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Not that I encourage this particular lifestyle, but some people do manage to do this successfully. John Carmack, for instance, works 40 hours per week on iD, 4

Not that I encourage this particular lifestyle, but some people do manage to do this successfully. John Carmack, for instance, works 40 hours per week on iD, 40 hours per week on Armadillo, and still manages to raise two children.

learc83 15y ago
I agree, it can be done, but if he is really working 80 hours per week most weeks (it's different if maybe he is constantly taking vacations or something), then I wouldn't really call that raising two children. I'd say his wife is raising them, and he sees them occasionally on weekends. This some kind of value judgment, just looking at the amount of time in a week, and there's no way it's enough for both.
- jtheory 15y ago
  Right... I have a small child and I actually do my fair share of raising her. And I generally don't sleep more than 5-6 hours a night (sometimes much less), or watch any TV, or even waste much time online anymore -- and I track it with RescueTime -- but getting 40 hours a week of real work done is still hard some weeks. Raising kids -- doing it right, that is -- takes a lot of time & interaction. Then there's time keeping the house functioning & relatively clean, paying bills, grocery shopping, the various trivial little tasks that need doing... I'm pretty sure 80 hours a week would be impossible unless I stopped sleeping altogether. Even once my daughter is in school, it'd be pretty rough going.
- davidhansen 15y ago
  My understanding is that he works 13-14 hours per day, 6 days per week, and he takes Sundays off entirely for family time: "I still work 80 hours a week," he admitted to Mark Lisheron of the Austin American-Statesman. "It used to be 80 hours on software, now it's 40 hours on software and 40 hours on Armadillo." Carmack did ease up a bit after he and his wife, Anna Kang, had their first child in 2004—he was getting home from the office at about midnight instead of 2:00 AM or 3:00 AM. Kang, however, insists that Sunday is family day, so Carmack compromises by reading technical manuals to his infant son. ref. http://www.notablebiographies.com/news/A-Ca/Carmack-John.html http://www.notablebiographies.com/news/A-Ca/Carmack-John.htm...

learc83 15y ago

I agree, it can be done, but if he is really working 80 hours per week most weeks (it's different if maybe he is constantly taking vacations or something), then I wouldn't really call that raising two children. I'd say his wife is raising them, and he sees them occasionally on weekends. This some kind of value judgment, just looking at the amount of time in a week, and there's no way it's enough for both.

jtheory 15y ago
Right... I have a small child and I actually do my fair share of raising her. And I generally don't sleep more than 5-6 hours a night (sometimes much less), or watch any TV, or even waste much time online anymore -- and I track it with RescueTime -- but getting 40 hours a week of real work done is still hard some weeks. Raising kids -- doing it right, that is -- takes a lot of time & interaction. Then there's time keeping the house functioning & relatively clean, paying bills, grocery shopping, the various trivial little tasks that need doing... I'm pretty sure 80 hours a week would be impossible unless I stopped sleeping altogether. Even once my daughter is in school, it'd be pretty rough going.
davidhansen 15y ago
My understanding is that he works 13-14 hours per day, 6 days per week, and he takes Sundays off entirely for family time: "I still work 80 hours a week," he admitted to Mark Lisheron of the Austin American-Statesman. "It used to be 80 hours on software, now it's 40 hours on software and 40 hours on Armadillo." Carmack did ease up a bit after he and his wife, Anna Kang, had their first child in 2004—he was getting home from the office at about midnight instead of 2:00 AM or 3:00 AM. Kang, however, insists that Sunday is family day, so Carmack compromises by reading technical manuals to his infant son. ref. http://www.notablebiographies.com/news/A-Ca/Carmack-John.html http://www.notablebiographies.com/news/A-Ca/Carmack-John.htm...