6 ms·

I respect your opinion Antirez, but I hear so much speculation about work habits that I have to ask you: Is this your opinion / experience, or is it based on so

by rapind 15y ago

I respect your opinion Antirez, but I hear so much speculation about work habits that I have to ask you: Is this your opinion / experience, or is it based on some specific research / study you can point to? As a fellow developer I'd love this to be true, however a meme / fad started during my working career in rich cultures stating that hard work isn't rewarding or is unnecessary. I question this. My father taught me to work hard, as his father taught him, etc, and this basically states that my father was being scammed. Doesn't every generation at some point rebel against the previous generation's beliefs? Could it be that the whole work less theme (apparently based on science?) is simply rebellion? All I know is that I plan to teach my kids that working hard for something is itself a reward. That you can't appreciate anything you didn't work for, and the harder you work for it, the more you appreciate it. I also expect this will help them survive in a hyper competitive global workplace. Maybe if we consider maintaining physical fitness to be part of our daily work, then I'd be on board with these thoughts. I.e. 4-5 hours at a desk being creative, and 3+ hours of some sort of physical exertion.

antirez 15y ago
This is my opinion and is based solely on my experience after 15 years of being in the industry, including one successful startup built by me and a friend of mine with a decent "exit" sold to Telecom Italia, and a successful open source software (Redis). Additionally I used to work in different places in the past with many programmers, so what I say is also based on how the success of programmers I know first hand correlates with the amount of work they do. I also follow two companies here in Sicily that I built in the past, one has six programmers. So all the above is my "data source", that is not statistically significant. I don't really think a programmer working 8 hours is going to be less successful of one working 12 hours per day: it is either good enough to be outstanding with the 8 hours, or will fail even with the 12 hours, since the productivity gained by experience, skills, understanding of the problem is the kind of 10x or 100x gain, while from 8 to 12 hours the difference is little (and, again, not sustainable for long time IMHO). Startups are built by programmers, so I think the same applies to them as well, mostly. In other words I could say that the output of a programmer correlates more strongly with the work it did to learn writing code, than the work it does writing actual code. Another important thing is that having fun is not lost time if you want to build a startup. Recently startups are a lot more about providing an "experience" to the user, and enriching yourself in your free time can be very useful to provide something that people want.
- rapind 15y ago
  I'm fully aware of who you are, and at least some of your successes (I've used Redis in several projects now, and love it). For me it's an age thing. I put in some extremely long hours in my youth, and I think it paid off. I'm not putting in as many hours these days, but then again I feel like I'm quite a bit more productive with my time than I used to be. I think it's the experience itself that's the differentiator, and not the fewer hours. In fact it's the experience that enables me to work fewer hours. When I was younger I really had to bang away trying many more approaches to solve a problem, and that meant longer hours.
  - antirez 15y ago
    Yes I share this experience with you: when I was 18 or 20 I worked a lot of hours, but this was pure fun as I was learning to write code. This is probably a very good investment: it completely does not weight on you since you are having true fun, and of course 20 years old can do things that are impressive :) At least for me that I'm now 35. However my father is like your father in this regard: he thought me to work long hours, and he still does even if it is 63 now. But I've the feeling that the work it does that has more to do with people, with moving from one place to the other to fix problems, and things like that, is much more "long hours compatible". The solve fact it does not sit all the day is different... In short I think that programming is exceptionally bad: too static, too focused, too stressing, too timelines, ...
tealtan 15y ago
Nothing wrong with working hard. But do it for yourself. Don't do it because a VC tells you to. Don't do it because the owner of a publication that thrives off of startup news tells you to.
- nathanb 15y ago
  I wholeheartedly agree, and I think this is what jwz is getting at as well. Hard work can be rewarding, but only if you let it. Hard work which is pushed on you without your consent is rarely rewarding in any sense of the word.
scott_s 15y ago
I think you're confusing "hard work" with "working with reckless abandon." I find I am most consistently productive if I work 8 - 10 hours on the weekdays, and 3 - 5 hours on the weekends. I can sustain this for several months without burnout, despite the fact that I work every day. This is more than an average work-week, but it's also not the crazyness of deadline crunch-times. It leaves enough time for workouts and some socializing. Eventually, though I need a few months where I take at least one day off during the weekends.
