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Realizing that diligence was a middle class status signaling value that did not apply in capital class circles was an interesting lesson. Elon Musk constantly t
by rogerkirkness 7y ago
Realizing that diligence was a middle class status signaling value that did not apply in capital class circles was an interesting lesson. Elon Musk constantly talks about how you have to work twice as much as other people, where as Jeff Bezos is pretty open about going in for about 6-7 hours a day. Who is right? The answer is either one, they have different values, that hard work is subjective, and that you should just do what you want and what works. Hard work is the original virtue signaling in a growth economy. It says, I'm important, I'm needed, etc. But in practice it often means diligence which is often not correlated to effectiveness in most (not all) fields of knowledge work.
- bigred100 7y agoSurely a rational person would care about doing a solid day’s work while maintaining their health, sanity, relationships etc.
- mandelbrotwurst 7y agoWhy? A wise person, maybe. But a rational one? It all depends on what they're optimizing for. Someone might "rationally" come to the conclusion that the output of their work is extremely important, so much so that they are willing to sacrifice everything else.
- Aeolun 7y agoWhy is that rational? If I go into the office and spend a day looking at cat pictures (which certainly makes me happier than attending the endless meetings) I get paid just as much.
- bigred100 7y agoI can’t imagine this is a good long-term career idea unless it’s something you do only on occasion when you’re mentally exhausted or something.
- Aeolun 7y agoI think it’s just that I believe that in any company big enough to have endless meetings it’s fairly possible to put in (almost) no work and still fly under the radar.
- turk73 7y agoI've seen the same thing at every large company I have worked for. Plenty of slacker employees watching Youtube, gaming, making coffee runs, you name it. Big companies carry people, big companies carried me, even. When you have an infant at home and you're running on no sleep for 5-8 mos. you will understand. The hardest I ever worked was at a small company with only six developers. It was surprisingly unpleasant, not because I had to code all the time, but because I had been a tech lead and had people to collaborate with on solving problems. This new place was all heads down devs, like some kind of throwback to an earlier age, and those people didn't want to chitchat--at all. Weird culture. I don't mind going off and coding and testing for hours on end and I was the most "in the zone" I have ever been on that job. Yet something was disturbingly missing and it was that openness to discussing solutions. I think it was the matter of resource constraints at small shops that annoys me the most, though.
- perl4ever 7y agoOnly if you can stay awake in the meetings. For me, meetings where I don't participate and nothing concerns me are like a soporific.
- mbrodersen 7y agoI have never met a truly rational person. I have met lots of people who claim they are rational but clearly aren't.
- mieseratte 7y ago> But in practice it often means diligence which is often not correlated to effectiveness in most (not all) fields of knowledge work. How are you defining "effective" here? Anecdotally, all of the major bugs I've had to unfuck in the past years can be traced back to lack of due diligence. The "works on my machine" / "tested with N = 1" crowd.
- inimino 7y agoDiligence in doing the job well, and diligence in putting in long hours, are two very different things.
- sharadov 7y agoElon is running 3 companies while Bezos runs only 1. So, Yes Elon has to work 3X Bezos.
- Can_Not 7y agoI dont know how he manages _THAT_ many Twitter accounts!