7 ms·

I've seen paying people too much completely erode the core of teams. It's really hard to convince yourself to work 60 hour weeks when you have generational FU$

by elif 1y ago

I've seen paying people too much completely erode the core of teams. It's really hard to convince yourself to work 60 hour weeks when you have generational FU$ and a family you love.

michaelanckaert 1y ago
Is working than 60 hours a week necessary to have a good team? Sure, having FU$ as you put it removes the necessity to keep the scale of your work life balance tipped to the benefit if your employer. But again, a good work life balance should not imply erosion the team.
bravesoul2 1y ago
I'd say it would be easier to do 60 hours when you can afford servants to take care of the rest of life.
nilkn 1y ago
There's limited or no evidence of this in other domains where astonishing pay packages are used to assemble the best teams in the world (e.g., sports).
- sorcerer-mar 1y ago
  Sports have a much, much tighter feedback loop on performance than anything in software, and certainly tighter than R&D. Same with a lot of the financial roles with comp distributions like this.
  - nilkn 1y ago
    Either Meta makes rapid progress on frontier-level AI in the next year or it doesn't -- there's definitely a feedback loop that's measured in tangible units of time. I don't think it's unreasonable to assume that when Zuck personally hires you at this level of compensation, there will be performance expectations and you won't stick around for long if you don't deliver. Even in top-tier sports, many underperformers manage to stick around for a couple years or even a half-decade at seven or eight figure compensation before being shown the door.
    - sorcerer-mar 1y ago
      In reality all frontier models will likely progress at nearly the same pace making it difficult to disaggregate this team's performance compared to others. More importantly, it'll be nearly impossible to disaggregate any one contributor's performance from the others, making it basically impossible to enforce accountability without many many repetitions to eliminate noise. > Even in top-tier sports, many underperformers stick around for a couple years or a half-decade at seven or eight figure compensation before being shown the door. This can happen in the explicit hopes that their performance improves, not because it's unclear whether they are performing, and not generally over lapses in contract.
      - nilkn 1y ago
        There are plenty of established performance management mechanisms to determine individual contributions, so while I wouldn't say that's a complete nonissue, it's not a major problem. The output of the team is more important to the business anyway (as is the case in sports, too). And if the team produces results on par with the best results being attained anywhere else on the planet, Zuck would likely consider that a success, not a failure. After all, what's motivating him here is that his current team is not producing that level of results. And if he has a small but nonzero chance of pushing ahead of anyone else in the world, that's not an unreasonable thing to make a bet on. I'd also point out that this sort of situation is common in the executive world, just not in the engineering world. Pretty much every top-tier executive at top-tier companies is making seven or eight figures as table stakes. There's no evidence I'm aware of that this reduces executive or executive team performance. Really, the evidence is the opposite -- companies continue paying more and more to assemble the best executive teams because they find it's actually worth it.
        sorcerer-mar 1y ago
        > There are plenty of established performance management mechanisms to determine individual contributions "Established" != valid, and literally everyone knows that. The executives you reference are never ICs and are definitionally accountable to the measured performance of their business line. These are not superstar hires the way that AI researchers (or athletes) are. The body in the chair is totally interchangeable so long as the spreadsheet says the right number, and you expect the spreadsheet performance to be only marginally controlled by the particular body in the chair. That's not the case with most of these hires.
