The baguette should now take the place of what was the pineapple and be featured in all the Reason 10.3 materialsernstnathorst wrote: ↑15 Mar 2019My "office" (actually a desk in the landscape like everybody else's). That thing sticking up from the backpack is just a baguette, OK?
I was reading this thread and thought "well... It would be rather interesting in the middle of this thread, Ernst coming along and answering..." and BAM!!!!ernstnathorst wrote: ↑15 Mar 2019Well, if I interpret this as you guys guessing what my work days actually look like, at least some of it was right on the money.
Yes, I do feel lots of gratitude for being able to do what I’m doing. I mean come on, this is the best job ever and I get to work with the most amazing people.
Still, there’s certainly some head banging going on now and then as you suggested, not for the reasons mentioned though. Mostly the thing that gets me is the fact that we can’t always live up to everybody’s expectations. There’s a super-dedicated team of amazing people here, doing everything they can to come up with the best experience possible for you guys. But the day only has twenty-four hours and building as complex products as we do Is hard. We make most decisions in teams. However, at the end of the day its my ass on the line for final prioritization’s. If you don’t like how we’re doing things, it’s me the hate mail should go to, not the team.
So what do I do? Being a CEO is like a combination of a guru and a janitor. You’re expected to have answers to questions no one else can answer (not that many, and I often fail) and you need to clean up the shit that it’s no-one else’s job to take care of, simply because their time and talent is better spent serving you guys, the customers. It’s not very glorious actually, at least it doesn’t feel that way to me. Also, it’s not like you can make decisions for new features in the product every day (not even my job, but still). Since it takes a looooot longer for the dev team to execute on those decisions than for the product people to make them, they are pretty far apart (and need to be well founded). Having said that, being CEO is a position of power, I do have a lot of influence on the company's direction. But I too have my restrictions as established by the owners and the board of directors.
But over all, pretty much the day job is to make sure everyone else has everything they need to do their job as well as they can, the information, the direction, the competence, the tools, the money and other resources.
So a typical day could go something like this:
Get up and have breakfast. Tea, not coffee. Check email and Slack to see if there’s any panic or progress.
Get off to work, the subway being over-crowded as always. Listening to a podcast to escape. Maybe go to the gym.
Get into the office and send off replies to the most urgent emails, if I didn't already to that during breakfast.
Check on yesterday's stats, sales, usage etc, to see if we’re on track or if there’s anything alarming.
More emails. Love email. And more Slack. Love Slack.
Meetings about a million different things. Most of which I can’t talk about here, sorry. But it’s from anything from recruiting to strategy, marketing initiatives, product progress, offices, negotiations etc, etc. Again making sure it’s all coordinated.
Lunch, which usually is pretty short.
Checking in on various sources, social media, youtube, competitors, ReasonTalk, what’s going on in the world that I should know about.
More meetings and email, and hopefully some time to work on my long list of projects I’d like to get off the ground. Problem is, everybody else is already busy with what they’ve been tasked to do, so I can’t just go and grab them and tell them to work on what I’m excited about today. I should really learn how to code. And do graphics. And...
Back home to have dinner with the family. Then usually crack the computer open again for something that needs to be prepared for next day. And more email. Love email.
Go into my small study and glancing at the keyboards and guitars asking myself why I don’t spend more time making music.
Brushing my teeth and turing out the light.
That’s about it.
We’re thinking about starting an AMA on Instagram (don’t know when!), so if you want to help us kick that off, send in some questions on this topic or anything else you'd like to find out and I will try my best to answer.
And last, I think you guys are overestimating my music abilities. My beats are many things, but certainly not “sick”.
Keep it up! I certainly will. And as always, deep gratitude for your support of the company and our products.
/Ernst
My "office" (actually a desk in the landscape like everybody else's). That thing sticking up from the backpack is just a baguette, OK?
Second time. He posted his direct phone number in his first post. How ballsy is that?
I meant in general - I never saw top guys from Steinberg, Presonus or Ableton post on forums.
ernstnathorst wrote: ↑15 Mar 2019Well, if I interpret this as you guys guessing what my work days actually look like, at least some of it was right on the money.
Yes, I do feel lots of gratitude for being able to do what I’m doing. I mean come on, this is the best job ever and I get to work with the most amazing people.
Still, there’s certainly some head banging going on now and then as you suggested, not for the reasons mentioned though. Mostly the thing that gets me is the fact that we can’t always live up to everybody’s expectations. There’s a super-dedicated team of amazing people here, doing everything they can to come up with the best experience possible for you guys. But the day only has twenty-four hours and building as complex products as we do Is hard. We make most decisions in teams. However, at the end of the day its my ass on the line for final prioritization’s. If you don’t like how we’re doing things, it’s me the hate mail should go to, not the team.
