6 ms·

How I get my employees to work 80 hours a week

• leed25d 11y ago
  Eighty hours a week == "Burn 'em and turn 'em"
  • FLUX-YOU 11y ago
    Eventually startups are going to screw the wrong guy and someone's going to walk back inside with a gun and nothing to lose. At first I laughed, then I went back to look for a punch line, then I felt sorry for everyone at this company.
    • ojbyrne 11y ago
      It's a Canadian company. Gun laws make that much less likely.
      • hwstar 11y ago
        In Canada, employers can't fire as easily as the US, (just-cause vs. at-will employment) they actually have to document a nonperforming employee's performance to a much higher standard than necessary in the US. So even though they don't have ready access to guns, the employment system is much fairer in Canada than the US, and therefore this also contributes to less workplace violence.
        • deleted 11y ago
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• deleted 11y ago
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  • bpicolo 11y ago
    Exactly the sort of self-aggrandizing posts we need around here.
• secfirstmd 11y ago
  Wow, just wow. Please someone do some journalism and go ask the employees what they think of this policy...
• notacoward 11y ago
  As Dr. Phil might say, how's that working out for you? I'm sure Mr. Sandhu believes he's the most benevolent high-tech-sweatshop manager ever, but what are the results? How productive are those 80-hour weeks? What's the attrition rate? Health outcomes? Divorce rate? How about diversity, especially when it comes to hiring and retaining older workers? How do alumni feel once they've gained some distance? It's easy to get a few kids to drink some Kool Aid. Whether they keep drinking it, get any benefit out of it, or remember the experience fondly, are all very different questions.
• endymi0n 11y ago
  And again for all the people who seriously think this is a good idea: http://www.igda.org/?page=crunchsixlessons http://www.igda.org/?page=crunchsixlessons > There's a bottom-line reason most industries gave up crunch mode over 75 years ago: > It's the single most expensive way there is to get the work done.
  • chejazi 11y ago
    (from the article) working over 21 hours continuously is equivalent to being legally drunk Specific to the realm of programming, I wonder if the conclusion factors in Ballmer peak performance gains ;)
• charlesholbrow 11y ago
  I wonder if his employees read hacker news.
• SixSigma 11y ago
  0.2 + 4.5n + 0.3n^2 Percentage loss of productivity where n is the number of hours over 8 per day, for a 5 day week. e.g. for prolonged use of an 11 hour day : 0.2 + 4.5 x 3 + 0.3 x 9 = 16% loss of productivity over the whole week. According to the US Bureau of Labour Statistics - Bulletin No. 917 [1] for more info see this research : http://www.weblem.org/upload/OT1.pdf http://www.weblem.org/upload/OT1.pdf [1] https://fraser.stlouisfed.org/scribd/?title_id=4359&filepath=/docs/publications/bls/bls_0917_1948.pdf#scribd-open https://fraser.stlouisfed.org/scribd/?title_id=4359&filepath...
  • jschwartzi 11y ago
    I'm going to cite this the next time I'm asked to work weekends.
    • SixSigma 11y ago
      Try it but it is only for prolonged overtime (I have just edited to link to the actual report)
• dead10ck 11y ago
  Wow this guy is fucking delusional. I can't believe he seriously thinks his employees are smiling every day, and that they aren't burnt out because they "believe in the mission"
• linohh 11y ago
  In Germany he would be committing a crime.
  • 6t6t6 11y ago
    Actually, in most of European countries, AFAIK.
• chejazi 11y ago
  People criticize 80 hours and then I wonder about all the financial analysts in investment banking... aren't they putting in 100+ hour work weeks, at least for the first year or two?
  • notacoward 11y ago
    Yes, they often are, but it's for a promise of money that would make even a Googler feel like a pauper. There's also less chance of the company disappearing out from under you, and there's a mostly-known end point. It's a very different risk/reward scenario, in which "paying dues" for a few years might make a lot more sense.
