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This is not confined to SV nor to tech. It's very common in the finance industry as well, but the worst is arguably in health care, where patients can literall

This is not confined to SV nor to tech. It's very common in the finance industry as well, but the worst is arguably in health care, where patients can literally die due to mistakes or lack of enough attention by overworked doctors and nurses running on an extreme lack of sleep. This doesn't even begin to address the casualties from burnout, which can lead to depression, stress-related health issues, and suicide. How much compensation is worth that? In the finance sector, which is almost literally swimming in money, I never understood why they didn't just hire more people and instead preferred to work the talented people they attract half to death.

sgillen 6y ago
>> I never understood why they didn't just hire more people and instead preferred to work the talented people they attract half to death. I think that a small number of talented people that will work themselves to death will be much more effective than a large group willing to work reasonable hours.
- n0nc3 6y ago
  If you are doing anything more complicated than gluing a pair of APIs together, it is very likely that the marginal value of work past 60 hours is negative. Reaping what you coded during a 3am espresso binge is rarely a happy experience. But yeah, if all you are trying to do is build out Facebook before some other social network gets there maybe it makes sense to pull 100 hour weeks.
  - Schiendelman 6y ago
    Cut that number in half. Work over 30 hours might be negative.
    - MaxBarraclough 6y ago
      What's this based on?
      - Schiendelman 6y ago
        Basically all the EU trials of optimal working weeks.
- Orou 6y ago
  Over what time frame? A year? Sure. But three years? Five? Ten? It's simply not sustainable for 95% of people. And it's unrealistic to hold everyone else to the standard of that 5% who are 1) naturally hyper-productive or 2) have little else going on in their lives. The cynic in me wonders if the attempt to turn overwork into a virtue is just to keep people busy enough that they don't stop to wonder what it's all for in the end. Somehow everyone seems to have forgotten that the economy should exist to serve people, not people serving the economy.
  - sgillen 6y ago
    Maybe, some companies seem to adopt the strategy of “hire talented 22 year olds out of college, work them until they burn out in two-three years and move on, hire more”. Not claiming this is necessarily effective.
    - wolco2 6y ago
      Now that you mention this I've seen this pattern happen and it repeats. Usually all we see is the end: a medium blog telling us why they left so and so company. They always give a reason that sounds like someone is still figuring out why they left their "dream job" without ever getting to the core. This happens more with big companies like "Stripe" than we like to believe. We sell ourselves in the comments section on how great "Stripe" is to work at while employees are being crushed with 60 hour weeks. It does show in the products. Great products like "Stripe" start out wonderful but in time slowly move away from that initial greatness into products that slowly get worse and the company lives on in a shadow of what they once were.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
nimbius 6y ago
Can confirm its creeped into a few automotive repair jobs I've had. I worked for a year at a famous chain of oil and lube stores with a blue and red sign that would do spot reviews. If you habitually declined to work overtime, didnt make it a point to upsell everything, or werent above a certain number of vehicle services per day then your hours were reduced. Turns out not a lot of people were real excited to drain boiling oil from pissed off soccer mom SUVs all day for ten dollars an hour until their arms fell off for no benefits. anyone who was talented enough on day 1 eventually became a hung over burnout that stripped bolts and took a lot of smoke breaks.
908B64B197 6y ago
Healthcare is dysfunctional. But there's a guaranteed demand for it so it's not allowed to fail. There's lobbying by the AMA to keep a cap on residency spots to create artificial scarcity too. That partly explains the overworked schedule: it's either that or share the pie with a lot more professionals and earn less/have less bargaining power. So residency has turned into a kind of hazing ritual that selects for individuals that are more functional when sleep deprived.
zcw100 6y ago
I agree with most of what’s being said but I don’t think that it’s just that it’s a bad bargain. It looks like he’s saying, “will you work harder for the same money” and people are saying, “yes”. It makes him a jerk but he’s being fairly transparent about it. What’s really evil about it is it’s a Ponzi scheme of being crappy to other people. I think what’s really going on is he’s saying, “ I’m going to be crappy to you and in return I’m going to allow and expect you to be crappy to others.” As long as you can find more people to be crappy to you’re going to come out ahead.

sgillen 6y ago

>> I never understood why they didn't just hire more people and instead preferred to work the talented people they attract half to death. I think that a small number of talented people that will work themselves to death will be much more effective than a large group willing to work reasonable hours.

n0nc3 6y ago
If you are doing anything more complicated than gluing a pair of APIs together, it is very likely that the marginal value of work past 60 hours is negative. Reaping what you coded during a 3am espresso binge is rarely a happy experience. But yeah, if all you are trying to do is build out Facebook before some other social network gets there maybe it makes sense to pull 100 hour weeks.
- Schiendelman 6y ago
  Cut that number in half. Work over 30 hours might be negative.
  - MaxBarraclough 6y ago
    What's this based on?
    - Schiendelman 6y ago
      Basically all the EU trials of optimal working weeks.
Orou 6y ago
Over what time frame? A year? Sure. But three years? Five? Ten? It's simply not sustainable for 95% of people. And it's unrealistic to hold everyone else to the standard of that 5% who are 1) naturally hyper-productive or 2) have little else going on in their lives. The cynic in me wonders if the attempt to turn overwork into a virtue is just to keep people busy enough that they don't stop to wonder what it's all for in the end. Somehow everyone seems to have forgotten that the economy should exist to serve people, not people serving the economy.
- sgillen 6y ago
  Maybe, some companies seem to adopt the strategy of “hire talented 22 year olds out of college, work them until they burn out in two-three years and move on, hire more”. Not claiming this is necessarily effective.
  - wolco2 6y ago
    Now that you mention this I've seen this pattern happen and it repeats. Usually all we see is the end: a medium blog telling us why they left so and so company. They always give a reason that sounds like someone is still figuring out why they left their "dream job" without ever getting to the core. This happens more with big companies like "Stripe" than we like to believe. We sell ourselves in the comments section on how great "Stripe" is to work at while employees are being crushed with 60 hour weeks. It does show in the products. Great products like "Stripe" start out wonderful but in time slowly move away from that initial greatness into products that slowly get worse and the company lives on in a shadow of what they once were.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

nimbius 6y ago

Can confirm its creeped into a few automotive repair jobs I've had. I worked for a year at a famous chain of oil and lube stores with a blue and red sign that would do spot reviews. If you habitually declined to work overtime, didnt make it a point to upsell everything, or werent above a certain number of vehicle services per day then your hours were reduced. Turns out not a lot of people were real excited to drain boiling oil from pissed off soccer mom SUVs all day for ten dollars an hour until their arms fell off for no benefits. anyone who was talented enough on day 1 eventually became a hung over burnout that stripped bolts and took a lot of smoke breaks.

908B64B197 6y ago

Healthcare is dysfunctional. But there's a guaranteed demand for it so it's not allowed to fail. There's lobbying by the AMA to keep a cap on residency spots to create artificial scarcity too. That partly explains the overworked schedule: it's either that or share the pie with a lot more professionals and earn less/have less bargaining power. So residency has turned into a kind of hazing ritual that selects for individuals that are more functional when sleep deprived.

zcw100 6y ago

I agree with most of what’s being said but I don’t think that it’s just that it’s a bad bargain. It looks like he’s saying, “will you work harder for the same money” and people are saying, “yes”. It makes him a jerk but he’s being fairly transparent about it. What’s really evil about it is it’s a Ponzi scheme of being crappy to other people. I think what’s really going on is he’s saying, “ I’m going to be crappy to you and in return I’m going to allow and expect you to be crappy to others.” As long as you can find more people to be crappy to you’re going to come out ahead.