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I have no idea whether Europeans work harder than Americans, but I do want to say that you can't extrapolate the overall work ethic of America by looking at the

I have no idea whether Europeans work harder than Americans, but I do want to say that you can't extrapolate the overall work ethic of America by looking at the SF tech world. It's a very, very small (and very privileged) microcosm of the country.

tadfisher 2y ago
Couched in the article: > US folks love talking about how hard they work. And honestly with service workers and blue collars I believe it. But not in tech.
- darth_avocado 2y ago
  > In SF you frequently hear big tech people talking how hard they work, while they queue 30mins for a coffee at Blue Bottle and chitchatting there for another 20mins. Might be true for an established rest and vest company or position like sales or marketing, but the article seems to be wanting EU to be easier for startups. Not a single startup has that culture, especially when you’re building it from the ground up. You’re most definitely working 1.5-2x the hours as a regular job when it comes to starting a company and making it successful, even as an employee.
  - braiamp 2y ago
    Also couched in the article: > Americans love their hero-arcs so much that people manage to spin anything into a “coming from nothing story” – even if they got their first investments from their uncle and worked for free in the “garage” of their parents multi-million-dollar house in Palo Alto.
    - zkid18 2y ago
      It's hard to argue against the fact that access to opportunities is not evenly distributed across different states.
    - xhkkffbf 2y ago
      It's a bit unfair to talk about the garages in Palo Alto being attached to "multi-million-dollar" houses. When the people starting Apple, HP, Google and Facebook took over a garage, the places were solidly middle class. Even now, the price tags distort our perceptions. I've heard some venture capitalists say that most of their investments would go for salaries that would be turned over to the real estate world.
      - dukeyukey 2y ago
        I mean, I live in London in the biggest place I've ever lived in (700sqft!) since moving out of my parents home. Having a garage would add another £200/month easily. Having that amount of spare room in a tech hub is a massive advantage!
        AlchemistCamp 2y ago
        Apple didn't start in New York, which was a major hub and where space was at way too much of a premium for teenagers to have free reign to build things in a garage. It started in a middle class suburb. The area later became very expensive, largely due to the success of so many startups. Move to a suburb of Birmingham or Manchester, an hour outside of the city (just as SV was from SF, and then there will be plenty of room for teenagers to build things in garages.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
duxup 2y ago
Heck you can't even generalize about American tech industry and only talk about SF tech world. Granted that generalization is done in America too. It's always a bit of a frustration running into constant comparisons, managers who want to emulate processes, and such when "Hey, you know what, we're not them... and we're doing well being ourselves." Not that you immediately dismiss new ideas because they seem to be from there, but don't just adopt them arbitrarily or operate like them too. I have a sneaky suspicion that "most" of the American tech industry is NOT at all like SF / valley tech world.
- relaxing 2y ago
  It really isn’t! A lot of the SV stuff on here is frankly baffling to the rest of the country.
  - holtkam2 2y ago
    Agreed. I worked in tech in Chicago from 2017-2021 before moving to SF to take a new job in SF @ big tech. Feels like a different planet.
lookitsnicholas 2y ago
am pretty sure that the post also acknowledged that w/ "I don’t disagree. SF is a unique place. We currently don’t try to get on the level of SF. We are trying not to fall behind China, India and random second- and third-degree hubs in the US."
jandrese 2y ago
I have to admit I raised an eyebrow at Greece being near the top of the list. That's going against stereotype hard.
- boringg 2y ago
  Thats because they refactored their economy during the debt crises.
- NeutralForest 2y ago
  What is not mentioned in the article is that productivity is much more important than the number of hours worked. By productivity, I mean output per hour worked, which is usually an estimation made from the total output of the country (GDP) and the numbers of hours worked by the working population.
  - epolanski 2y ago
    Well, that's a very inadequate productivity metric imho. How can two people with exactly the same output (say two doctors working a shift with similar number of patience) lead one to be 20 times more productive because one bills $400 per hour and the other makes that number in a week (such as in say Turkey). That's a 40x difference in productivity.
    - NeutralForest 2y ago
      You would usually use Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) such that comparison between countries is possible, because as you pointed, comparisons in absolute values between countries are not useful.
- jorvi 2y ago
  It is hours worked, not productivity. If a shopkeeper takes a three hour lunch and sits in the sun in front of his shop half the time but stays open from 08:00-20:00 according to the stats he’s working 12h days.
  - 2y ago
raverbashing 2y ago
On this point, I suspect something: (Some) Europeans work more hours, but less efficiently Go to a supermarket in Germany, see how quick a cashier rings your order. (yes self-checkout does exist) And this is not only a North/South (or West) divide. Germans have their way of wasting "work energy" in some micro-bureaucracies in one way or another (and still they are more efficient than the average worker) Some other southern countries will waste more time doing some things while in some other areas they will be the fastest/least-bs players around. > But Americans definitely love talking about how hard they work; way more than we do. Can't disagree with this.
jandrewrogers 2y ago
In my experience, American and European software developers work similarly "hard", that is not explanatory. There are noticeable cultural differences in how they spend their working time. American software developers have a tendency toward more ambitious and therefore risky solutions to problems, which have a higher variance in outcomes. European software development seems to gravitate toward what is seen as the safe conservative solution always. You may find yourself working more hours to deal with the risks that materialize as an American but sometimes that ambition pays off and you make a significant leap forward, and I suspect there is a higher sense of satisfaction with this result when it pans out. Particularly in the west coast tech cities, tolerance for both the risk of ambitious approaches and dealing with the consequences is dialed up anomalously high, that is just the water you swim in. With the higher risk tolerance, both cultural and what the business allows, comes a requirement to be willing to work extra hours when needed for when it blows up in your face. This is sporadic, most days they don't work any harder than Europeans. Many Americans value the freedom to take ambitious risks more than they hate the downsides of that risk-taking.
atmosx 2y ago
To be fair, the author wrote about tech workers in SV specifically, not about the "overall work with of America" (which btw is a continent, not a country). The hero arc story is true and has to do with large Protestant population.
- relaxing 2y ago
  There is no continent called America.
  - em-bee 2y ago
    they are talking about the americas: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Americas https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Americas which is sometimes called america. (mostly in non english native countries i suspect)
    - pvitz 2y ago
      No, certainly the USA (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States). The author is most likely Austrian or German and it is quite common to say "Amerika" for the USA there.
      - em-bee 2y ago
        it is also equally common there to have an argument about that, just like on HN ;-) i was referring to this btw: America" (which btw is a continent, not a country)
        AlchemistCamp 2y ago
        アメリカ (the romanization of America) is also how the country is referred to in Japanese. There are many languages (including English) that use America as the common name for the United States of America. A notable exception, and where much of the disagreement comes from is Spanish. I generally try to follow the convention of the language I'm speaking.