  • jjoonathan 11y ago
    They're getting payed accordingly. These engineers? Probably not: > driven by passion above all else
• s73v3r 11y ago
  The answer is by being a complete and utter asshole. Any employer who expects that much is not someone who should be managing the night shift at a Denny's, let alone a whole company.
• engi_nerd 11y ago
  I'd love to know how much he pays his employees. Doing something you believe in is really fantastic but it's higher on the hierarchy of needs than "put food on my table" and "keep my spouse from resenting me for never being around". If you're working 80 hours a week, then you should be compensated for that. Financially. A few months ago, a USAF Colonel came and gave an address to the employees at my job site. "I know you all do this for patriotism and love of your country," he said. Sure, those are reasons...#9 or #10 on my list, maybe, for dealing with the insanity of flight test. #1, as the great Randy Moss would have said, is "Straight cash, homie." I wonder how highly Mr. Sandhu's employees would rate the mission to "truly reinvent banking" on their list of reasons for coming to work?
  • gus_massa 11y ago
    > I'd love to know how much he pays his employees. I guess the answer is "not too much", from the article: > We work long hours, we are not paid much, and even after raising over $10-million within our first year of operations, we still have a mountain to climb in our efforts to expand this company. > Team members having a piece of the pie [equity] is the surest way to align everyone’s interests around the long-term objectives and vision of the business. The problem with equity is that if the startup fail it's worthless, and there are many horror stories were the business use some technical trick "steal" the employees equity.
    • michaelrhansen 11y ago
      This. Be very careful here. Unless you know how the company's shares are structured AND have a say in all the different discussions about future splits and multi-class offerings don't put your head in the sand.
  • sportanova 11y ago
    It's idiotic how companies always want people who are "insanely passionatiate" about their mission. It makes (slightly) more sense when you have 1-2 employees, but good luck finding 20+ people who have the skills you need AND are insanely passionate about empowering X to do Y through [buzzwords]. Actually it's not idiotic, it's dishonest. The reason they do it is so they can later frame everything in moral terms around the mission. Only working 60 hours? Not happy making 50% of market with .35% equity? You must not really believe in the mission!
• jonesb6 11y ago
  I entertained a business minor while I was in school by taking a few intro courses. I ultimately chose against it because of a general ethos I felt that was also present in this article: Given a large lecture hall of ~500 students, how many would agree that working your employees 80/hrs a week in an underpaid fashion is a stroke of genius that proves you to be a successful businessman/businesswomen? I don't think their is a difference in character or morality between majors, passions, or what have you. I believe we teach a brand of capitalism in regards to business that is highly detrimental to society. Furthermore I think this methodology is inferior to that of other models, models where workers are fairly compensated, maintain work balance, and ultimately are significantly more productive per/yr.
  • eropple 11y ago
    FWIW, I have one of those business minors, and I never got that feeling in them. But I went to a school that's fairly left-wing in general, even in the business department.
• rootedbox 11y ago
  I won't work at a company with an 80 hour work week; nor can I support a company that asks that of their employees.
• draw_down 11y ago
  Hey, it's your funeral!
• chrismcb 11y ago
  How do you get your employees to work 80 hours a week? Obviously you pay them now. Wait, you are paying then less? Then the title should be "how to take advantage of people."
• kaeawc 11y ago
  Wow. That is insane. Hopefully his employees find a better place and he is never given a position of power again. How the hell does someone get away with not only doing this but advertising it?
• 49531 11y ago
  I've worked at startups doing 80 hours a week, and currently keep myself strictly under 50 and I really haven't seen much of a difference in the amount of code I am able to ship. Something about the feeling of having all the time in the world made me less focused I guess. When I have a deadline, and know that I won't be working through the weekend, I tend to still get it done on time. Also, in my experience. The teams that work 40-50 hours/week seem to be more stable and of a higher caliber than the 70-80 hours per week crowd, but that's just from the 3-4 teams I've been a part of. I wouldn't say it's anything conclusive.
