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"If you're working overtime very often on your own business, it's either because you're incompetent, or lazy, or greedy, or failing (see 'incompetent')." Of al

"If you're working overtime very often on your own business, it's either because you're incompetent, or lazy, or greedy, or failing (see 'incompetent')." Of all of the successful people I've met (measured in cash, influence, etc), I can't think of ANY who weren't pretty seriously married to their work. I guess many of those people fall into the "greedy" camp and are doing it for the money. But I think most of them do it because they love (or are just addicted to) the game they are playing. Whoever you're competing with, you've probably got competitors smarter than you and willing to put in long hours. If you're playing to win (many people do, for a lot of reasons), how do you propose to beat them? To anticipate a common argument: Yes, working hard can lead to stress/bad decisions/burnout. But empirically, it seems to correlate pretty strongly with success.

bluekeybox 15y ago
> But I think most of them do it because they love (or are just addicted to) the game they are playing. Of course, as Gordon Gecko would say, "it's never been about the money -- it's about the game."
swombat 15y ago
I think that's a myth of the startup world (a persistent, but mostly incorrect myth). I know successful people with both balanced and unbalanced lives... and the former are definitely happier. I'm not convinced that regular long hours lead to a more competitive business. Particularly when it comes to running a business (as opposed to being a contractor or freelancer, which is a completely different proposition), spending 1 hour sitting outside and having a great idea that saves you a day of work is much more valuable than spending 16 hours getting it done the stupid way. Generally, I haven't seen a great correlation between working long hours and working smart - but I have seen a good correlation between working smart and being successful. Another anecdotal bit of evidence: generally, most of the successful workaholics I've met tend to be in the corporate world, where they often don't have the choice of working smart.
- daeken 15y ago
  I've been both of those people. I spent 5 years working every waking minute of the day; even if I wasn't at my computer, I was thinking about what had to be done next and constantly anxious to get back to it. I ruined several relationships and generally had a piss-poor life because of it. Now, though, I work my ass off at my day job, I spend a couple hours a night and the weekends working on my startup, and I spend as much time as I possibly can with my girlfriend. I'm a much happier person, and I'm still making tons of progress in life in general.
- rtc 15y ago
  I think you're ignoring the group of people who both work smart (as you define) AND work long hours. That combination would probably have the highest correlation with success. It's not either / or.
  - deyan 15y ago
    I think you are missing the point of the thread. The argument was that working long hours gives you trade off with working smart. So it is an either /or, at least to some (in my opinion large) extent.
- keithnoizu 15y ago
  I agree. On the more competitive business part, on average a developer only has about 3-4 peak hours of productivity during any given day. The time when your programming in the "zone" and get huge amounts of work done in minimal periods of time. The remaining time tends to be filler time, minor code cleanup, changes, being stuck on problems you would never encounter when still fresh/awake. etc. When you increase work hours across the board you increasing this filler time of not especially high productivity work. At the same time you tend to decrease the amount of peak productivity/in the zone hours developers see each day due to the gradual effects of burn out. It's not good for business.
  - tensor 15y ago
    Starting a business involves a lot more than just coding. Responding to employee emails, getting quotes for various bits of infrastructure, setting up the legal side of things, the banking side of things, all takes up a huge amount of time. It's not difficult however. I find swombat's generalization incredibly insulting and naive. I've heard from many successful business founders that they often have no choice but to work long hours at the start. I know swombat is talking about regular long hours, but what is his definition of regular? There are always exceptions to the rule. I don't have a lot of respect for people who make overly-general statements in absolutes. I have even less respect for those who feel the need to back up their statement by characterizing anyone who disagrees as incompetent, greedy, or otherwise. I agree that in an established business, you shouldn't need to work 10 hours a day everyday. I'm very much for people having a balanced life, and for treating employees fairly. However, depending on the situation, there may be periods where you do need to work long hours. There are no golden rules in life that you can follow and be guaranteed success, no matter how smart you are. Everyone makes mistakes, and a failure doesn't mean you are incompetent.
nostrademons 15y ago
I can think of a few with ~$1B net worth that still find time to indulge their passions and still remain a regular human being. The people I know who are highly successful work hard, and they take their work seriously. But they don't let their work consume them. There is still time for hobbies, passions, and human relationships once all the code has been written. Continuous improvement, seeking out things you're doing wrong and fixing them, and generally paying attention to what you're doing and why you're doing it tend to trump raw hours any day.
- swombat 15y ago
  That is something I've noticed too. Not a single one of the highly successful people I know is one-dimensional. They're all well-rounded human beings who spend time indulging whatever passions they have. The only ones I know who are slightly less well-rounded but still successful, as I mentioned in another comment, are the corporate successful types - imho because they have less of a choice about how to manage their time.
voidfiles 15y ago
I think there is a difference between working long hours and being 'married' to your work. People who are passionate about work will end up spending more time on their craft then those who are not, but they aren't always working. For example I read HN, and feel that it makes me better at work, but it's not work. I spend time outside of work doing things that are work like, but not my job because I really like what I do. No matter how much I like what I do, I can work long hours on any of it without getting burnt out, and if I do that for long periods of time I can feel the psychological drain.