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
dextorious 15y ago
"""My father taught me to work hard, as his father taught him, etc, and this basically states that my father was being scammed. """ He was. It's called the "protestant work ethic". For one, you should work smart, not hard. Second, you should work hard only if you enjoy the task or you get a benefit from working harder. Hard work in itself doesn't mean anything.
- rapind 15y ago
  I always suspected it had more to do with being raised on a farm (a traditional farm where you have to work most of the day, not an industrial corn farm) then religious beliefs. No doubt that's right about a great many people though.
  - Fliko 15y ago
    Most people I know who work all day on a farm do it because they absolutely love it and would imagine living no other life.
    - rapind 15y ago
      Farming today is completely different than it was 60+ years ago (especially before WWII) for 90% of farmers. I'd wager a large sum that most farmer's do not actually enjoy their job these days. Small independent sustainable farmers sure, too bad they represent such a small percentage of farming compared to the industrial food complex. Anyways, comparing farming today to what it was 60 years ago is apples to oranges. Many farmers at the time didn't have a choice in the matter. Many had limited options and were simply lucky enough to inherit farmland. Maybe they loved it, maybe they didn't. For most, loving it wasn't as pressing a need as supporting their family.
      - Fliko 15y ago
        Small family farms represent 91% of all the farms in the US. 59% of food production in the US is in due thanks to large family farms. There are actually very few industrial food complexes in the US, although it is interesting to note that most of the food production is from these complexes. http://www.ers.usda.gov/publications/EIB12/EIB12c.pdf http://www.ers.usda.gov/publications/EIB12/EIB12c.pdf?
danielsoneg 15y ago
I suspect two differences: First, "working hard" and working the sort of insane, body-destroying hours that Arrington & co are advocating are two different things. It's good to work hard, be diligent, and get things done, but balance is essential. Arrington doesn't agree. Second, Work for our parents and grandparents involved physical labor in some degree - ours does not. Our work takes a huge toll on the body for what seems so sedentary, and requires (I'd suspect) much more demanding mental processes, which are also extremely draining. So yes, work hard - as did your father and his father - but don't kill yourself, and don't spend it all in what my doctor calls the Chicken position.
- electromagnetic 15y ago
  IMO "working hard" constitutes working an 8-hour day and not being a slack ass in your duties. My day job is construction, mainly because I'm good at it. I find it every bit as stressful and mentally draining as when I've been doing sedentary work (I worked as a reviewer). The main difference is that the stress can often be used (when you have to nail in a certain position and it just happens there's a 1/8th inch steel plate on the stud, stress makes it a lot easier, and you're not stressed when the nail is driven). I've said elsewhere here that we get highschool educated guys who can't read tape measures and who can't do basic trigonometry, and it's sad that we get guys in who've failed highschool, but you give them a pencil, a tape and a pair of tin snips and they can do trig, but they've failed math in highschool. So given I am college educated, it is offensive (not that you personally offended me, I've received enough derogatory comments from doctors and the likes to realize that many peoples hundred-thousand dollar educations simply served to make them very stupid; that said a retired economics professor was happy as shit - he'd been writing newspaper articles for years about the shortages of 'unskilled' and 'semi-skilled' labour is crippling the economy) when people assume physical labour jobs require little mental ability. My father taught me to work hard. He was a coder; he's taught me electrical, plumbing, concrete/floor laying, drywall, plastering, brick laying, roofing, welding, etc. He never taught me programming, because he didn't want me working for someone else my whole life (he's owned 4 businesses, all successful and profitable in his lifetime). He was happy as shit when I called to cancel my trip to see him next year, because I told him I'm looking to buy property to rent and start a property management company (I literally have all the skills necessary to turn a $90,000 piece of shit into $180,000 in the local market, meaning turning 1 $900 a month house rental into two $1200-1500 month unit rentals).
s73v3r 15y ago
"My father taught me to work hard, as his father taught him, etc" This is a very good lesson to learn. Make sure you take it to heart. The thing to know, is: WHO are you working hard for? If the answer isn't yourself, then you have the wrong answer. Spending your effort and time working hard for the benefit of someone else is being scammed.