  - roguecoder 1y ago
    I disagree. If you want similarly-tight feedback loops on performance, pair programming/TDD provides it. And even if you hate real-time collaboration or are working in different time zones, delightful code reviews on small slices get pretty close.
    - sorcerer-mar 1y ago
      Are these people just “programming?”
- dbspin 1y ago
  There's vast social honour and commensurate status attached to activities like bing a sports / movie star. Status that can easily be lost, and cannot be purchased for almost any amount of money. Arguably that status is a greater motivator than the financial reward - ie.: see the South Korean idol system. It's certainly not going to be diminished as a motivator by financial reward. There's no equivalent for AI researchers. At best the very best may win the acclaim of their peers and a Nobel prize. It's not a remotely equivalent level of celebrity / access to all the treasures the world can provide.
  - nilkn 1y ago
    Top AI researchers are about the closest thing to celebrity status that has ever been attainable for engineering / CS folks outside of winning a Nobel Prize. Of course, the dopamine cycle and public recognition and adoration are nowhere near the same level as professional sports, but someone being personally courted by the world's richest CEOs handing out $100M+ packages is still decidedly not experiencing anything close to a normal life. Some of these folks still had their hiring announced on the front pages of the NYT and WSJ -- something normally reserved for top CEOs or, yes, sports stars and other legitimate celebrities.
- sebastos 1y ago
  Take-one-for-the-team salaries trump there too. Tom Brady and the Patriots dynasty say hi.
dmoy 1y ago
Man I disagree with this on multiple points: I wouldn't describe a team full of people who don't want to work 60 hour weeks as "eroded", cus like... That's 6x 10 hour days leaving incredibly little time for family, chores, unwinding, etc. Once in awhile maybe, but sustained that'll just burn people out. And also by that logic, is every executive paid $5M+/yr in every company, or every person who's accumulated say $20M, also eroding their team? Or is that only applied to someone who isn't managing people, for some reason?
- azan_ 1y ago
  There are people that are capable of working 60+/week long term without burnout, they are very rare but do exist (I know like two or three).
  - Koffiepoeder 1y ago
    I know many, though most of them are either founders, business owners or farmers. FWIW, only one person in that list is an employee.
    - dmoy 1y ago
      I guess there's a subset that sustains for a known set of years - surgical residents. 60-80+ hours
gosub100 1y ago
That's why CEO pay is so low. They take the honor in leadership and across the board just take a menial compensation package. Why work hard , 60 hrs a week even, if you get paid FU$? This is why boards limit comp packages so aggressively.
driverdan 1y ago
> It's really hard to convince yourself to work 60 hour weeks Why would they do that? There is absolutely no reason to overwork.
RogerL 1y ago
> really hard to convince yourself to work 60 hour weeks Good!
inerte 1y ago
I was ready to downvote you giving examples how +$100m net worth individuals are probably the hardest workers (or were, to get there) just like most of the people replying to you, but your `and a family you love` tripped me. I sorta agree... if you want be maximize time with family and you have FU$, would you really really work that hard? I am not saying exactly they don't love their family... but it's not necessarily a priority over glory, more money, or being competitive. And if the relationship is healthy and built on solid foundations usually the partner knows what they're getting into and accept the other person (children on the other hand had no choice). It's a weird take to tie this up with team morale, tough.
roguecoder 1y ago
Working more than 50 hours a week is counter-productive, and even working 50 hours a week isn't consistently more productive than working 40 hours a week. It is very easy to mistake _feeling_ productive and close with your coworkers for _being_ productive. That's why we can't rely on our feelings to judge productivity.

