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"she is known for pulling 130-hour work weeks and trading sleep for a few more hours in front of a laptop" Is this even humanly possible? What does that leave
by monkeyfacebag 14y ago
"she is known for pulling 130-hour work weeks and trading sleep for a few more hours in front of a laptop"
Is this even humanly possible? What does that leave, 5 hours a day for sleeping, even on weekends?
- GuiA 14y agoThis has been discussed far and wide on HN. The basic consensus is that she mentioned this once to a journalist, and her 130 hour workweek was likely a once in a lifetime kind of thing. But journalists like to spin things up and the media is often just a game of telephone; and boom, you end up reading in articles all over that Marissa Mayer pulls 130 hours work week every week. One thing that I've learned living in Silicon Valley and meeting "famous" people regularly is that they're almost never as smart, brilliant, hard-working, etc. as the press makes them up to be. Sure, there are a lot of hard-working talented people here, but the image that the worldwide press builds of them is just plain exaggerated (and I guess it's their job to do so).
- gwern 14y ago((7 * 24) - 130) / 7 = 5.43, actually. I suppose it's possible, although if I were to seriously contemplate such a thing, I'd want a supply of modafinil or amphetamines laid in...
- ricardonunez 14y agoIt is possible. I did it in college for a week. Couple of days is easy, but after six days you feel that is messing with your system. Like another comment mentioned it was a once in a lifetime kind of thing. I don't recommend it to anybody.
- felipemnoa 14y agoNow assuming that she commutes, takes showers, eats, bathroom breaks, then that means that she was sleeping even less than that.
- gaius 14y agoOnly Americans believe that 130 hours in the office constitutes a 130 hour working week. Which is why the French work 35 hours a week, yet Airbus is as productive as Boeing.
- JumpCrisscross 14y agoI slept under my desk and showered at the office gym once for two weeks and pulled about if not more than that. Not sustainable, but not unnatural either - I don't drink coffee and think I had a Red Bull once or twice.
- msellout 14y agoYes, I have done this. A few times. I think for not more than one week at a time.
- Uchikoma 14y agoI did this for one month for my master exams - I had to catch up on a lot of things due to working in a startup ;-) I was a wreck in the end.