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The fact that John Carmack thinks he needs to respond to articles targeted at the general population is a little bit surprising to me. Is it not obvious to John

The fact that John Carmack thinks he needs to respond to articles targeted at the general population is a little bit surprising to me. Is it not obvious to John that he is at least 4-5 standard deviations from the mean here? I would be more than happy to listen to John talk about what works for him and strategies that he finds effective. But hearing him try and critique articles targeted at the average person or average developer or even average 10x developer... like... Does he not understand how different other people's lives are than his? It reminds me of when you hear politicians try and talk about the struggles of regular people. It is so cringe.

Aeolun 3y ago
I think he just very rarely has a moment when he’s just really done. Which is probably because he’s mostly worked on things that he wanted to be working on. I find this mindset easy to replicate when working on my personal projects. Effectiveness may drop a bit after 1am for obvious reasons, but otherwise any hour is much like another. The problem comes when trying to get yourself to do something that you don’t really want to do, or when you need to deal with the umpteenth time someone broke the same system due to the same mistake or the third discussion in a day where people miss the obvious solution. You can only have so much of that in a day before you mentally check out.
- fhd2 3y ago
  I believe working on something you really want to do is even just one variable. There's also stuff like: 1. Do you have enough ownership to at least sit at the table when it's decided what exactly you work on and how you do it? Can you affect strategy, goals, priorities, timelines and design? 2. Do you reap at least part of the reward (financial, appreciation, status)? Does it feel fair compared to what others get out of it based on their contribution? 3. Does the actual day to day work involve sufficient things that energise you, and few enough things that drain you? Do you have the power to delegate the latter to at least some degree? I've never met an employee who can answer all of these with yes, but they're crucial for getting things done in a truly motivated and successful fashion, at least for me. Employers don't typically give up more power/rewards than they feel they have to, though. Ever since I went independent, I have a lot of this. That power over my own work and fortune is a phenomenal motivator, and I really enjoy work these days. I know I can work less if I feel like it, it's my decision. I can only imagine how much _more_ of this Carmack has, being rich, successful and highly respected from a young age. I don't know him, but I'd give him the benefit of the doubt and say he must honestly have no idea what it's like to not have that.
fasterik 3y ago
It doesn't seem to me like he is generalizing from his experience and applying it to the general population. He's pushing back on the very specific claim that working fewer hours leads to higher productivity. He admits that this might be true for certain assembly line-type jobs or jobs where someone just wants to collect a paycheck, but it's not necessarily true in the case of knowledge workers who care about what they are working on. I think that applies to a substantial minority of people in developed countries.
- threeseed 3y ago
  He's pushing back on the idea with zero research and zero expertise. You could literally ask your taxi driver for their thoughts and it would be as helpful. I prefer to see what the outcomes are from real-world experiments which to date are showing that shorter work weeks can be effective in many situations.
  - fasterik 3y ago
    Disagree. Sure, he's not an empirical researcher, but he does have decades of experience being highly productive. I think his opinion holds some weight. He's also clear that he's speaking from personal experience and not making a scientific claim.
    - JKCalhoun 3y ago
      > but he does have decades of experience being highly productive ...in software engineering. But then he steers into talk about menial jobs. I worked minimum wage jobs for over a decade before I got an app published. I rather doubt Carmack worked a manual job for very long but perhaps someone can correct me.
      - fasterik 3y ago
        He clearly said that his points apply to "knowledge workers with some tactical discretion". He's not talking about productivity in menial jobs.
madrox 3y ago
I find it rather cringe that we are judging where Carmack chooses to spend his spare time in a thread about people working less (where he was explicitly mentioned in the parent comment he responded to). In addition to being an engineer, he's a leader of engineering teams. He would benefit more than most from applying cutting edge managerial science in organizations he operates. As an older engineer I find Carmack's observations interesting and quite accurate.
- fijiaarone 3y ago
  That’s an important point. In 2016, John Carmack is speaking as a manager who doesn’t even have to show up for his job about wanting to extract more value from the employees working under him on his hobby project. He wants them to work harder on his stupid VR goggles fetish. It had been more than 20 years since Carmack pulled an all nighter working on Doom, and he’s been coasting along ever since.

