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> But if you work for Tesla, the minimum is really a 50-hour week and there are times when it'll be 60- to 80-hour weeks. And we recently saw statistics here o

by wazoox 14y ago

> But if you work for Tesla, the minimum is really a 50-hour week and there are times when it'll be 60- to 80-hour weeks. And we recently saw statistics here on HN proving that working more than 40 hours/week for long durations is counter-productive. Alas, I'm sorry to see Elon Musk falling for this "tough men work hard" nonsense.

christiansmith 14y ago
Having been through several cycles of burnout over the years I tend to agree with you. These days I take nearly as much time to play as work, and my work is better for it. That said, I wonder how much the type of work has an impact on diminishing productivity over a duration. Also wonder if EM takes this into account in other ways, like vacation time, etc.
waterlesscloud 14y ago
Statistics aren't people. In other words, Your Mileage May Vary.
- zachalexander 14y ago
  I imagine this varies with the kind of work. I suspect creative work degrades more quickly beyond 40 hours/week than repetetive work does.
  - wazoox 14y ago
    Actually fatigue means that people doing repetitive work are extremely prone to error and worse, wounding themselves past a number of hours (depending upon the job). There's a reason there are laws forbidding truck drivers and plane pilots piling in hours.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
BasDirks 14y ago
Ironic?
- wazoox 14y ago
  I'm dead serious. http://blogs.hbr.org/hbsfaculty/2012/06/stop-working-all-those-hours.html http://blogs.hbr.org/hbsfaculty/2012/06/stop-working-all-tho...
nightski 14y ago
That is looking at it from the perspective of the individual. But the company can choose to not care about its individuals and just try to get the most out of them until they burn out. While not optimal this is pretty common in some startups in my experience.
acgourley 14y ago
Well at least he's upfront about it. Better than an org that says you should work 40 hr weeks then presses deadlines so hard you have no choice than to go over.
- christiansmith 14y ago
  That's a good point. It sucks to work overtime constantly when you had other plans, commitments, etc, especially when the bosses are ungrateful. On the other hand, when working on something that you know upfront is going to be an enormous challenge, and you really love what you're doing, the hours don't seem to matter. The problem for me becomes more of a physical thing. I can work a 70+ hour week or two, but then it takes a week to get back to the same level of output.
  - deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]
shazow 14y ago
I suspect that people who expect and look forward to working +50 hours/week would perform much better than people who are guilted into it. Also sounds like they're well compensated for it. I liked his "special forces" analogy.
- wazoox 14y ago
  People who want to be pilots love flying. Nonetheless they're not allowed to fly more than a number of hours, because passion, motivation and whatever you want won't prevent you from messing up when you're tired. Amphetamines were invented for the military and particularly the special ops, mind you. As you know they come with their problems, too. So please stop bullshitting yourself. As much as I like and respect Elon Musk, when he says this he's full of shit, plain and simple. Asking mechanics to work long hours building cars is terrible management. No wonder he finds defaults on each and every car.
  - CamperBob2 14y ago
    You may be right. Maybe working 50+ hours a week is always a net negative. Maybe a sane, family-friendly work environment will, in fact, maximize both the happiness and well-being of individual contributors and the productivity of the organization as a whole. But you know what? Nobody told the kids in the garage down the street. You know... the ones who are working 60+ hours a week, and who are about to kick your company's ass, because there's no place on Earth they'd rather be than in that garage.
    - wazoox 14y ago
      > the ones who are working 60+ hours a week, and who are about to kick your company's ass, because there's no place on Earth they'd rather be than in that garage. Because they're 20 years old, and they'll do that only for a limited time anyway because even the energy from youth won't protect them from burnout. This is nice, heart-warming story we like to believe, but this is anecdote. In general, people work efficiently about 40 hours a week for long periods (months or years). By the way, old asses like me have had their fair share of being in the office from 9AM to 22PM and you know what? While you're congratulating with your co-workers on what a bunch of hard-working supermen you are, you aren't actually getting anything done. It's incredibly hard to get things done 7 to 8 hours a day, it demands incredible energy and commitment; I don't pretend being even capable of this more than once or twice a week. Yes, I think that programming efficiently 40 hours a week is already nearly super-human, unless you're incredibly passionate and it's incredibly rewarding.
pxlpshr 14y ago
It's not considered 'work'. You're counting hours as if the 40 hour ceiling is of importance; no offense but it doesn't seem like you understand passion.
- wazoox 14y ago
  Bullshit. When you're piling long hours, you make many mistakes, and that's totally independent from your passion, interest of whatever. This is just being tired. BTW in 1998 I've worked 100+ hours/week for a few months; it ended in the hospital. So I think I've seen that from the inside, too. As a high level knowledge worker (CEO or CTO), I may "work" for long hours getting informed on the latest trends reading HN. I can be in the office, or in the shower, ir running in the woods thinking about my next product. Heck, I can even be working, golfing with an important customer. By this metric of course I work 120 hours a week (though I spend at most 40 hours a week in the office). However when you're typing in code, or carefully assembling a car engine, if you work too much you'll simply make more errors. This has been verified many times. It's absolutely not debatable. If you want to believe it's not this way, you're deluding yourself, and that's not good, don't do that.
  - CamperBob2 14y ago
    BTW in 1998 I've worked 100+ hours/week for a few months; it ended in the hospital. Hell of a difference between spending 50 hours a week on the job and spending 100. Everything you've said in this thread is undeniably true at 100 hours/week. Almost nothing you've said in this thread is generally true at 50.

