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Back to Inside the AI Startup Making Customer Support 65% Cheaper, with Jesse Zhang.

Why Does Jesse Zhang Call Saturday Wife Day?

Jesse Zhang keeps Saturday as wife day because he and his co-founder are in every day except Saturday, and that one day has to stay free of work. Saturday is sacred. The point is to do whatever you want, hang out, and not do work.

Early on, people would come in on Sundays as well, but there was never an expectation that someone joining would have to come in on Sunday. They are okay with people having lives and not being on Sundays. Around 20 to 30 people, not everyone was going to be in every Sunday. Roughly that size of group still comes in on Sundays, but most people are just doing work and are not in the office. Sunday is a great time with no meetings, so people get thoughts in order and catch up. Sunday is a pseudo workday with zero expectation. No one expects a response on Sunday. It was not a single moment when the habit changed. It was a spectrum. When the company is hundreds of people, not everyone is going to come on a Sunday. He still goes in on Sundays because he and his co-founder live super close to the office. A group comes in, and it is a good time to get deeper work done.

Transcript

Inside the AI Startup Making Customer Support 65% Cheaper ·

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More from this episode

  1. When Did Decagon's New Office Feel Too Big?Jesse Zhang felt Decagon's new office was too big the moment the team moved in.
  2. How Did Decagon Grow From 50 to 500 People?Jesse Zhang says Decagon went from roughly 50 or 60 people to 500 in about the last year, close to a 10x jump. A year ago the headcount was something like 50.
  3. Why Is Zero to One Harder Than Scaling?Jesse Zhang says the zero-to-one phase is by far the hardest stage of a company, and he calls it awful.
  4. How Did Decagon Exit the Idea Maze in Three Weeks?Jesse Zhang says Decagon got out of the idea maze in roughly three weeks, maybe a bit longer.
  5. How Many People Have Left Decagon to Start Companies?Jesse Zhang says very few people have left Decagon, a few have gone to start their own companies, and even in a downturn it will still be pretty easy to start…
  6. How Does Decagon's AI Customer Support Work?Jesse Zhang says Decagon's customer support AI is built, tested, and monitored inside the product, so the customer owns the results and the process.
  7. Should I Know My Co-founder for Five Years?Jesse Zhang says wanting the same things out of life matters more than knowing a co-founder for five years.
  8. Can 200 People Eat Dinner Together?Jesse Zhang says a team of 200 people cannot eat dinner together anymore. Catering has one clear value: everyone eats at the same time.
  9. When Does Office Politics Start?Jesse Zhang says office politics starts as soon as there is a team.

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