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Cognition CEO offers buyouts to let workers flee 'extreme' work culture

43 points by Stratoscope 1y ago

schwentkerr 1y ago
My reflections - Windsurf Paradox: When Acquisition Looks Like Extraction https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/windsurf-paradox-when-acquisition-becomes-extraction-schwentker-eucsc https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/windsurf-paradox-when-acquisi...
mullingitover 1y ago
They should all take the buyout. From what I’ve heard, the shell of Windsurf was purchased for their certifications. So all the staff except a single digit few (the ones who do the compliance certification work) will probably be laid off in the not-too-distant future, regardless of whether they take the buyout. So everyone should take the it, rather than get worked to death and then unceremoniously RIF’d in a months.
- DonsDiscountGas 1y ago
  Are certifications really that hard to get that it's easier to purchase a company which already has them? Windsurf isn't a bank, anybody can get Soc 2
  - mullingitover 1y ago
    It's not just SOC2[1], they can do military contracting work. > Windsurf delivers AI-powered coding solutions built for federal agencies, contractors, and system integrators. FedRAMP High authorized and compliant with DoD IL5 and ITAR [1] https://windsurf.com/enterprise/government https://windsurf.com/enterprise/government
villgax 1y ago
Total garbage move & good disclosure/warning of future work culture. Open source really has shown how you do not need so much cruft/guilt-tripping to build on top of good models. How sad is it to over work folks & be proud of it, sure if Cognition equity is going to the trash just as Windsurf's lol, the irony of all this grind. Is the logic that working with AI will need grind, waiting for the burnout blogs to show up here in some time.
- bitwize 1y ago
  The major thing that put John Carmack at the top of his field, even more than his extreme intelligence, was his unrelenting grindset. He would work days and nights, often taking a weekend and locking himself in a hotel room, to solve a problem. He has said in interviews that unless you work those 12+ hour days you just aren't going to write world-class software. If you really want to develop on the cutting edge, you need a lot more than smarts. You have to have that dog in you. That fire in your belly that makes you obsessed, consumed with your work and solving the problems you set out to solve. If you don't... you're gonna lose out to someone who does. Go sling Java for a bank or insurance company, then, if you want to punch out at 5. Scott Wu has that dog in him. It's reasonable for him to expect the same of his employees.
  - charlie-83 1y ago
    I don't really understand this. Surely working 8 hour days just means that it takes you 50% longer to write the same software (in reality less than that since I don't imagine you will be working at peak efficiency in hour 12). Passion is a different thing and I agree you need passion you be the best. While there is clearly a correlation between people with passion and people willing to work more, it don't see why someone can't be passionate and also have other interests or responsibilities outside of work.
    - deleted 1y ago
      [deleted]
    - bitwize 1y ago
      When it comes to loading pig iron, you're really just doing the same thing over and over, so the amount of pig iron you can load in a day scales roughly linearly with the number of hours a day you spend loading pig iron, all else being equal. We know that the design of software is fundamentally a different sort of task than loading pig iron. It requires management of complex amounts of state in working memory, which must be acquired before work begins, and much of which is lost after work ends (or is interrupted), requiring reacquisition when work is restarted. I believe that because of this, Carmack's observation is that more contiguous time spent on the task yields superlinear gains in output, because you're just spending that much more time with the system state in your head. And if you're a really smart guy working on cutting-edge stuff you want to take advantage of those superlinear gains because you are messing with much more deep and complex state, in terms of your own cognition, that would take more time to reacquire when lost.
jubbs 1y ago
I'd only have to read about halfway through that email before I accepted the offer if I was one of the acquired Windsurf employees lol
dyauspitr 1y ago
6 days a week for 80+ hours is 14 hour days. With commuting that’s all your waking hours. Who is working here?
- aitchnyu 1y ago
  Hence the advice to live at work.
burnt-resistor 1y ago
If not offered competitive pay and sometimes founder-preference-equivalent stock, it's stupid to volunteer to be an eager slave on perpetual artificial timelines and crash schedules for peanuts.
cjk 1y ago
Yeah, I’d be taking the buyout. As a hiring manager, I _vastly_ prefer hiring someone that values work-life balance over this grind culture bullshit. YMMV, but in my experience, the folks that care about balance tend to be more focused and productive during the hours they are working. Of course, exceptional circumstances exist where long hours are required. Not disputing that. But making that the default for the company culture is insane.
- oumua_don17 1y ago
  >> Of course, exceptional circumstances exist where long hours are required Sorry, but despite your best intentions, even those long hours are wrong and unnecessary. It's the leadership's planning skills and inability to take responsibility of the exceptional circumstances. In such a situation good leadership just cuts scope without flinching and reflects to avoid a repeat. edit: typo
  - cjk 1y ago
    I’m really only talking about existential threats to the business and things of that ilk. 99% of the things people consider to be “exceptional” are not.
- scarface_74 1y ago
  There are no exceptional circumstances where management should require you to work long hours
  - cjk 1y ago
    I don’t think it’s quite that black and white. If it’s a matter of “we’re going to be insolvent if we don’t hit this deadline”, and you want to keep getting paid, long hours can be justified. That’s not to say it’s not a failure of leadership that led to that situation, but I really am talking about exceptional circumstances, not arbitrarily-imposed deadlines.
    - camgunz 1y ago
flohofwoe 1y ago
Shit like this is why I'm grateful for the worker rights that were paid for with blood in the more civilized parts of the world during the 19th and early 20th century. At least the US seems to be civilized enough that the CEO isn't immediately dragged out to the street to hang from the next traffic light - but maybe that's part of the problem ;)
Quitschquat 1y ago
They are probably in trouble
nunez 1y ago
From TFA: > “We don’t believe in work-life balance—building the future of software engineering is a mission we all care so deeply about that we couldn’t possibly separate the two,” he wrote, per the outlet. “We know that not everyone who joined Windsurf had signed up to join Cognition where we spend 6 days at the office and clock 80+ hour weeks.” 996, American Edition, is almost complete. Thanks, Elon! /s I hope everyone takes the bait while they still can. Absolutely repugnant behavior.