Aeolun 3y ago

I think he just very rarely has a moment when he’s just really done. Which is probably because he’s mostly worked on things that he wanted to be working on. I find this mindset easy to replicate when working on my personal projects. Effectiveness may drop a bit after 1am for obvious reasons, but otherwise any hour is much like another. The problem comes when trying to get yourself to do something that you don’t really want to do, or when you need to deal with the umpteenth time someone broke the same system due to the same mistake or the third discussion in a day where people miss the obvious solution. You can only have so much of that in a day before you mentally check out.

fhd2 3y ago
I believe working on something you really want to do is even just one variable. There's also stuff like: 1. Do you have enough ownership to at least sit at the table when it's decided what exactly you work on and how you do it? Can you affect strategy, goals, priorities, timelines and design? 2. Do you reap at least part of the reward (financial, appreciation, status)? Does it feel fair compared to what others get out of it based on their contribution? 3. Does the actual day to day work involve sufficient things that energise you, and few enough things that drain you? Do you have the power to delegate the latter to at least some degree? I've never met an employee who can answer all of these with yes, but they're crucial for getting things done in a truly motivated and successful fashion, at least for me. Employers don't typically give up more power/rewards than they feel they have to, though. Ever since I went independent, I have a lot of this. That power over my own work and fortune is a phenomenal motivator, and I really enjoy work these days. I know I can work less if I feel like it, it's my decision. I can only imagine how much _more_ of this Carmack has, being rich, successful and highly respected from a young age. I don't know him, but I'd give him the benefit of the doubt and say he must honestly have no idea what it's like to not have that.

fasterik 3y ago

It doesn't seem to me like he is generalizing from his experience and applying it to the general population. He's pushing back on the very specific claim that working fewer hours leads to higher productivity. He admits that this might be true for certain assembly line-type jobs or jobs where someone just wants to collect a paycheck, but it's not necessarily true in the case of knowledge workers who care about what they are working on. I think that applies to a substantial minority of people in developed countries.

threeseed 3y ago
He's pushing back on the idea with zero research and zero expertise. You could literally ask your taxi driver for their thoughts and it would be as helpful. I prefer to see what the outcomes are from real-world experiments which to date are showing that shorter work weeks can be effective in many situations.
- fasterik 3y ago
  Disagree. Sure, he's not an empirical researcher, but he does have decades of experience being highly productive. I think his opinion holds some weight. He's also clear that he's speaking from personal experience and not making a scientific claim.
  - JKCalhoun 3y ago
    > but he does have decades of experience being highly productive ...in software engineering. But then he steers into talk about menial jobs. I worked minimum wage jobs for over a decade before I got an app published. I rather doubt Carmack worked a manual job for very long but perhaps someone can correct me.
    - fasterik 3y ago
      He clearly said that his points apply to "knowledge workers with some tactical discretion". He's not talking about productivity in menial jobs.

madrox 3y ago

I find it rather cringe that we are judging where Carmack chooses to spend his spare time in a thread about people working less (where he was explicitly mentioned in the parent comment he responded to). In addition to being an engineer, he's a leader of engineering teams. He would benefit more than most from applying cutting edge managerial science in organizations he operates. As an older engineer I find Carmack's observations interesting and quite accurate.

fijiaarone 3y ago
That’s an important point. In 2016, John Carmack is speaking as a manager who doesn’t even have to show up for his job about wanting to extract more value from the employees working under him on his hobby project. He wants them to work harder on his stupid VR goggles fetish. It had been more than 20 years since Carmack pulled an all nighter working on Doom, and he’s been coasting along ever since.