by elif 1y ago

I've seen paying people too much completely erode the core of teams. It's really hard to convince yourself to work 60 hour weeks when you have generational FU$ and a family you love.

michaelanckaert 1y ago

Is working than 60 hours a week necessary to have a good team? Sure, having FU$ as you put it removes the necessity to keep the scale of your work life balance tipped to the benefit if your employer. But again, a good work life balance should not imply erosion the team.

bravesoul2 1y ago

I'd say it would be easier to do 60 hours when you can afford servants to take care of the rest of life.

nilkn 1y ago

There's limited or no evidence of this in other domains where astonishing pay packages are used to assemble the best teams in the world (e.g., sports).

sorcerer-mar 1y ago
Sports have a much, much tighter feedback loop on performance than anything in software, and certainly tighter than R&D. Same with a lot of the financial roles with comp distributions like this.
- nilkn 1y ago
  Either Meta makes rapid progress on frontier-level AI in the next year or it doesn't -- there's definitely a feedback loop that's measured in tangible units of time. I don't think it's unreasonable to assume that when Zuck personally hires you at this level of compensation, there will be performance expectations and you won't stick around for long if you don't deliver. Even in top-tier sports, many underperformers manage to stick around for a couple years or even a half-decade at seven or eight figure compensation before being shown the door.
  - sorcerer-mar 1y ago
    In reality all frontier models will likely progress at nearly the same pace making it difficult to disaggregate this team's performance compared to others. More importantly, it'll be nearly impossible to disaggregate any one contributor's performance from the others, making it basically impossible to enforce accountability without many many repetitions to eliminate noise. > Even in top-tier sports, many underperformers stick around for a couple years or a half-decade at seven or eight figure compensation before being shown the door. This can happen in the explicit hopes that their performance improves, not because it's unclear whether they are performing, and not generally over lapses in contract.
    - nilkn 1y ago
      There are plenty of established performance management mechanisms to determine individual contributions, so while I wouldn't say that's a complete nonissue, it's not a major problem. The output of the team is more important to the business anyway (as is the case in sports, too). And if the team produces results on par with the best results being attained anywhere else on the planet, Zuck would likely consider that a success, not a failure. After all, what's motivating him here is that his current team is not producing that level of results. And if he has a small but nonzero chance of pushing ahead of anyone else in the world, that's not an unreasonable thing to make a bet on. I'd also point out that this sort of situation is common in the executive world, just not in the engineering world. Pretty much every top-tier executive at top-tier companies is making seven or eight figures as table stakes. There's no evidence I'm aware of that this reduces executive or executive team performance. Really, the evidence is the opposite -- companies continue paying more and more to assemble the best executive teams because they find it's actually worth it.
      - sorcerer-mar 1y ago
        > There are plenty of established performance management mechanisms to determine individual contributions "Established" != valid, and literally everyone knows that. The executives you reference are never ICs and are definitionally accountable to the measured performance of their business line. These are not superstar hires the way that AI researchers (or athletes) are. The body in the chair is totally interchangeable so long as the spreadsheet says the right number, and you expect the spreadsheet performance to be only marginally controlled by the particular body in the chair. That's not the case with most of these hires.
- roguecoder 1y ago
  I disagree. If you want similarly-tight feedback loops on performance, pair programming/TDD provides it. And even if you hate real-time collaboration or are working in different time zones, delightful code reviews on small slices get pretty close.
  - sorcerer-mar 1y ago
    Are these people just “programming?”
dbspin 1y ago
There's vast social honour and commensurate status attached to activities like bing a sports / movie star. Status that can easily be lost, and cannot be purchased for almost any amount of money. Arguably that status is a greater motivator than the financial reward - ie.: see the South Korean idol system. It's certainly not going to be diminished as a motivator by financial reward. There's no equivalent for AI researchers. At best the very best may win the acclaim of their peers and a Nobel prize. It's not a remotely equivalent level of celebrity / access to all the treasures the world can provide.
- nilkn 1y ago
  Top AI researchers are about the closest thing to celebrity status that has ever been attainable for engineering / CS folks outside of winning a Nobel Prize. Of course, the dopamine cycle and public recognition and adoration are nowhere near the same level as professional sports, but someone being personally courted by the world's richest CEOs handing out $100M+ packages is still decidedly not experiencing anything close to a normal life. Some of these folks still had their hiring announced on the front pages of the NYT and WSJ -- something normally reserved for top CEOs or, yes, sports stars and other legitimate celebrities.
sebastos 1y ago
Take-one-for-the-team salaries trump there too. Tom Brady and the Patriots dynasty say hi.

dmoy 1y ago

Man I disagree with this on multiple points: I wouldn't describe a team full of people who don't want to work 60 hour weeks as "eroded", cus like... That's 6x 10 hour days leaving incredibly little time for family, chores, unwinding, etc. Once in awhile maybe, but sustained that'll just burn people out. And also by that logic, is every executive paid $5M+/yr in every company, or every person who's accumulated say $20M, also eroding their team? Or is that only applied to someone who isn't managing people, for some reason?

azan_ 1y ago
There are people that are capable of working 60+/week long term without burnout, they are very rare but do exist (I know like two or three).
- Koffiepoeder 1y ago
  I know many, though most of them are either founders, business owners or farmers. FWIW, only one person in that list is an employee.
  - dmoy 1y ago
    I guess there's a subset that sustains for a known set of years - surgical residents. 60-80+ hours

gosub100 1y ago

That's why CEO pay is so low. They take the honor in leadership and across the board just take a menial compensation package. Why work hard , 60 hrs a week even, if you get paid FU$? This is why boards limit comp packages so aggressively.

driverdan 1y ago

> It's really hard to convince yourself to work 60 hour weeks Why would they do that? There is absolutely no reason to overwork.

RogerL 1y ago

> really hard to convince yourself to work 60 hour weeks Good!

inerte 1y ago

I was ready to downvote you giving examples how +$100m net worth individuals are probably the hardest workers (or were, to get there) just like most of the people replying to you, but your `and a family you love` tripped me. I sorta agree... if you want be maximize time with family and you have FU$, would you really really work that hard? I am not saying exactly they don't love their family... but it's not necessarily a priority over glory, more money, or being competitive. And if the relationship is healthy and built on solid foundations usually the partner knows what they're getting into and accept the other person (children on the other hand had no choice). It's a weird take to tie this up with team morale, tough.

roguecoder 1y ago

Working more than 50 hours a week is counter-productive, and even working 50 hours a week isn't consistently more productive than working 40 hours a week. It is very easy to mistake _feeling_ productive and close with your coworkers for _being_ productive. That's why we can't rely on our feelings to judge productivity.