43 points by Stratoscope 1y ago

My reflections - Windsurf Paradox: When Acquisition Looks Like Extraction https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/windsurf-paradox-when-acquisition-becomes-extraction-schwentker-eucsc https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/windsurf-paradox-when-acquisi...

mullingitover 1y ago

They should all take the buyout. From what I’ve heard, the shell of Windsurf was purchased for their certifications. So all the staff except a single digit few (the ones who do the compliance certification work) will probably be laid off in the not-too-distant future, regardless of whether they take the buyout. So everyone should take the it, rather than get worked to death and then unceremoniously RIF’d in a months.

DonsDiscountGas 1y ago
Are certifications really that hard to get that it's easier to purchase a company which already has them? Windsurf isn't a bank, anybody can get Soc 2
- mullingitover 1y ago
  It's not just SOC2[1], they can do military contracting work. > Windsurf delivers AI-powered coding solutions built for federal agencies, contractors, and system integrators. FedRAMP High authorized and compliant with DoD IL5 and ITAR [1] https://windsurf.com/enterprise/government https://windsurf.com/enterprise/government

villgax 1y ago

Total garbage move & good disclosure/warning of future work culture. Open source really has shown how you do not need so much cruft/guilt-tripping to build on top of good models. How sad is it to over work folks & be proud of it, sure if Cognition equity is going to the trash just as Windsurf's lol, the irony of all this grind. Is the logic that working with AI will need grind, waiting for the burnout blogs to show up here in some time.