tadfisher 2y ago

Couched in the article: > US folks love talking about how hard they work. And honestly with service workers and blue collars I believe it. But not in tech.

darth_avocado 2y ago
> In SF you frequently hear big tech people talking how hard they work, while they queue 30mins for a coffee at Blue Bottle and chitchatting there for another 20mins. Might be true for an established rest and vest company or position like sales or marketing, but the article seems to be wanting EU to be easier for startups. Not a single startup has that culture, especially when you’re building it from the ground up. You’re most definitely working 1.5-2x the hours as a regular job when it comes to starting a company and making it successful, even as an employee.
- braiamp 2y ago
  Also couched in the article: > Americans love their hero-arcs so much that people manage to spin anything into a “coming from nothing story” – even if they got their first investments from their uncle and worked for free in the “garage” of their parents multi-million-dollar house in Palo Alto.
  - zkid18 2y ago
    It's hard to argue against the fact that access to opportunities is not evenly distributed across different states.
  - xhkkffbf 2y ago
    It's a bit unfair to talk about the garages in Palo Alto being attached to "multi-million-dollar" houses. When the people starting Apple, HP, Google and Facebook took over a garage, the places were solidly middle class. Even now, the price tags distort our perceptions. I've heard some venture capitalists say that most of their investments would go for salaries that would be turned over to the real estate world.
    - dukeyukey 2y ago
      I mean, I live in London in the biggest place I've ever lived in (700sqft!) since moving out of my parents home. Having a garage would add another £200/month easily. Having that amount of spare room in a tech hub is a massive advantage!
      - AlchemistCamp 2y ago
        Apple didn't start in New York, which was a major hub and where space was at way too much of a premium for teenagers to have free reign to build things in a garage. It started in a middle class suburb. The area later became very expensive, largely due to the success of so many startups. Move to a suburb of Birmingham or Manchester, an hour outside of the city (just as SV was from SF, and then there will be plenty of room for teenagers to build things in garages.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

duxup 2y ago

Heck you can't even generalize about American tech industry and only talk about SF tech world. Granted that generalization is done in America too. It's always a bit of a frustration running into constant comparisons, managers who want to emulate processes, and such when "Hey, you know what, we're not them... and we're doing well being ourselves." Not that you immediately dismiss new ideas because they seem to be from there, but don't just adopt them arbitrarily or operate like them too. I have a sneaky suspicion that "most" of the American tech industry is NOT at all like SF / valley tech world.