  • HillRat 11y ago
    I've never seen a 60+ programmer workweek schedule that didn't start generating negative productivity through reduced quality, technical debt and poor design choices. In part, this is because high workloads are symptomatic of poor project planning, but it's also because overworked programmers make poor choices. Conversely, I've worked with companies that produced amazing, very high profile work under ridiculous deadlines and still got everyone out of the office by six. Obviously, limited crunch periods are unavoidable, but if your project plan assumes more than six to seven hours of productivity a day you're probably creating an unsustainable workload.
• raverbashing 11y ago
  Here's a challenge to the entrepreneurs. Make your employees work 4h/6h per day. Reduce distractions, reduce meetings, make communication asynchronous, optimise tasks. Some people would be happier to work from 1pm to 6pm. Some others from 6am to Noon. Emails (or preferably something smarter) can be dealt with at other times Make decisions depend on the least amount of people possible.
  • eropple 11y ago
    > Make decisions depend on the least amount of people possible. I would suggest an alternative: make decisions depend on the right people, regardless of their number, and make the necessary information easily available and communication channels not require being face-to-face in all cases, but only the ones where it makes sense. (Which is not to embrace the techno-fetishistic idea that asynchronous communication is the be-all and end-all, but to use it appropriately. Meetings are not an inherent negative.)
• eropple 11y ago
  > While the work can be challenging, the rewards are endless. The rewards are entirely endful for the people actually doing the work. What a tool.
• rrecuero 11y ago
  For me it is not about the number of hours. You can be burnt working 10am to 5pm at a corporation and you can be extremely happy working on your own thing and doubling the hours. Ben Horowitz says that the difference between working for a good company and the rest relies on how you feel when you wake up in the morning. In a good company, you know that if you put good work, it is going to make a difference for you, for the company and hopefully for society in general. As long as there is a shared destiny (equity is split reasonably) and people believe in the mission, the work should be fulfilling.
  • jschwartzi 11y ago
    And in a bad company, you wake up and wonder if anyone would notice if you took the day off.
• squidlogic 11y ago
  Keeping everyone on mission is incredibly valuable, but there is a finite amount of work you can and should extract from your employees. Employers have a disproportionate amount of influence over the lives of the people under their employ. This should carry with it a sense of duty, or responsibility, to the well-being of their fellow human.
• stefantalpalaru 11y ago
  The answer is "cocaine", isn't it?
• seans887 11y ago
  Translation for those who aren't used to the distorted language of arrogant assholes: > "...it’s not about work-life balance. Rather, it’s about optimizing work-life imbalance" Translation: If I use the word "optimizing" in this sentence, the crushing work load I'm about to give you will seem like a rational choice rather than bare exploitation. > "Long nights and weekends spent away from families are the norm in the startup world. We often chuckle at glamorized notions of the startup lifestyle: table tennis games, fully stocked kitchens and generous stock options." Translation: We know what it's really like to work in a startup - having families and fair pay are luxuries we know don't really exist. Anyone who expects otherwise is lazy and doesn't fit with our "culture". > "We work long hours, we are not paid much, and even after raising over $10-million within our first year of operations, we still have a mountain to climb in our efforts to expand this company." Translation: While you might not be paid much, I hold a majority stake in the company and will be handsomely rewarded for your hard work when the company gets bought. And just because we raised $10 million doesn't mean any of you are getting a raise. > "We have also ensured that each employee has an unyielding belief in the company’s mission. If anyone in the office doesn’t believe they’re a part of something incredibly meaningful that will truly reinvent banking, they’ll likely struggle to relate to their co-workers and eventually “burn out.” Translation: I mean... they're going to burn out anyway after working 80 hours every week, but forced belief in the "mission" of the company allows us to squeeze a couple more months of hard work out of them before they finally quit, feeling guilty and ashamed of their perceived failure. > "Our husbands and wives help pick up the slack on our long days, and our kids put a smile on our faces after stressful meetings. Many of our team members have young families, and we do our best to respect their needs through flexible hours and by encouraging the ability to work from home when needed." Translation: I mean, I'm not a monster - if someone wants to spend a portion of their 14 hour work day at home, using their own computer and resources, of course we'll accommodate them. Far be it from me to prevent my employees from bringing all the stress of their work lives into their homes. > "While the work can be challenging, the rewards are endless." Translation: The rewards for me, that is. For you, the rewards are very much finite. > "Having said that, it takes a special kind of personality to seek out (and succeed in) such an uncertain and risky environment. At the end of the day, I guess you still need to be a little nuts to succeed in a startup." Translation: Young, well-off techies without families or hobbies who can afford to live on breadcrumbs and are healthy enough to keep our insurance costs minimal to the front of the line.
