face of dot-com culture and talk of potential payoff. Even Elizabeth, who says she personally "refuses to work hours like that" and thinks "it’s unhealthy and not what I want to do with my life," finds it difficult to resist. "I find myself emulating that life, even though I’m conflicted. I find myself working long hours. I see myself falling into it more than I thought I would."

What are the chances of making a killing? With more and more dot-coms facing massive layoffs (most recently AltaVista let 25% of its employees go) and with the decline in valuation of IPOs, is the dot-com promise living up to expectations?

Leighton Woodhouse’s experience working for BarnesandNoble.com left him less than inspired. "I was probably about $10,000 underpaid and I got a total of $3,000 for my stock options [when the company went public]," says Leighton. "And this was one of the most exciting IPOs—Wall Street was going nuts. Barnes and Noble already had brand recognition; it had brick and mortar stores and bottomless well of resources. They thought it would overtake Amazon and become this massive presence on the Web…A lot of people stuck around for the IPO because of stock options and the IPO was a failure."

Leighton left the dot-com world and is now organizing health care workers at a local chapter of the Service Employees International Union in San Francisco. He feels that onlookers are making a mistake when they equate stock options with a sense of employee ownership and that stock options are just an excuse to pay employees lower wages. "Employee owned companies are actually worker owned and managed. That means not only owned by the employees, but run by the employees – they actually have a say in management," explains Woodhouse. "With stock options, there’s no transfer of management power to employees. Everybody talks about how employees gain with stock options, but don’t talk about how the employee loses." And, according to Leighton, the employee loses more and more as our society shifts toward a more individualist economy with "no semblance of job security:" fly by night dot-com operations rewarding stock instead of salary, little company loyalty and an increasing number of contract workers.

But to many in the dot-com world, these concerns are still too far away. Employees at Trilogy Software enjoy a feeling of momentum that propels them on to projected success, as they endeavor to do for enterprise software what Microsoft did for personal computing. Danielle Rios from Trilogy not only has faith that she and her bright colleagues can help the company meet its goals, she’s having a ball while she is at it, "As long as it’s fun, challenging and we have this great culture, I’m here forever. Totally. Why turn away from this? I mean, show me another company that has a place better than this, that has Party on the Patio with beer, which totally is reason number four why I came to Trilogy…Trips to Hawaii, trips to Vegas, trips to Aruba, right? This huge bonus, right…So really look for the huge upside here. High risk, high reward – I’ll kill myself to get there. I’ll do whatever it takes."

Do all those in the industry feel this way? If they don’t, anecdotal evidence suggests they may want to get up to speed quickly. Remember Elizabeth, the online syndication dot-commer who tried to keep a balanced life? She’s already feeling the heat of an industry that is moving at full throttle. "Because people are there so long, you feel required. I am always waiting for one person to go [home] – just one person. And that time can get longer and longer. I feel like it’s expected. When you come into these companies, they expect you to want to work 7 to 7." Although Elizabeth calls it "unhealthy," she admits, "I find myself emulating that life, even though I’m conflicted. I find myself working long hours. I see myself falling into it more than I thought I would."

Compiled by Angela Morgenstern

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