So what do I do? Being a CEO is like a combination of a guru and a janitor. You’re expected to have answers to questions no one else can answer (not that many, and I often fail) and you need to clean up the shit that it’s no-one else’s job to take care of, simply because their time and talent is better spent serving you guys, the customers. It’s not very glorious actually, at least it doesn’t feel that way to me. Also, it’s not like you can make decisions for new features in the product every day (not even my job, but still). Since it takes a looooot longer for the dev team to execute on those decisions than for the product people to make them, they are pretty far apart (and need to be well founded). Having said that, being CEO is a position of power, I do have a lot of influence on the company's direction. But I too have my restrictions as established by the owners and the board of directors.
But over all, pretty much the day job is to make sure everyone else has everything they need to do their job as well as they can, the information, the direction, the competence, the tools, the money and other resources.
So a typical day could go something like this:
Get up and have breakfast. Tea, not coffee. Check email and Slack to see if there’s any panic or progress.
Get off to work, the subway being over-crowded as always. Listening to a podcast to escape. Maybe go to the gym.
Get into the office and send off replies to the most urgent emails, if I didn't already to that during breakfast.
Check on yesterday's stats, sales, usage etc, to see if we’re on track or if there’s anything alarming.
More emails. Love email. And more Slack. Love Slack.
Meetings about a million different things. Most of which I can’t talk about here, sorry. But it’s from anything from recruiting to strategy, marketing initiatives, product progress, offices, negotiations etc, etc. Again making sure it’s all coordinated.
Lunch, which usually is pretty short.
Checking in on various sources, social media, youtube, competitors, ReasonTalk, what’s going on in the world that I should know about.
More meetings and email, and hopefully some time to work on my long list of projects I’d like to get off the ground. Problem is, everybody else is already busy with what they’ve been tasked to do, so I can’t just go and grab them and tell them to work on what I’m excited about today. I should really learn how to code. And do graphics. And...
Back home to have dinner with the family. Then usually crack the computer open again for something that needs to be prepared for next day. And more email. Love email.
Go into my small study and glancing at the keyboards and guitars asking myself why I don’t spend more time making music.
Brushing my teeth and turing out the light.
That’s about it.
We’re thinking about starting an AMA on Instagram (don’t know when!), so if you want to help us kick that off, send in some questions on this topic or anything else you'd like to find out and I will try my best to answer.
And last, I think you guys are overestimating my music abilities. My beats are many things, but certainly not “sick”.
Keep it up! I certainly will. And as always, deep gratitude for your support of the company and our products.
/Ernst
My "office" (actually a desk in the landscape like everybody else's). That thing sticking up from the backpack is just a baguette, OK?
Agreed!
Actually, I think you are not far off. I think piracy did have an effect on my generation, allowing us to play with stuff we could not afford and some of us went on to buy those tools later but the modern way is to have a free cut down version and back it up low-cost upgrades or a shop that sells lots of affordable components. Go check out T-Racks Custom Shop for an example.CUBRICON wrote: ↑15 Mar 2019
You need to figure out a way to get Reason into the hands of highschoolers the way image line did with FL Studio. I am not advocating for piracy, but so many of my students started out with a cracked version of FL and eventually they paid for it ( six years later ) when they wanted a stable version or they realized they should pay for their software.
That is a challenge for me. I would like to interact more with people. But when I stick my neck out some people get the urge to help me run the company. I understand that and don’t mind it at all. It’s just that I don’t know how to respond. I can say “great advice!” and maybe not be entirely truthful. I can mansplain why the idea won’t work and quickly find myself in a rabbit hole of endless discussions (and there will be facts and plans I can’t share). Or I can stay silent and seem arrogant or distant.
I can completely understand that. All I can offer is a great thanks for coming out of the cave and visiting this little forum, and giving us a little insight into your day. Feel free to stop by any time you have an important bread update to announce.ernstnathorst wrote: ↑15 Mar 2019That is a challenge for me. I would like to interact more with people. But when I stick my neck out some people get the urge to help me run the company. I understand that and don’t mind that at all. It’s just that I don’t know how to respond. I can say “great advice!” and maybe not be entirely truthful. I can mansplain why the idea won’t work and quickly find myself in a rabbit hole of endless discussions (and there will be facts and plans I can’t share). Or I can stay silent and seem arrogant or distant.
