> and they view people who work less than 80 hours a week as lazy In my last startup in Germany, I worked with a bunch of ex-management consultants who had al

> and they view people who work less than 80 hours a week as lazy In my last startup in Germany, I worked with a bunch of ex-management consultants who had all worked in a famous consultancy in the USA (you've definitely heard of it). They all shared stories of Americans staying 12+ hours in the office but not actually doing anything. It was all performant "we're working really hard", mostly chatting to each other and scrolling social media. The Germans were incredibly frustrated because getting anything actually done was really difficult, and they ended up mostly sharing the work amongst themselves so they could actually get it done. Needless to say, their American colleagues thought they didn't work hard because they left the office after only 10 hours or so. I've seen this in American-influenced startup culture, too - a tendency to use hours spent moistening a chair as a productivity measure, because measuring actual productivity was "too hard".