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> He's pushing back on the very specific claim that working fewer hours leads to higher productivity. And rightfully so. Ask anyone who's been through the grin
by mjr00 3y ago
> He's pushing back on the very specific claim that working fewer hours leads to higher productivity.
And rightfully so. Ask anyone who's been through the grind of a startup; for knowledge workers, pulling 80 hour weeks does get shit done faster than working 35 hour weeks. To say otherwise is wishful thinking.
But yes, he was responding specifically to a comment about his work ethic as described Masters of Doom. It's much different when you are working in a small team, on a project you're passionate about, which will make you an enormous amount of money if it succeeds.
Should you put in 80 hour weeks when you are FAANG employee #35,714? Probably not, unless you see some strategic career reason, i.e. project is public and high-profile which you can then leverage to get a job at a competitor for 50% raise, etc.
If you put in 80 hour weeks as FAANG employee #35,714, would you accomplish more? Absolutely. Would your personal life suffer? Absolutely.
- cultofmetatron 3y ago> pulling 80 hour weeks does get shit done faster than working 35 hour weeks. sure in the short run that holds true. its just not sustainable. most people will burn out spectacularly after a few months of this and prolly leave the industry entirely.
- JohnFen 3y agoYeah, I'm mostly with you. I do think that most people won't produce more (of the same quality) working 80 hours/wk unless they are exceptionally motivated. However, with the right motivation, people will. I'm guessing that what that motivation looks like varies from person to person. For me, it's when I'm starting my own venture. I'm willing to sacrifice to such an extreme degree for that. I cannot imagine any other company being able to come up with sufficient motivation to make it possible for me to work productively 80 hours/week, though. It's not a matter of me being willing to do it, it's a matter that I wouldn't be able to do it.
- bombcar 3y agoIt doesn’t have to be the same quality. Everyone has five or ten hours a week where they’re just in the zone. The question is do you have more work done after 35+X hours than you did at 35? If not, what were the X hours actually doing? Decompiling?
- welshwelsh 3y agoAfter the 5-10 hours a week when you are "in the zone" you start borrowing time. It's possible to sustain productivity for significantly longer than that, but it comes at the expense of rest, which leads to burnout. When you burn out, you no longer get 5-10 hours of focus per week; that time goes to recovery from last week.
- chris222 3y agoDisagree. 80 hour weeks is not sustainable so if you are basing your startup success on that than you are doomed.
- SketchySeaBeast 3y agoOr you're making Doom.
- desmosxxx 3y agoIt is certainly sustainable to some people and I'd wager many startup founders.
- desmosxxx 3y agoMan this comment resonated with me. I am fully capable of doing productive 80 hour weeks sustainably - I did most weeks for 15 years. Took me that amount of time (and marriage, kids etc.) to realize just because I can doesn't mean I should, especially now that I'm seeing diminishing returns in terms of reward. Still love my work, it has been difficult to dial back honestly.
- disgruntledphd2 3y agoWhere did you find the time for this? That's 14 hrs per day with a two day weekend or 11 hours over seven days. The 5 day week is 8am to 10pm which is just insane while I could probably do seven days for maybe a month, I definitely couldn't sustain this for fifteen years. Even when I had a full time job and a PhD to finish, I rarely went over 60 so super curious how you accomplished this.
- desmosxxx 3y ago7 day option
- disgruntledphd2 3y agoWow, more power to you for being able to sustain that, I almost certainly couldn't. I can definitely do six days a week relatively consistently, but seven is definitely a bridge too far for me.