3 ms·

Well, a few thoughts. 1) There's a huge difference between a temporary 'crunch' (as in the examples you gave) and a prevailing company culture; organising a co

by mft_ 3y ago

Well, a few thoughts. 1) There's a huge difference between a temporary 'crunch' (as in the examples you gave) and a prevailing company culture; organising a company such that the (unwritten?) expectation is of '007' working just shouldn't be an acceptable model. 2) I think you're conflating two different issues, deliberately or not. Fundamentally, yes, I agree that individuals should have a free choice over how they spend their time and their physical capital in return for money; and further, in this case, given we're taking about educated and sought-after workers, some of the arguments that apply to treatment of lower-paid workers don't apply. However, the issue is to what extent one views it as moral that a company is organised, implicity or explicity, along these lines: as the argument often goes, if you can't run your company profitably or effectively without resorting to such measures, you need to rethink your fundamentals. 3) And here, of course, it's probably not about scraping by in a low-margin sector, given it's R&D and they're apparently offering double the market rate: it's just about an pre-existing toxic company culture. And given what we know about people's output not scaling linearly with extreme hours worked, it doesn't even make rational sense. In theory, they could pay lower (but still attractive) salaries, hire 50% more people, work them less hard, and (all else being equal) probably be even more productive.

MichaelZuo 3y ago
Some small fraction of people are perfectly fine working 12 hours a week a day 7 days a week 50 weeks a year, they can do this with the same amount of strain that the median person experiences in regular 8 hours a day, 40 hour weeks. Do you not believe such people exist?
maxglute 3y ago
>probably not about scraping by in a low-margin sector, TBF Huawei known for shit work culture for past 15 years. Half of which was because they were rapidly expanding global foot print, other half was in survival mode after sanctions. IMO their fundementals were correctly calibrated, first to get as far as they did in as little time as it took, second to survive sanctions that would have killed lesser companies. It's been cycling between opportunity to crisis to opportunity. They're not at position to settle/slow down yet, not if they want to get back to where they were, and beyond. >we know about people's output not scaling linearly Brooks law also states throwing more people at problems don't lead to solutions faster. Besides, East Asian culture is all about squeezing that juice 100% harder to be 20% better than competitors. Also simply not enough supply of skilled talent to hire. SK/JP/TW because they're near peak highskill labour force + demography decline. PRC because they didn't developed talent in semi until recently. Rumors of SMIC being pissed at Huawei for poaching their top talent last few years. There's limited pool of the best, only thing to do is pay them well, crunch them hard, for essentially manhattan project tier effort.
roenxi 3y ago
The US is trying to take Huawei out. And trying to strangle China's technological development and cripple their military options. In the face of that, outrageous hours become an acceptable model. Especially if the workers are agreeing to it voluntarily and are compenstaed fairly for the horrible conditions. Although if I personally were managing the situation I'd be aiming for an 8-8-8 shift schedule where everyone gets lots of rest since I expect that would be more productive. Not to mention 8 is fundamentally more auspicious than 12. China got to where they are by working very hard. They'll likely keep working very hard until it obviously stops working. Haven't talked to anyone in China, but I'm guessing "work hard, get rich" is a message they understand very well at this point both in the pro- and con-.

by mft_ 3y ago

MichaelZuo 3y ago

Some small fraction of people are perfectly fine working 12 hours a week a day 7 days a week 50 weeks a year, they can do this with the same amount of strain that the median person experiences in regular 8 hours a day, 40 hour weeks. Do you not believe such people exist?

maxglute 3y ago

>probably not about scraping by in a low-margin sector, TBF Huawei known for shit work culture for past 15 years. Half of which was because they were rapidly expanding global foot print, other half was in survival mode after sanctions. IMO their fundementals were correctly calibrated, first to get as far as they did in as little time as it took, second to survive sanctions that would have killed lesser companies. It's been cycling between opportunity to crisis to opportunity. They're not at position to settle/slow down yet, not if they want to get back to where they were, and beyond. >we know about people's output not scaling linearly Brooks law also states throwing more people at problems don't lead to solutions faster. Besides, East Asian culture is all about squeezing that juice 100% harder to be 20% better than competitors. Also simply not enough supply of skilled talent to hire. SK/JP/TW because they're near peak highskill labour force + demography decline. PRC because they didn't developed talent in semi until recently. Rumors of SMIC being pissed at Huawei for poaching their top talent last few years. There's limited pool of the best, only thing to do is pay them well, crunch them hard, for essentially manhattan project tier effort.

roenxi 3y ago

The US is trying to take Huawei out. And trying to strangle China's technological development and cripple their military options. In the face of that, outrageous hours become an acceptable model. Especially if the workers are agreeing to it voluntarily and are compenstaed fairly for the horrible conditions. Although if I personally were managing the situation I'd be aiming for an 8-8-8 shift schedule where everyone gets lots of rest since I expect that would be more productive. Not to mention 8 is fundamentally more auspicious than 12. China got to where they are by working very hard. They'll likely keep working very hard until it obviously stops working. Haven't talked to anyone in China, but I'm guessing "work hard, get rich" is a message they understand very well at this point both in the pro- and con-.