5 ms·

I’m currently working from about 8am until 10pm every day, and usually in bed reading something that applies to my job between 10p and 12p and yes, 6 days a wee

I’m currently working from about 8am until 10pm every day, and usually in bed reading something that applies to my job between 10p and 12p and yes, 6 days a week. I’ve got a day job but am also spinning up a hardware manufacturing business. Been doing this for over a year. My clarity and productivity haven’t suffered that I notice, but I do not anticipate doing this forever. I’d burned out once before ten years ago doing even more hours and days. This is about my limit. You have a point though. Look at the crap China churns out. Edited to add: Having experience the burnout lesson the hard way, I do pace myself. Sundays are for friends, church, and family. I get all the sleep I want. I stop at times to read YC news and talk to others :-) I get bike rides and watch a movie now and again. Life is not all about work.

fellellor 9y ago
Yeah but you're doing this for your own business. If it works out well you'll end up reaping most of the rewards. I seriously doubt these companies pay these guys that much. At the end of the day, these are just jobs and businesses shouldn't expect their employees to sacrifice so much for something they don't even own.
- bsenftner 9y ago
  "businesses shouldn't expect their employees to sacrifice so much for something they don't even own" hahaha Business owners tend to think their employees have a sense of "ownership" and use that to drive them as hard as they drive themselves. It is astounding the low EQ of many business owners.
coldcode 9y ago
I did 100 hr weeks for my first startup 3 decades ago for about 4.5 months, then wound up in a hospital. The code turned out OK but my body was pretty much used up. After that I decided becoming more efficient in 40 hrs or less is much better.
- SlowBro 9y ago
  Having experience the burnout lesson the hard way, I do pace myself. Sundays are for friends, church, and family. I get all the sleep I want. I stop at times to read YC news and talk to others :-) I get bike rides and watch a movie now and again. Life is not all about work.
bsenftner 9y ago
I work similar hours, have forever. The only way to work such hours is if you have points, equity, ownership of the revenues or your name in bold on the product. That incentive creates the will to perform for your benefit. Working such hours for mere salary is insanity.
- jcadam 9y ago
  I learned early in my career that there is no reward for working insanely hard as a mere salaried programmer in the middle of the cube-farm (or worse, open office). "You're a real workhorse! Here, have some more work..." Now, if my title were 'Co-Founder' or some equivalent such that excelling at my job could very well translate into financial freedom for myself (and my family), that would be different :)
fnordsensei 9y ago
Passion and interest can keep you going at a high pace for quite some time. However, you're statistically more likely to eventually burn out with a job that you truly enjoy, than you are with a job that's easy to put down at the end of the day. There's more incentive to eat in to your long-term energy storage in the former case. In the case of 996, it's almost as if the employees are being asked to behave as if they are wildly passionate about what they do, as if it is their destiny and calling. I can only presume that they will burn out all the more quickly. Although I suppose, if, as others have implied, the job is actually a non-complex assembly line-ish thing, then perhaps employees are easily replaceable, and it makes economic sense to use one up until it is empty, and then proceed to the next one. On the other hand, if the job truly is easily represented by some simple algorithm, why not teach a machine to do it cheaper and more consistently? Seems more likely that they are fooling themselves, and that the entire setup is there to give upper management a sense of satisfaction rather than to create actual productivity.
- jcadam 9y ago
  > On the other hand, if the job truly is easily represented by some simple algorithm, why not teach a machine to do it cheaper and more consistently? Because in a country with a large population of poor people such as China, unskilled and semi-skilled (as in a typical factory job) labor has got to be dirt cheap, such that it makes sense to have humans performing trivial tasks that could be easily automated.
  - fnordsensei 9y ago
    There's a lot of variables surrounding employing humans that can make automation worthwhile even if pay is very low. The "maintenance" of people, such as hiring, managing, loss of production because of absence—those sort of things. I'm just speculating, I've no idea how they are reasoning. But I do suspect it's more cultural/personal rather than practical or to maximize productivity.

fellellor 9y ago

Yeah but you're doing this for your own business. If it works out well you'll end up reaping most of the rewards. I seriously doubt these companies pay these guys that much. At the end of the day, these are just jobs and businesses shouldn't expect their employees to sacrifice so much for something they don't even own.

bsenftner 9y ago
"businesses shouldn't expect their employees to sacrifice so much for something they don't even own" hahaha Business owners tend to think their employees have a sense of "ownership" and use that to drive them as hard as they drive themselves. It is astounding the low EQ of many business owners.

coldcode 9y ago

I did 100 hr weeks for my first startup 3 decades ago for about 4.5 months, then wound up in a hospital. The code turned out OK but my body was pretty much used up. After that I decided becoming more efficient in 40 hrs or less is much better.

SlowBro 9y ago
Having experience the burnout lesson the hard way, I do pace myself. Sundays are for friends, church, and family. I get all the sleep I want. I stop at times to read YC news and talk to others :-) I get bike rides and watch a movie now and again. Life is not all about work.

bsenftner 9y ago

I work similar hours, have forever. The only way to work such hours is if you have points, equity, ownership of the revenues or your name in bold on the product. That incentive creates the will to perform for your benefit. Working such hours for mere salary is insanity.

jcadam 9y ago
I learned early in my career that there is no reward for working insanely hard as a mere salaried programmer in the middle of the cube-farm (or worse, open office). "You're a real workhorse! Here, have some more work..." Now, if my title were 'Co-Founder' or some equivalent such that excelling at my job could very well translate into financial freedom for myself (and my family), that would be different :)

fnordsensei 9y ago

Passion and interest can keep you going at a high pace for quite some time. However, you're statistically more likely to eventually burn out with a job that you truly enjoy, than you are with a job that's easy to put down at the end of the day. There's more incentive to eat in to your long-term energy storage in the former case. In the case of 996, it's almost as if the employees are being asked to behave as if they are wildly passionate about what they do, as if it is their destiny and calling. I can only presume that they will burn out all the more quickly. Although I suppose, if, as others have implied, the job is actually a non-complex assembly line-ish thing, then perhaps employees are easily replaceable, and it makes economic sense to use one up until it is empty, and then proceed to the next one. On the other hand, if the job truly is easily represented by some simple algorithm, why not teach a machine to do it cheaper and more consistently? Seems more likely that they are fooling themselves, and that the entire setup is there to give upper management a sense of satisfaction rather than to create actual productivity.

jcadam 9y ago
> On the other hand, if the job truly is easily represented by some simple algorithm, why not teach a machine to do it cheaper and more consistently? Because in a country with a large population of poor people such as China, unskilled and semi-skilled (as in a typical factory job) labor has got to be dirt cheap, such that it makes sense to have humans performing trivial tasks that could be easily automated.
- fnordsensei 9y ago
  There's a lot of variables surrounding employing humans that can make automation worthwhile even if pay is very low. The "maintenance" of people, such as hiring, managing, loss of production because of absence—those sort of things. I'm just speculating, I've no idea how they are reasoning. But I do suspect it's more cultural/personal rather than practical or to maximize productivity.