bluekeybox 15y ago

> But I think most of them do it because they love (or are just addicted to) the game they are playing. Of course, as Gordon Gecko would say, "it's never been about the money -- it's about the game."

swombat 15y ago

I think that's a myth of the startup world (a persistent, but mostly incorrect myth). I know successful people with both balanced and unbalanced lives... and the former are definitely happier. I'm not convinced that regular long hours lead to a more competitive business. Particularly when it comes to running a business (as opposed to being a contractor or freelancer, which is a completely different proposition), spending 1 hour sitting outside and having a great idea that saves you a day of work is much more valuable than spending 16 hours getting it done the stupid way. Generally, I haven't seen a great correlation between working long hours and working smart - but I have seen a good correlation between working smart and being successful. Another anecdotal bit of evidence: generally, most of the successful workaholics I've met tend to be in the corporate world, where they often don't have the choice of working smart.

daeken 15y ago
I've been both of those people. I spent 5 years working every waking minute of the day; even if I wasn't at my computer, I was thinking about what had to be done next and constantly anxious to get back to it. I ruined several relationships and generally had a piss-poor life because of it. Now, though, I work my ass off at my day job, I spend a couple hours a night and the weekends working on my startup, and I spend as much time as I possibly can with my girlfriend. I'm a much happier person, and I'm still making tons of progress in life in general.
rtc 15y ago
I think you're ignoring the group of people who both work smart (as you define) AND work long hours. That combination would probably have the highest correlation with success. It's not either / or.
- deyan 15y ago
  I think you are missing the point of the thread. The argument was that working long hours gives you trade off with working smart. So it is an either /or, at least to some (in my opinion large) extent.
keithnoizu 15y ago
I agree. On the more competitive business part, on average a developer only has about 3-4 peak hours of productivity during any given day. The time when your programming in the "zone" and get huge amounts of work done in minimal periods of time. The remaining time tends to be filler time, minor code cleanup, changes, being stuck on problems you would never encounter when still fresh/awake. etc. When you increase work hours across the board you increasing this filler time of not especially high productivity work. At the same time you tend to decrease the amount of peak productivity/in the zone hours developers see each day due to the gradual effects of burn out. It's not good for business.
- tensor 15y ago
  Starting a business involves a lot more than just coding. Responding to employee emails, getting quotes for various bits of infrastructure, setting up the legal side of things, the banking side of things, all takes up a huge amount of time. It's not difficult however. I find swombat's generalization incredibly insulting and naive. I've heard from many successful business founders that they often have no choice but to work long hours at the start. I know swombat is talking about regular long hours, but what is his definition of regular? There are always exceptions to the rule. I don't have a lot of respect for people who make overly-general statements in absolutes. I have even less respect for those who feel the need to back up their statement by characterizing anyone who disagrees as incompetent, greedy, or otherwise. I agree that in an established business, you shouldn't need to work 10 hours a day everyday. I'm very much for people having a balanced life, and for treating employees fairly. However, depending on the situation, there may be periods where you do need to work long hours. There are no golden rules in life that you can follow and be guaranteed success, no matter how smart you are. Everyone makes mistakes, and a failure doesn't mean you are incompetent.

nostrademons 15y ago

I can think of a few with ~$1B net worth that still find time to indulge their passions and still remain a regular human being. The people I know who are highly successful work hard, and they take their work seriously. But they don't let their work consume them. There is still time for hobbies, passions, and human relationships once all the code has been written. Continuous improvement, seeking out things you're doing wrong and fixing them, and generally paying attention to what you're doing and why you're doing it tend to trump raw hours any day.

swombat 15y ago
That is something I've noticed too. Not a single one of the highly successful people I know is one-dimensional. They're all well-rounded human beings who spend time indulging whatever passions they have. The only ones I know who are slightly less well-rounded but still successful, as I mentioned in another comment, are the corporate successful types - imho because they have less of a choice about how to manage their time.

voidfiles 15y ago

I think there is a difference between working long hours and being 'married' to your work. People who are passionate about work will end up spending more time on their craft then those who are not, but they aren't always working. For example I read HN, and feel that it makes me better at work, but it's not work. I spend time outside of work doing things that are work like, but not my job because I really like what I do. No matter how much I like what I do, I can work long hours on any of it without getting burnt out, and if I do that for long periods of time I can feel the psychological drain.