• saryant 11y ago
  Am I correct in understanding that all this startup does is personal loans? That's it? That's going to "change the face of an entire industry"? I'm quite certain the bankers at your local Wells Fargo/Citi/Chase branch work 9-5 and underwrite personal loans all day long without working 80 hours a week. What on earth could these guys be working on that requires such an absurd work schedule? I've done the 12 hour days as an early employee of a startup (and one significantly more interesting than this). I will never do it again. The math just doesn't make sense—I make substantially more money working at a big tech company and going home at 5 every day than I likely ever would at a startup. Why should I give up my personal life and make less money?
  • sportanova 11y ago
    The entire concept of 12 hour days working in front of a computer screen is a joke - the vast majority of people are going to spend 40-50% of that not working, and the remainder are going to be so unproductive from fatigue that they may as well have only worked 6 hours
• wenbert 11y ago
  Does he work 80 hours a week?!
  • hwstar 11y ago
    Most likely. He probably sits at his desk and watches a bunch of CCTV monitors or the time clock management server making sure no one leaves early
• jakebasile 11y ago
  I am truly sorry for anyone that is working 80 hours (with admittedly low pay) and has been convinced it's worth it because of how they're changing some industry. The industry will wait, your family won't.
• brianmcconnell 11y ago
  Let's see how the employees feel about sacrificing all that time when the founder has a rich exit, and the employees get crap while he retires in luxury.
• bgxor 11y ago
  I find it really hard to believe that anyone can actually "work" for 80 hours a week. Especially in mentally taxing work like designing and implementing software. That is something close to 9am-9pm 7 days a week. You pretty much have to be heavily medicated to even make it out to the other side if that. Maybe it's possible if you simply spend several hours a day in meetings or wasting time, but that is another issue altogether. I have a sneaking suspicion that these 80 hour work weeks people brag about actually boil down to an anecdote about a terrible week they once had when they needed to get the job done quickly or lose their company. People that don't really understand what this kind of work entails just perpetuate these ideas because of some perverse idea of work ethic they get from reading about irrational people like Elon Musk. I've got some breaking news for this "CEO" if he is for real and actually thinks an 80 hour work week is in any way a decent idea; the thing you are creating is not that important. You might think it is, but you are wrong. That is the hard but certain truth, and I truly hope you learn that in the least painful way possible. If the Earth was suddenly going to be destroyed by an asteroid in just a few weeks, you'd be right to sacrifice the physical and mental well being of your brilliant team in ways like this to stop it. Even at that point you'd be better off with rotating fresh minds to figure it out. Long story short, you are lying or just kidding yourself. Either way, you are doing a bad thing for the world.
• dahart 11y ago
  As much as this headline is kind-of horrible, there are a couple of worthwhile points in there. It is true that believing in the company mission makes more hours tolerable. This is the main reason its easier to work long hours for yourself or your own startup than it is to work long hours for a company you don't own, and why the larger a company gets, the more demoralizing severe overtime can be. But - people throw around numbers like 80 and 100+ easily, I'm not always convinced real-world numbers are as high as people claim they are. Having done some extended 80 hour crunches, I know first-hand that all life outside of work stops above 65-70 hours/week. At 80, you can still get 8 hours of sleep per day and have one meal away from work, maybe watch a single 30 or 45 minute TV show to relax, but almost nothing else. While it happens, it is not particularly sustainable. 100+ hours means you're eating into your sleep schedule. I know first-hand that many people exaggerate their long hours in crunch times, and most crunches where people claimed 80, they were pulling more like 65-70. And I don't believe they are lying intentionally, its just that extra hours can be harder than you think, and the perception is you work more than you think you do. A studio I worked at measured work hours during crunch time and found most people work 10-20 hours less than they thought they did. I discovered that I wasn't working as many hours as I thought I was.
