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Intuitively and introspectively I agree with you. But then I ask myself, where are all the successful 30-hour week companies? Why is it that nearly every singl

Intuitively and introspectively I agree with you. But then I ask myself, where are all the successful 30-hour week companies? Why is it that nearly every single successful organization has a culture of long hours? I personally know that I can't sustainably work 10+ hours a day. But the observed results in the real world seem to say something different. It's hard to square that circle, and I'm genuinely interested in anyone who has insight on this.

matwood 7y ago
That's because even though productivity does not scale linearly with hours it can continue to go up. That little bit extra can make a big difference where the margins between success and failure are small.
foobarqwertz 7y ago
Looking at the games industry where passion stands for self exploitation. If you don't push back most employers will take everything they can get.
- hackerbabz 7y ago
  But the question is, what do they get? Would they develop products faster if the employees worked less?
  - _iyig 7y ago
    What if they don’t? What if crunch works, at least in the short term, for the employer? Does any criticism of crunch time necessarily hinge on productivity? Does the health and well-being of individual employees warrant sufficient concern by itself to scale back working hours?
    - CalRobert 7y ago
      The pattern seems to be : * Get a new job at game studio * Start off OK-ish, then get pushed to crunch more and more as release date nears and then slips (probably by design) * Release game * lay off most staff * They're broke for a while but the time without work is nice * Repeat I can't find a source but I understand the average length of a career in the industry is 5-6 years. Also, I couldn't help but notice at my last place that those of us doing more general work (python, data engineering, etc.) were a hell of a lot more relaxed than those with video-game-specific skillsets (Unity3d).
  - tynorf 7y ago
    This article seems to indicate that they would at least develop better games if the employees were not subjected to "crunch". https://gamasutra.com/blogs/PaulTozour/20150120/234443/The_Game_Outcomes_Project_Part_4_Crunch_Makes_Games_Worse.php https://gamasutra.com/blogs/PaulTozour/20150120/234443/The_G...
jhpriestley 7y ago
Working long hours together serves purposes besides productivity, like signaling commitment and building social cohesion. "Unproductive" hardship is common in social organizations, e.g. fraternity hazing, military bootcamp, various vows of abstinence by monks, marathons for charitable causes.
jtr1 7y ago
It all hinges on what you mean by "success." Is it profitability + growth? Burning through employees like jet fuel can work pretty well. If you want a humane answer, you might have to reframe the question.
Aunche 7y ago
Investors have demands and you can't fulfill them if you're working 30 hours a week. A stressful company might have a mountain of technical debt, but they'll also get billions of dollars of investment money that will help them solve that problem. By the time the more relaxed company has an MVP, it's already too late and investors are much less willing to help them play catch up.
drchewbacca 7y ago
One explanation would be that the causation is the opposite: watching the business succeed makes people excited and so they start doing longer hours because they mistakenly hope that will make things go better. Working at a reasonable, sustainable, pace requires big discipline. It's hard for a computer game studio with a release coming in 12 weeks to stick to 40 hours because that will get them 12 great weeks. They'll tend to slide into 80 hour weeks in panic but end up doing less. I think two real issues are that you can't compare against a control version of the company and you can't tell you are slowing down because you are tired. Another issue is management. Most managers think hours in means more productivity out, it's hard for them to not fall into that seeing as it is so widely held as true.

matwood 7y ago

That's because even though productivity does not scale linearly with hours it can continue to go up. That little bit extra can make a big difference where the margins between success and failure are small.

foobarqwertz 7y ago

Looking at the games industry where passion stands for self exploitation. If you don't push back most employers will take everything they can get.

hackerbabz 7y ago
But the question is, what do they get? Would they develop products faster if the employees worked less?
- _iyig 7y ago
  What if they don’t? What if crunch works, at least in the short term, for the employer? Does any criticism of crunch time necessarily hinge on productivity? Does the health and well-being of individual employees warrant sufficient concern by itself to scale back working hours?
  - CalRobert 7y ago
    The pattern seems to be : * Get a new job at game studio * Start off OK-ish, then get pushed to crunch more and more as release date nears and then slips (probably by design) * Release game * lay off most staff * They're broke for a while but the time without work is nice * Repeat I can't find a source but I understand the average length of a career in the industry is 5-6 years. Also, I couldn't help but notice at my last place that those of us doing more general work (python, data engineering, etc.) were a hell of a lot more relaxed than those with video-game-specific skillsets (Unity3d).
- tynorf 7y ago
  This article seems to indicate that they would at least develop better games if the employees were not subjected to "crunch". https://gamasutra.com/blogs/PaulTozour/20150120/234443/The_Game_Outcomes_Project_Part_4_Crunch_Makes_Games_Worse.php https://gamasutra.com/blogs/PaulTozour/20150120/234443/The_G...

jhpriestley 7y ago

Working long hours together serves purposes besides productivity, like signaling commitment and building social cohesion. "Unproductive" hardship is common in social organizations, e.g. fraternity hazing, military bootcamp, various vows of abstinence by monks, marathons for charitable causes.

jtr1 7y ago

It all hinges on what you mean by "success." Is it profitability + growth? Burning through employees like jet fuel can work pretty well. If you want a humane answer, you might have to reframe the question.

Aunche 7y ago

Investors have demands and you can't fulfill them if you're working 30 hours a week. A stressful company might have a mountain of technical debt, but they'll also get billions of dollars of investment money that will help them solve that problem. By the time the more relaxed company has an MVP, it's already too late and investors are much less willing to help them play catch up.

drchewbacca 7y ago

One explanation would be that the causation is the opposite: watching the business succeed makes people excited and so they start doing longer hours because they mistakenly hope that will make things go better. Working at a reasonable, sustainable, pace requires big discipline. It's hard for a computer game studio with a release coming in 12 weeks to stick to 40 hours because that will get them 12 great weeks. They'll tend to slide into 80 hour weeks in panic but end up doing less. I think two real issues are that you can't compare against a control version of the company and you can't tell you are slowing down because you are tired. Another issue is management. Most managers think hours in means more productivity out, it's hard for them to not fall into that seeing as it is so widely held as true.