by rapind 15y ago

antirez 15y ago

This is my opinion and is based solely on my experience after 15 years of being in the industry, including one successful startup built by me and a friend of mine with a decent "exit" sold to Telecom Italia, and a successful open source software (Redis). Additionally I used to work in different places in the past with many programmers, so what I say is also based on how the success of programmers I know first hand correlates with the amount of work they do. I also follow two companies here in Sicily that I built in the past, one has six programmers. So all the above is my "data source", that is not statistically significant. I don't really think a programmer working 8 hours is going to be less successful of one working 12 hours per day: it is either good enough to be outstanding with the 8 hours, or will fail even with the 12 hours, since the productivity gained by experience, skills, understanding of the problem is the kind of 10x or 100x gain, while from 8 to 12 hours the difference is little (and, again, not sustainable for long time IMHO). Startups are built by programmers, so I think the same applies to them as well, mostly. In other words I could say that the output of a programmer correlates more strongly with the work it did to learn writing code, than the work it does writing actual code. Another important thing is that having fun is not lost time if you want to build a startup. Recently startups are a lot more about providing an "experience" to the user, and enriching yourself in your free time can be very useful to provide something that people want.

rapind 15y ago
I'm fully aware of who you are, and at least some of your successes (I've used Redis in several projects now, and love it). For me it's an age thing. I put in some extremely long hours in my youth, and I think it paid off. I'm not putting in as many hours these days, but then again I feel like I'm quite a bit more productive with my time than I used to be. I think it's the experience itself that's the differentiator, and not the fewer hours. In fact it's the experience that enables me to work fewer hours. When I was younger I really had to bang away trying many more approaches to solve a problem, and that meant longer hours.
- antirez 15y ago
  Yes I share this experience with you: when I was 18 or 20 I worked a lot of hours, but this was pure fun as I was learning to write code. This is probably a very good investment: it completely does not weight on you since you are having true fun, and of course 20 years old can do things that are impressive :) At least for me that I'm now 35. However my father is like your father in this regard: he thought me to work long hours, and he still does even if it is 63 now. But I've the feeling that the work it does that has more to do with people, with moving from one place to the other to fix problems, and things like that, is much more "long hours compatible". The solve fact it does not sit all the day is different... In short I think that programming is exceptionally bad: too static, too focused, too stressing, too timelines, ...

tealtan 15y ago

Nothing wrong with working hard. But do it for yourself. Don't do it because a VC tells you to. Don't do it because the owner of a publication that thrives off of startup news tells you to.

nathanb 15y ago
I wholeheartedly agree, and I think this is what jwz is getting at as well. Hard work can be rewarding, but only if you let it. Hard work which is pushed on you without your consent is rarely rewarding in any sense of the word.

scott_s 15y ago

I think you're confusing "hard work" with "working with reckless abandon." I find I am most consistently productive if I work 8 - 10 hours on the weekdays, and 3 - 5 hours on the weekends. I can sustain this for several months without burnout, despite the fact that I work every day. This is more than an average work-week, but it's also not the crazyness of deadline crunch-times. It leaves enough time for workouts and some socializing. Eventually, though I need a few months where I take at least one day off during the weekends.

