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Boasting about how many hours you work is a sign of failure

5 points by eplanit 8y ago

gnulinux 8y ago
> The massive, obvious counterpoint to Musk’s boasts is that, despite working more than 17 hours a day for weeks on end, Musk hasn’t yet changed the world. Not in a real, meaningful sense that will be remembered for generations to come like, say, biologist Charles Darwin, who worked four hours a day, or United States founding father Benjamin Franklin, who was strict about calling it a day after eight hours or work. Sure, Tesla was ahead of the curve on getting the auto industry to go electric but, as Geoffrey James notes in Inc, AltaVista was the first ever search engine and no one says “let me AltaVista that for you.” It’ll be pretty good going if Tesla manages to make electric cars affordable and replace internal-combustion engines entirely, but that hasn’t happened yet. Similarly, SpaceX has made rockets cheaper, which opens up a lot of opportunities, but we’ve yet to see the consequences. If Musk eventually manages to create a colony on Mars then that, of course, would be world-changing—but I suspect we’d then hear a lot less about how he skips breakfast or doesn’t get much sleep, because Musk would have something far more impressive to boast about. This paragraph is, I think, very on point, and it summarizes my opinions about Musk very clearly. Disclaimer: I'm very cynical of most things (even for HN standards) and all my life had a desire to work 120 hours a week (like Musk claims) but can never do it due to various reasons (mostly due mental health) (so, deep inside there is probably some jealousy going on). But if I'm being very honest, I think Musk is a PR campaign and is not a technology pioneer. Contrary to what my friends and people who read my submission history would think, I'm not against technology. But tech industry is completely out of control. I see myself as a technology purist: when we're making technological developments, I hate that it comes with a whole PR campaign attached with it which shadows the real engineering value added to the world. In our world, this is the "normal" way how tech companies operate. I would want to see Musk being discussed more about his technical ideas (if he has them) as opposed to his ideas about how workers should spend their times or how the society should be changed etc.

5 points by eplanit 8y ago

> The massive, obvious counterpoint to Musk’s boasts is that, despite working more than 17 hours a day for weeks on end, Musk hasn’t yet changed the world. Not in a real, meaningful sense that will be remembered for generations to come like, say, biologist Charles Darwin, who worked four hours a day, or United States founding father Benjamin Franklin, who was strict about calling it a day after eight hours or work. Sure, Tesla was ahead of the curve on getting the auto industry to go electric but, as Geoffrey James notes in Inc, AltaVista was the first ever search engine and no one says “let me AltaVista that for you.” It’ll be pretty good going if Tesla manages to make electric cars affordable and replace internal-combustion engines entirely, but that hasn’t happened yet. Similarly, SpaceX has made rockets cheaper, which opens up a lot of opportunities, but we’ve yet to see the consequences. If Musk eventually manages to create a colony on Mars then that, of course, would be world-changing—but I suspect we’d then hear a lot less about how he skips breakfast or doesn’t get much sleep, because Musk would have something far more impressive to boast about. This paragraph is, I think, very on point, and it summarizes my opinions about Musk very clearly. Disclaimer: I'm very cynical of most things (even for HN standards) and all my life had a desire to work 120 hours a week (like Musk claims) but can never do it due to various reasons (mostly due mental health) (so, deep inside there is probably some jealousy going on). But if I'm being very honest, I think Musk is a PR campaign and is not a technology pioneer. Contrary to what my friends and people who read my submission history would think, I'm not against technology. But tech industry is completely out of control. I see myself as a technology purist: when we're making technological developments, I hate that it comes with a whole PR campaign attached with it which shadows the real engineering value added to the world. In our world, this is the "normal" way how tech companies operate. I would want to see Musk being discussed more about his technical ideas (if he has them) as opposed to his ideas about how workers should spend their times or how the society should be changed etc.