He gets a solid 8 hours of sleep, 19:30 to 23:30 are his to spend with friends/family/hobbies/reading.
His working days are arguably packed working on the cutting-edge of business and technology, working with the individuals from 0.001% of the world's most talented/lucky/interesting/educated/resourced/entrepreneurial/hardworking people.
+ vacations and weekends almost entirely free.
I definitely wouldn't want to trade with him, but it's because I'd burn out and have no real passion for the life of a VC, not because my life is so any more interesting.
Rigid schedules are good if the things you plan are the things that you actually want to spend time on. Time allocation guarantees that you'll work on whatever is scheduled and a side-effect is that it forces you to be be more effective.
My anecdotal experience (and I'm not remotely close to Marc Andreessen in wealth and power) is that there is a lot of benefits in structure and schedule.
Knowing how big part of your day will play out is a very powerful thing. It removes so much stress and uncertainty.
In the end of the day it's a question of balance. It's probably unhealthy to plan every single hour of your life in advance (which Marc does not do), and the same goes with allowing too much spontaneity.
Interesting. In the article it mentions Fortune 500 CEOs having highly regulated schedules without downtime (because they are meeting with different stakeholders all the time). It seems they have the wealth but maybe not the power?
Where as a nun perhaps doesn’t have wealth but has power over their time.
My wife and I have noted, that in our area, nuns tend to live well into their 90s based on our personal observation and reading tombstones. It's pretty remarkable.
ha, interesting. I was personally impressed (and inspired!) how much of a free unscheduled time Marc maintains.
I disagree that his life is boring. He is influencing directly and non-directly the decisions that shape the future of humanity. What is boring about that?
Basically few hours of sleep, plus a lot of business meetings in a rigid schedule!