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

dextorious 15y ago

"""My father taught me to work hard, as his father taught him, etc, and this basically states that my father was being scammed. """ He was. It's called the "protestant work ethic". For one, you should work smart, not hard. Second, you should work hard only if you enjoy the task or you get a benefit from working harder. Hard work in itself doesn't mean anything.

rapind 15y ago
I always suspected it had more to do with being raised on a farm (a traditional farm where you have to work most of the day, not an industrial corn farm) then religious beliefs. No doubt that's right about a great many people though.
- Fliko 15y ago
  Most people I know who work all day on a farm do it because they absolutely love it and would imagine living no other life.
  - rapind 15y ago
    Farming today is completely different than it was 60+ years ago (especially before WWII) for 90% of farmers. I'd wager a large sum that most farmer's do not actually enjoy their job these days. Small independent sustainable farmers sure, too bad they represent such a small percentage of farming compared to the industrial food complex. Anyways, comparing farming today to what it was 60 years ago is apples to oranges. Many farmers at the time didn't have a choice in the matter. Many had limited options and were simply lucky enough to inherit farmland. Maybe they loved it, maybe they didn't. For most, loving it wasn't as pressing a need as supporting their family.
    - Fliko 15y ago
      Small family farms represent 91% of all the farms in the US. 59% of food production in the US is in due thanks to large family farms. There are actually very few industrial food complexes in the US, although it is interesting to note that most of the food production is from these complexes. http://www.ers.usda.gov/publications/EIB12/EIB12c.pdf http://www.ers.usda.gov/publications/EIB12/EIB12c.pdf?

danielsoneg 15y ago

I suspect two differences: First, "working hard" and working the sort of insane, body-destroying hours that Arrington & co are advocating are two different things. It's good to work hard, be diligent, and get things done, but balance is essential. Arrington doesn't agree. Second, Work for our parents and grandparents involved physical labor in some degree - ours does not. Our work takes a huge toll on the body for what seems so sedentary, and requires (I'd suspect) much more demanding mental processes, which are also extremely draining. So yes, work hard - as did your father and his father - but don't kill yourself, and don't spend it all in what my doctor calls the Chicken position.

electromagnetic 15y ago
IMO "working hard" constitutes working an 8-hour day and not being a slack ass in your duties. My day job is construction, mainly because I'm good at it. I find it every bit as stressful and mentally draining as when I've been doing sedentary work (I worked as a reviewer). The main difference is that the stress can often be used (when you have to nail in a certain position and it just happens there's a 1/8th inch steel plate on the stud, stress makes it a lot easier, and you're not stressed when the nail is driven). I've said elsewhere here that we get highschool educated guys who can't read tape measures and who can't do basic trigonometry, and it's sad that we get guys in who've failed highschool, but you give them a pencil, a tape and a pair of tin snips and they can do trig, but they've failed math in highschool. So given I am college educated, it is offensive (not that you personally offended me, I've received enough derogatory comments from doctors and the likes to realize that many peoples hundred-thousand dollar educations simply served to make them very stupid; that said a retired economics professor was happy as shit - he'd been writing newspaper articles for years about the shortages of 'unskilled' and 'semi-skilled' labour is crippling the economy) when people assume physical labour jobs require little mental ability. My father taught me to work hard. He was a coder; he's taught me electrical, plumbing, concrete/floor laying, drywall, plastering, brick laying, roofing, welding, etc. He never taught me programming, because he didn't want me working for someone else my whole life (he's owned 4 businesses, all successful and profitable in his lifetime). He was happy as shit when I called to cancel my trip to see him next year, because I told him I'm looking to buy property to rent and start a property management company (I literally have all the skills necessary to turn a $90,000 piece of shit into $180,000 in the local market, meaning turning 1 $900 a month house rental into two $1200-1500 month unit rentals).

s73v3r 15y ago

"My father taught me to work hard, as his father taught him, etc" This is a very good lesson to learn. Make sure you take it to heart. The thing to know, is: WHO are you working hard for? If the answer isn't yourself, then you have the wrong answer. Spending your effort and time working hard for the benefit of someone else is being scammed.