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Ask HN: I'm writing a book about white-collar drug use, including tech sector

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Re: Ask HN: I'm writing a book about white-collar drug use, including tech sector

#11

Post by Eilene »

whalesalad wrote: post #5

Adderall and Cocaine. I remember a CEO of one of my early startups would give me 5mg addies to help me get more done. I appreciated it because it was great to get the added boost to focus. I eventually worked my way up to taking 30mg of XR daily (legally, doctor prescribed) and it was the most productive I have ever been in my life. I worked 24x7. I was working a normal consulting job while also working on a startup/…

What made you decide to go cold turkey? (which sounds almost not-doable it's so tough). Did you hit some kind of wall? And would you mind commenting on what you think happens to engineers who don't use some kind of stimulant?

Re: Ask HN: I'm writing a book about white-collar drug use, including tech sector

#12

Post by untog »

jamisonbryant wrote: post #9
Eilene wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

of course. please send to zimmermaneilene@gmail.com.

This looks like it might be your personal email. Consider protecting yourself by making a temporary email for the purposes of your research such as booktitle@gmail.com.

Journalists tend to want people to be able to contact them. The spam etc. is just the cost of doing business.

Re: Ask HN: I'm writing a book about white-collar drug use, including tech sector

#14

Post by abakker »

whalesalad wrote: post #10
Eilene wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any chance you can explain why? Not enough hours in the day kind of thing? Is the only route to success in software engineering to work 24/7?

I think a human being is really only capable of like 6 hours of solid mental work throughout the day. And even that is tough, with all the distractions of modern life. When you take something like Adderall, that doubles to, say 12 hours and enables you to get hyper-focused on the task at hand. Sure, you can still get hyper-focused on the wrong thing , but if you can reign that in you're golden. Not only that, the amo…

Out of curiosity, did the stuff you learned during that time also increase 10x? Did it all stick with you, or did it just temporarily increase your ability to hold it all in your head?

Re: Ask HN: I'm writing a book about white-collar drug use, including tech sector

#15

Post by kakarot »

jamisonbryant wrote: post #9
Eilene wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

of course. please send to zimmermaneilene@gmail.com.

This looks like it might be your personal email. Consider protecting yourself by making a temporary email for the purposes of your research such as booktitle@gmail.com.

Or better, consider protecting those offering their experiences as well by using an encrypted email provider like protonmail, or offering a GPG key.

Re: Ask HN: I'm writing a book about white-collar drug use, including tech sector

#16

Post by Eilene »

whalesalad wrote: post #10
Eilene wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any chance you can explain why? Not enough hours in the day kind of thing? Is the only route to success in software engineering to work 24/7?

I think a human being is really only capable of like 6 hours of solid mental work throughout the day. And even that is tough, with all the distractions of modern life. When you take something like Adderall, that doubles to, say 12 hours and enables you to get hyper-focused on the task at hand. Sure, you can still get hyper-focused on the wrong thing , but if you can reign that in you're golden. Not only that, the amo…

Very insightful, I think, about the exec at a big company. A therapist who treats tech people in Sil Val said she has been told there is coke being done openly at some exec committee/board meetings, etc. and pressure to do it. Like Wall Street in the 1980s. Do you think there's any validity to this?

Re: Ask HN: I'm writing a book about white-collar drug use, including tech sector

#17

Post by monocasa »

TomMarius wrote: post #8

A lot of people experiment with various psychedelic drugs for the psychedelic purposes. Marijuana is pretty much normal. LSD is sometimes used in the form of microdosing that produces no psychedelic effects and should improve focus and creative thinking. And of course coffee and alcohol are abused hugely.

And MDMA.

I've heard a fellow engineer say, "it lets me enjoy being an extrovert."

Re: Ask HN: I'm writing a book about white-collar drug use, including tech sector

#18

Post by whalesalad »

Eilene wrote: post #11
whalesalad wrote: post #5

Adderall and Cocaine. I remember a CEO of one of my early startups would give me 5mg addies to help me get more done. I appreciated it because it was great to get the added boost to focus. I eventually worked my way up to taking 30mg of XR daily (legally, doctor prescribed) and it was the most productive I have ever been in my life. I worked 24x7. I was working a normal consulting job while also working on a startup/…

What made you decide to go cold turkey? (which sounds almost not-doable it's so tough). Did you hit some kind of wall? And would you mind commenting on what you think happens to engineers who don't use some kind of stimulant?

I went cold turkey because I did not like the fact that I needed the drug to go about my day. I also started to get into crossfit/fitness and the really high dose stimulants made intense exercise feel like it was taxing my body way more than it should have.

I wanted to achieve everything naturally. I knew going off the drug would slow me down, but I was willing to trade general health and well-being for a drop in productivity.

Re: Ask HN: I'm writing a book about white-collar drug use, including tech sector

#19

Post by Eilene »

jamisonbryant wrote: post #9
Eilene wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

of course. please send to zimmermaneilene@gmail.com.

This looks like it might be your personal email. Consider protecting yourself by making a temporary email for the purposes of your research such as booktitle@gmail.com.

I appreciate the caution, thank you. That email is what gets funneled from my website, so it's fine. It's not my personal personal email. It's for the book.

Re: Ask HN: I'm writing a book about white-collar drug use, including tech sector

#20

Post by whalesalad »

abakker wrote: post #14
whalesalad wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think a human being is really only capable of like 6 hours of solid mental work throughout the day. And even that is tough, with all the distractions of modern life. When you take something like Adderall, that doubles to, say 12 hours and enables you to get hyper-focused on the task at hand. Sure, you can still get hyper-focused on the wrong thing , but if you can reign that in you're golden. Not only that, the amo…

Out of curiosity, did the stuff you learned during that time also increase 10x? Did it all stick with you, or did it just temporarily increase your ability to hold it all in your head?

Yes, absolutely. It's still here, thankfully :)
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