by wazoox 14y ago

christiansmith 14y ago

Having been through several cycles of burnout over the years I tend to agree with you. These days I take nearly as much time to play as work, and my work is better for it. That said, I wonder how much the type of work has an impact on diminishing productivity over a duration. Also wonder if EM takes this into account in other ways, like vacation time, etc.

waterlesscloud 14y ago

Statistics aren't people. In other words, Your Mileage May Vary.

zachalexander 14y ago
I imagine this varies with the kind of work. I suspect creative work degrades more quickly beyond 40 hours/week than repetetive work does.
- wazoox 14y ago
  Actually fatigue means that people doing repetitive work are extremely prone to error and worse, wounding themselves past a number of hours (depending upon the job). There's a reason there are laws forbidding truck drivers and plane pilots piling in hours.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]

BasDirks 14y ago

Ironic?

wazoox 14y ago
I'm dead serious. http://blogs.hbr.org/hbsfaculty/2012/06/stop-working-all-those-hours.html http://blogs.hbr.org/hbsfaculty/2012/06/stop-working-all-tho...

nightski 14y ago

That is looking at it from the perspective of the individual. But the company can choose to not care about its individuals and just try to get the most out of them until they burn out. While not optimal this is pretty common in some startups in my experience.

acgourley 14y ago

Well at least he's upfront about it. Better than an org that says you should work 40 hr weeks then presses deadlines so hard you have no choice than to go over.

christiansmith 14y ago
That's a good point. It sucks to work overtime constantly when you had other plans, commitments, etc, especially when the bosses are ungrateful. On the other hand, when working on something that you know upfront is going to be an enormous challenge, and you really love what you're doing, the hours don't seem to matter. The problem for me becomes more of a physical thing. I can work a 70+ hour week or two, but then it takes a week to get back to the same level of output.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]

shazow 14y ago

I suspect that people who expect and look forward to working +50 hours/week would perform much better than people who are guilted into it. Also sounds like they're well compensated for it. I liked his "special forces" analogy.

wazoox 14y ago
People who want to be pilots love flying. Nonetheless they're not allowed to fly more than a number of hours, because passion, motivation and whatever you want won't prevent you from messing up when you're tired. Amphetamines were invented for the military and particularly the special ops, mind you. As you know they come with their problems, too. So please stop bullshitting yourself. As much as I like and respect Elon Musk, when he says this he's full of shit, plain and simple. Asking mechanics to work long hours building cars is terrible management. No wonder he finds defaults on each and every car.
- CamperBob2 14y ago
  You may be right. Maybe working 50+ hours a week is always a net negative. Maybe a sane, family-friendly work environment will, in fact, maximize both the happiness and well-being of individual contributors and the productivity of the organization as a whole. But you know what? Nobody told the kids in the garage down the street. You know... the ones who are working 60+ hours a week, and who are about to kick your company's ass, because there's no place on Earth they'd rather be than in that garage.
  - wazoox 14y ago
    > the ones who are working 60+ hours a week, and who are about to kick your company's ass, because there's no place on Earth they'd rather be than in that garage. Because they're 20 years old, and they'll do that only for a limited time anyway because even the energy from youth won't protect them from burnout. This is nice, heart-warming story we like to believe, but this is anecdote. In general, people work efficiently about 40 hours a week for long periods (months or years). By the way, old asses like me have had their fair share of being in the office from 9AM to 22PM and you know what? While you're congratulating with your co-workers on what a bunch of hard-working supermen you are, you aren't actually getting anything done. It's incredibly hard to get things done 7 to 8 hours a day, it demands incredible energy and commitment; I don't pretend being even capable of this more than once or twice a week. Yes, I think that programming efficiently 40 hours a week is already nearly super-human, unless you're incredibly passionate and it's incredibly rewarding.

pxlpshr 14y ago

It's not considered 'work'. You're counting hours as if the 40 hour ceiling is of importance; no offense but it doesn't seem like you understand passion.

wazoox 14y ago
Bullshit. When you're piling long hours, you make many mistakes, and that's totally independent from your passion, interest of whatever. This is just being tired. BTW in 1998 I've worked 100+ hours/week for a few months; it ended in the hospital. So I think I've seen that from the inside, too. As a high level knowledge worker (CEO or CTO), I may "work" for long hours getting informed on the latest trends reading HN. I can be in the office, or in the shower, ir running in the woods thinking about my next product. Heck, I can even be working, golfing with an important customer. By this metric of course I work 120 hours a week (though I spend at most 40 hours a week in the office). However when you're typing in code, or carefully assembling a car engine, if you work too much you'll simply make more errors. This has been verified many times. It's absolutely not debatable. If you want to believe it's not this way, you're deluding yourself, and that's not good, don't do that.
- CamperBob2 14y ago
  BTW in 1998 I've worked 100+ hours/week for a few months; it ended in the hospital. Hell of a difference between spending 50 hours a week on the job and spending 100. Everything you've said in this thread is undeniably true at 100 hours/week. Almost nothing you've said in this thread is generally true at 50.