• 13of40 11y ago
  Hmmm. It's almost as though they tailored the headline, pic, and article to piss off the working class Joe.
• libpcap 11y ago
  How does his company fare in Glassdoor.com?
• krapp 11y ago
  Any answer to this is question besides "if they don't, they're fired" is being fundamentally dishonest about the nature of employment.
• suprjami 11y ago
  If you have anyone working 80 hours a week, let alone people with families, you're a disgusting human being and I hope your startup fails.
• csomar 11y ago
  No jokes, but at first I was thinking it was a sarcastic blog post. I can't believe this is happening. I won't really delve to talk about the employer, the company, the mentality and that other stuff. I'll keep it simple: If you are working hard (like 80hours+) and doing anything to succeed (like assembling Ikea furniture), then maybe you should start your own business or a one-man consulting. It pays off much better on the long run.
• tekromancr 11y ago
  New startup idea: Personal security for sociopathic CEOs like this when they inevitably cash out and burn all of their employees on their equity. They will be rich, but will have a huge list of people who they conned into destroying their lives that want them dead.
• Overtonwindow 11y ago
  I worked on Capitol Hill and routinely worked 75-80 hour weeks. I did it because I was expected to, and I was expected to because it's Capitol Hill. The pay was laughable and I couldn't do it today, but looking back, sometimes working 80 hours is worth. In my humble opinion, most cases, it's not.
  • secfirstmd 11y ago
    Ditto, I worked in Westminster Parliament for a bit and I can say, it was one of the few jobs where I actually relished going it at 6am and coming out at 10pm.
• dlitz 11y ago
  Employees: Don't sign a non-disparagement or release agreement when your employer burns you out. It takes time to realize the true cost of a past employer's abuse on your career and your mental health. I've heard it can take multiple years to recover in some cases.
• username223 11y ago
  > In the early days, the first task every new Grouplend employee had to complete upon joining the team was assembling their own desks. Really? Gropeland could have hired someone to assemble Ikea desks for $5-10 apiece, but instead they chose to haze new employees and waste their time. The previous tech boom did things better: when I showed up for a job, the desk was already there, the sysadmins slotted in a drive with the stuff I needed, and I was ready to do what I was hired to do in 5 minutes. People did what they did best, and we all went home for dinner.
• dang 11y ago
  From my perspective the startup world turned a corner on this a few years ago. Bragging or signalling about hours worked is no longer fashionable. That's why an article like this one produces an instant rage-thread with literally zero favorable comments: we're looking at light from a star that actually left several years ago, though the current article would probably have sounded tone-deaf even then. It would be interesting to see accurate data on whether startup employees work fewer hours than they used to. I'd be surprised if they were by much; self-reported numbers were chronically inflated in the first place because it was fashionable to do so. What's new is the cultural consensus that maximizing raw hours is wrong and that raw hours don't equate to productivity. Those were always truisms, but they're truisms that the culture has now settled on, which seems good. Edit: one trend that doesn't get commented on as much is the fragmentation of the workday: i.e. working hours are less likely to be in a single contiguous block and more likely to be scattered through the day, evenings, and weekends, even if total hours worked are no higher. The problem in this case isn't raw quantity, it's not getting away from work for a long-enough stretch and so not getting any regenerative context switch. Hopefully this will get discussed more and studied.
• chrisra 11y ago
  I hope this isn't a ridiculous question, but why not hire more people instead?
• geoffbrown2014 11y ago
  Answer: Make sure your employees are of such low quality that their lack of experience and self-esteem ensures that they have few other choices.
• ImTalking 11y ago
  As an entrepreneur, it took me a long time to realise that employees just don't care about the mission. They want to begrudgingly do their day's job, finish-up at 4:59PM, and then go home and do what they really want to do. They want the company to continue only so it will continue to pay their wage.