Neither feels that great.
So then I climb back into my cave.
ernstnathorst wrote: ↑15 Mar 2019Well, if I interpret this as you guys guessing what my work days actually look like, at least some of it was right on the money.
Yes, I do feel lots of gratitude for being able to do what I’m doing. I mean come on, this is the best job ever and I get to work with the most amazing people.
Still, there’s certainly some head banging going on now and then as you suggested, not for the reasons mentioned though. Mostly the thing that gets me is the fact that we can’t always live up to everybody’s expectations. There’s a super-dedicated team of amazing people here, doing everything they can to come up with the best experience possible for you guys. But the day only has twenty-four hours and building as complex products as we do Is hard. We make most decisions in teams. However, at the end of the day its my ass on the line for final prioritization’s. If you don’t like how we’re doing things, it’s me the hate mail should go to, not the team.
So what do I do? Being a CEO is like a combination of a guru and a janitor. You’re expected to have answers to questions no one else can answer (not that many, and I often fail) and you need to clean up the shit that it’s no-one else’s job to take care of, simply because their time and talent is better spent serving you guys, the customers. It’s not very glorious actually, at least it doesn’t feel that way to me. Also, it’s not like you can make decisions for new features in the product every day (not even my job, but still). Since it takes a looooot longer for the dev team to execute on those decisions than for the product people to make them, they are pretty far apart (and need to be well founded). Having said that, being CEO is a position of power, I do have a lot of influence on the company's direction. But I too have my restrictions as established by the owners and the board of directors.
But over all, pretty much the day job is to make sure everyone else has everything they need to do their job as well as they can, the information, the direction, the competence, the tools, the money and other resources.
So a typical day could go something like this:
Get up and have breakfast. Tea, not coffee. Check email and Slack to see if there’s any panic or progress.
Get off to work, the subway being over-crowded as always. Listening to a podcast to escape. Maybe go to the gym.
Get into the office and send off replies to the most urgent emails, if I didn't already to that during breakfast.
Check on yesterday's stats, sales, usage etc, to see if we’re on track or if there’s anything alarming.
More emails. Love email. And more Slack. Love Slack.
Meetings about a million different things. Most of which I can’t talk about here, sorry. But it’s from anything from recruiting to strategy, marketing initiatives, product progress, offices, negotiations etc, etc. Again making sure it’s all coordinated.
Lunch, which usually is pretty short.
Checking in on various sources, social media, youtube, competitors, ReasonTalk, what’s going on in the world that I should know about.
More meetings and email, and hopefully some time to work on my long list of projects I’d like to get off the ground. Problem is, everybody else is already busy with what they’ve been tasked to do, so I can’t just go and grab them and tell them to work on what I’m excited about today. I should really learn how to code. And do graphics. And...
Back home to have dinner with the family. Then usually crack the computer open again for something that needs to be prepared for next day. And more email. Love email.
Go into my small study and glancing at the keyboards and guitars asking myself why I don’t spend more time making music.
Brushing my teeth and turing out the light.
That’s about it.
We’re thinking about starting an AMA on Instagram (don’t know when!), so if you want to help us kick that off, send in some questions on this topic or anything else you'd like to find out and I will try my best to answer.
And last, I think you guys are overestimating my music abilities. My beats are many things, but certainly not “sick”.
Keep it up! I certainly will. And as always, deep gratitude for your support of the company and our products.
/Ernst
My "office" (actually a desk in the landscape like everybody else's). That thing sticking up from the backpack is just a baguette, OK?
There is a natural push for total conformity. Everything has to be the same, feel the same, look the same. It is not wrong, it's just human nature, being a social creature and stuff. I imagine it would be like falling toward a black hole with a strong pull of anti-creativity. I am sure it is not easy running away from it. But that's exactly why you are the CEO.......ernstnathorst wrote: ↑15 Mar 2019That is a challenge for me. I would like to interact more with people. But when I stick my neck out some people get the urge to help me run the company. I understand that and don’t mind it at all. It’s just that I don’t know how to respond. I can say “great advice!” and maybe not be entirely truthful. I can mansplain why the idea won’t work and quickly find myself in a rabbit hole of endless discussions (and there will be facts and plans I can’t share). Or I can stay silent and seem arrogant or distant.
Neither feels that great.
So then I climb back into my cave.
Ernst coming in hot on this thread!ernstnathorst wrote: ↑15 Mar 2019
Keep it up! I certainly will. And as always, deep gratitude for your support of the company and our products.
/Ernst
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