E21: Zero Meetings: How I Run Two Companies Without a Single Recurring Meeting

Founder Reality

I looked at my calendar this week: zero meetings. Last week: zero meetings. Most founders think this is impossible, but here's what six years taught me - meetings don't make you productive, they make you FEEL productive.

The meeting theater that's killing startups:

• Pre-COVID: Weekly all-hands, daily standups, planning meetings felt "professional"
• Post-pandemic: Meeting culture exploded to 7-8 back-to-back calls daily
• I was mentally checked out 90% of the time, reading Hacker News during standups
• Spending more time talking about work than actually doing the work
• Pure performative productivity - all theater, zero substance

The $60 million wake-up call:

• Met 22-year-old Thiel Fellow with $45M exit + $60M raised in under one year
• Showed me his completely empty Google Calendar - literally zero meetings
• Meanwhile I was stuffing 7-8 investor meetings daily, completely exhausted
• Most successful founder I knew had zero meetings while building complex company

My zero-meetings framework (what you can do today):

1. Kill all pre-scheduled recurring meetings - standups, one-on-ones, sync calls
2. Replace with personal reflection time - 30 minutes reviewing metrics yourself
3. Spontaneous work sessions only - 5-30 minute calls when both parties need them
4. Never more than 3 people per meeting - conversation quality drops exponentially

The brutal meeting math:

• Pre-scheduled recurring meetings = the most energy-draining ones
• 90% of meetings don't concretely change what was supposed to happen anyway
• Group meetings over 3 people = always 1-2 people just listening (awkward + wasteful)
• Meeting attendance ≠ team alignment. Results = team alignment.

What actually happened when I eliminated meetings:

• Team ships faster - no waiting for next sprint review
• Better at solving customer problems - direct communication vs meeting overhead
• Much happier team - consistently prefer this approach
• More profitable - less coordination overhead = more actual work time
• Even ex-employees told me they didn't love the meeting culture

The Sunday Night Test: How do you feel Sunday night about Monday morning? If you're dreading Monday because of packed meetings, your business is broken. Energy levels don't lie.

Bottom line: Your competitive advantage isn't how many meetings you have - it's how much real work you get done. Stop performing productivity. Start actually being productive.

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