relaxing 2y ago
It really isn’t! A lot of the SV stuff on here is frankly baffling to the rest of the country.
- holtkam2 2y ago
  Agreed. I worked in tech in Chicago from 2017-2021 before moving to SF to take a new job in SF @ big tech. Feels like a different planet.

lookitsnicholas 2y ago

am pretty sure that the post also acknowledged that w/ "I don’t disagree. SF is a unique place. We currently don’t try to get on the level of SF. We are trying not to fall behind China, India and random second- and third-degree hubs in the US."

jandrese 2y ago

I have to admit I raised an eyebrow at Greece being near the top of the list. That's going against stereotype hard.

boringg 2y ago
Thats because they refactored their economy during the debt crises.
NeutralForest 2y ago
What is not mentioned in the article is that productivity is much more important than the number of hours worked. By productivity, I mean output per hour worked, which is usually an estimation made from the total output of the country (GDP) and the numbers of hours worked by the working population.
- epolanski 2y ago
  Well, that's a very inadequate productivity metric imho. How can two people with exactly the same output (say two doctors working a shift with similar number of patience) lead one to be 20 times more productive because one bills $400 per hour and the other makes that number in a week (such as in say Turkey). That's a 40x difference in productivity.
  - NeutralForest 2y ago
    You would usually use Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) such that comparison between countries is possible, because as you pointed, comparisons in absolute values between countries are not useful.
jorvi 2y ago
It is hours worked, not productivity. If a shopkeeper takes a three hour lunch and sits in the sun in front of his shop half the time but stays open from 08:00-20:00 according to the stats he’s working 12h days.
- 2y ago

raverbashing 2y ago

On this point, I suspect something: (Some) Europeans work more hours, but less efficiently Go to a supermarket in Germany, see how quick a cashier rings your order. (yes self-checkout does exist) And this is not only a North/South (or West) divide. Germans have their way of wasting "work energy" in some micro-bureaucracies in one way or another (and still they are more efficient than the average worker) Some other southern countries will waste more time doing some things while in some other areas they will be the fastest/least-bs players around. > But Americans definitely love talking about how hard they work; way more than we do. Can't disagree with this.

jandrewrogers 2y ago

In my experience, American and European software developers work similarly "hard", that is not explanatory. There are noticeable cultural differences in how they spend their working time. American software developers have a tendency toward more ambitious and therefore risky solutions to problems, which have a higher variance in outcomes. European software development seems to gravitate toward what is seen as the safe conservative solution always. You may find yourself working more hours to deal with the risks that materialize as an American but sometimes that ambition pays off and you make a significant leap forward, and I suspect there is a higher sense of satisfaction with this result when it pans out. Particularly in the west coast tech cities, tolerance for both the risk of ambitious approaches and dealing with the consequences is dialed up anomalously high, that is just the water you swim in. With the higher risk tolerance, both cultural and what the business allows, comes a requirement to be willing to work extra hours when needed for when it blows up in your face. This is sporadic, most days they don't work any harder than Europeans. Many Americans value the freedom to take ambitious risks more than they hate the downsides of that risk-taking.

atmosx 2y ago

To be fair, the author wrote about tech workers in SV specifically, not about the "overall work with of America" (which btw is a continent, not a country). The hero arc story is true and has to do with large Protestant population.

relaxing 2y ago
There is no continent called America.
- em-bee 2y ago
  they are talking about the americas: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Americas https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Americas which is sometimes called america. (mostly in non english native countries i suspect)
  - pvitz 2y ago
    No, certainly the USA (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States). The author is most likely Austrian or German and it is quite common to say "Amerika" for the USA there.
    - em-bee 2y ago
      it is also equally common there to have an argument about that, just like on HN ;-) i was referring to this btw: America" (which btw is a continent, not a country)
      - AlchemistCamp 2y ago
        アメリカ (the romanization of America) is also how the country is referred to in Japanese. There are many languages (including English) that use America as the common name for the United States of America. A notable exception, and where much of the disagreement comes from is Spanish. I generally try to follow the convention of the language I'm speaking.