bitwize 1y ago
The major thing that put John Carmack at the top of his field, even more than his extreme intelligence, was his unrelenting grindset. He would work days and nights, often taking a weekend and locking himself in a hotel room, to solve a problem. He has said in interviews that unless you work those 12+ hour days you just aren't going to write world-class software. If you really want to develop on the cutting edge, you need a lot more than smarts. You have to have that dog in you. That fire in your belly that makes you obsessed, consumed with your work and solving the problems you set out to solve. If you don't... you're gonna lose out to someone who does. Go sling Java for a bank or insurance company, then, if you want to punch out at 5. Scott Wu has that dog in him. It's reasonable for him to expect the same of his employees.
- charlie-83 1y ago
  I don't really understand this. Surely working 8 hour days just means that it takes you 50% longer to write the same software (in reality less than that since I don't imagine you will be working at peak efficiency in hour 12). Passion is a different thing and I agree you need passion you be the best. While there is clearly a correlation between people with passion and people willing to work more, it don't see why someone can't be passionate and also have other interests or responsibilities outside of work.
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  - bitwize 1y ago
    When it comes to loading pig iron, you're really just doing the same thing over and over, so the amount of pig iron you can load in a day scales roughly linearly with the number of hours a day you spend loading pig iron, all else being equal. We know that the design of software is fundamentally a different sort of task than loading pig iron. It requires management of complex amounts of state in working memory, which must be acquired before work begins, and much of which is lost after work ends (or is interrupted), requiring reacquisition when work is restarted. I believe that because of this, Carmack's observation is that more contiguous time spent on the task yields superlinear gains in output, because you're just spending that much more time with the system state in your head. And if you're a really smart guy working on cutting-edge stuff you want to take advantage of those superlinear gains because you are messing with much more deep and complex state, in terms of your own cognition, that would take more time to reacquire when lost.

jubbs 1y ago

I'd only have to read about halfway through that email before I accepted the offer if I was one of the acquired Windsurf employees lol

dyauspitr 1y ago

6 days a week for 80+ hours is 14 hour days. With commuting that’s all your waking hours. Who is working here?

aitchnyu 1y ago
Hence the advice to live at work.

burnt-resistor 1y ago

If not offered competitive pay and sometimes founder-preference-equivalent stock, it's stupid to volunteer to be an eager slave on perpetual artificial timelines and crash schedules for peanuts.

cjk 1y ago

Yeah, I’d be taking the buyout. As a hiring manager, I _vastly_ prefer hiring someone that values work-life balance over this grind culture bullshit. YMMV, but in my experience, the folks that care about balance tend to be more focused and productive during the hours they are working. Of course, exceptional circumstances exist where long hours are required. Not disputing that. But making that the default for the company culture is insane.

oumua_don17 1y ago
>> Of course, exceptional circumstances exist where long hours are required Sorry, but despite your best intentions, even those long hours are wrong and unnecessary. It's the leadership's planning skills and inability to take responsibility of the exceptional circumstances. In such a situation good leadership just cuts scope without flinching and reflects to avoid a repeat. edit: typo
- cjk 1y ago
  I’m really only talking about existential threats to the business and things of that ilk. 99% of the things people consider to be “exceptional” are not.
scarface_74 1y ago
There are no exceptional circumstances where management should require you to work long hours
- cjk 1y ago
  I don’t think it’s quite that black and white. If it’s a matter of “we’re going to be insolvent if we don’t hit this deadline”, and you want to keep getting paid, long hours can be justified. That’s not to say it’s not a failure of leadership that led to that situation, but I really am talking about exceptional circumstances, not arbitrarily-imposed deadlines.
  - camgunz 1y ago

flohofwoe 1y ago

Shit like this is why I'm grateful for the worker rights that were paid for with blood in the more civilized parts of the world during the 19th and early 20th century. At least the US seems to be civilized enough that the CEO isn't immediately dragged out to the street to hang from the next traffic light - but maybe that's part of the problem ;)

Quitschquat 1y ago

They are probably in trouble

nunez 1y ago

From TFA: > “We don’t believe in work-life balance—building the future of software engineering is a mission we all care so deeply about that we couldn’t possibly separate the two,” he wrote, per the outlet. “We know that not everyone who joined Windsurf had signed up to join Cognition where we spend 6 days at the office and clock 80+ hour weeks.” 996, American Edition, is almost complete. Thanks, Elon! /s I hope everyone takes the bait while they still can. Absolutely repugnant behavior.