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I hired 5 people to sit behind me and make me productive for a month

simonberens.me

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Re: I hired 5 people to sit behind me and make me productive for a month

#311

Post by mtnGoat »

humanizersequel wrote: post #279
mtnGoat wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would think so. Also doesn’t Meta own everything you create when you work there? I know other companies of that size do. And if so, then creating a company is breach and technically the IP of that company now belongs to Meta too.

>Also doesn’t Meta own everything you create when you work there? I've heard stories like this but I can't imagine this would be enforceable unless the "IP" was very obviously related to his work at Meta. What other companies are you thinking of, and do you have any stories of this happening to someone?

I’ve heard examples of it happening, but can not point to any. I know my cousin was sued for changing employers, they tried to block her taking a job at a competitor(broad use of the term, but I guess fang’s think everyone is a competitor), but lost in Delaware court. So I do know they will attempt to enforce these contracts if they want to.

Many top companies do have these clauses, I’ve signed them and seen others. How enforceable they are, I’m not sure, but billionaires with armies of bored lawyers, don’t make for great opponents in legal battles.

Re: I hired 5 people to sit behind me and make me productive for a month

#312

Post by mtnGoat »

humanizersequel wrote: post #279
mtnGoat wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would think so. Also doesn’t Meta own everything you create when you work there? I know other companies of that size do. And if so, then creating a company is breach and technically the IP of that company now belongs to Meta too.

>Also doesn’t Meta own everything you create when you work there? I've heard stories like this but I can't imagine this would be enforceable unless the "IP" was very obviously related to his work at Meta. What other companies are you thinking of, and do you have any stories of this happening to someone?

I did find this thread interesting and informative about the matter, tho it is a little dated.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2208056

Re: I hired 5 people to sit behind me and make me productive for a month

#313

Post by greenrd »

drewrv wrote: post #273
12345hn6789 wrote: post #29

I honestly cannot believe this. The porn part, the make me a smoothie request, dating dinners. This guy seriously paid people to sit behind him and didn't even think about them stealing his $1000 monitors until after the fact? He didn't try blocking any non productive sites? No productivity software? No pomadoro technique-esq focus methods? This guy should have paid $88/hour for therapy if we are being honest here

I’m certain she wasn’t actually watching porn. It’s a pretty common joke answer to say “porn” when someone asks what you’re browsing and you don’t want to share. The fact that the author seems to take it as genuine adds to the bizarre nature of this blog post though!

>I’m certain she wasn’t actually watching porn.

I think you're too certain about that. She has no responsibilities other than some occasional chores and keeping an eye on what he's doing. Maybe she thought looking at porn surreptitiously would be OK, on that basis. And I'm going to anticipate the "but women don't watch porn!" objection and counter with - no, some do. E.g. some bisexual women, some trans women...

With her comment about "all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy" it's also possible she was trying to seduce him at the start and was sexually frustrated when he didn't pick up on that...

Re: I hired 5 people to sit behind me and make me productive for a month

#314

Post by greenrd »

philosopher1234 wrote: post #77
Sakos wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm more confused by these comments. Like, he's 21. This is an interesting experience and a great story to tell. Sounds like money well-spent and I'm glad he's experimenting in unusual ways. That's what makes life interesting and worth living. Some of my most memorable and valuable memories stem from bad decisions or experimenting with different ideas that might be dumb. Some of you need to touch grass.

This man is insane. He'd rather oppress himself at great expense than spend any time at all actually thinking about where his problems come from (and why its so important to him to "all work and no play"). Perhaps there's a reason "touch grass" is on the tip of your tongue.

He doesn't sound like was oppressed. If I introspect my thoughts about this experiment, I feel like if I did it, I would feel oppressed - but on the other hand I don't feel oppressed by being around my manager and knowing he could look over my shoulder at any point in time. That's just a normal part of working in an office, and it's kind of cringe and naive to view that as oppression. It just isn't. And this kind of arrangement would be even less bad than that, because I would be ultimately their boss and able to fire them, so they wouldn't be able to impose any kind of restrictions on me that I didn't choose for myself, unlike my actual boss.

Also, he has gone so far as to create his own productivity tool, so it seems like he has invested some time and effort into trying to reach his productivity goals prior to this experiment.

Re: I hired 5 people to sit behind me and make me productive for a month

#315

Post by greenrd »

LegitShady wrote: post #135
12345hn6789 wrote: post #29

I honestly cannot believe this. The porn part, the make me a smoothie request, dating dinners. This guy seriously paid people to sit behind him and didn't even think about them stealing his $1000 monitors until after the fact? He didn't try blocking any non productive sites? No productivity software? No pomadoro technique-esq focus methods? This guy should have paid $88/hour for therapy if we are being honest here

He's got effective altruism and defi in his about me page - if he isn't a made up character he might as well be.

"Date me" pages are actually quite popular in the effective altruist community, so this makes me update against him being a fictional character.

Re: I hired 5 people to sit behind me and make me productive for a month

#316

Post by greenrd »

pcthrowaway wrote: post #105
granshaw wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why does he feel the need to be 'productive' for 16 hours a day? Yeah after reading the post I’m like this guy must be a founder to value productivity so highly… NOPE, just works at Meta! EDIT: Oh wait, he DID also start a company, during the experiment in fact, but of course it’s in stealth mode! Can’t make this stuff up…

Wouldn't hiring people to sit behind you and watch you work be a breach of contract?

Not necessarily. It depends how much your employer cares about confidentiality. If you work at a bank like I do, then 100% yes. But if you work at some social networking site like Facebook, as this guy apparently does... realistically is some rando woman off Craigslist going to try to steal code? No. Not gonna happen.

Re: I hired 5 people to sit behind me and make me productive for a month

#317

Post by greenrd »

mtnGoat wrote: post #311
humanizersequel wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Also doesn’t Meta own everything you create when you work there? I've heard stories like this but I can't imagine this would be enforceable unless the "IP" was very obviously related to his work at Meta. What other companies are you thinking of, and do you have any stories of this happening to someone?

I’ve heard examples of it happening, but can not point to any. I know my cousin was sued for changing employers, they tried to block her taking a job at a competitor(broad use of the term, but I guess fang’s think everyone is a competitor), but lost in Delaware court. So I do know they will attempt to enforce these contracts if they want to. Many top companies do have these clauses, I’ve signed them and seen others.…

The US federal government is going to ban anti-compete clauses, which is great news: https://www.fullstackeconomics.com/p/banning-noncompete-agre...

Re: I hired 5 people to sit behind me and make me productive for a month

#318

Post by greenrd »

anonymoushn wrote: post #237
sberens wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Related the being productive 16 hours a day, I enjoyed this blog post by Dan Luu: https://danluu.com/productivity-velocity/

Achieving a lot per time spent working seems unrelated to achieving a lot of time spent working per day. Are you sure your comments are written by a human rather than a LLM?

That's a really rather rude and uncalled-for response. Did you get out of the wrong side of the bed or something?

Re: I hired 5 people to sit behind me and make me productive for a month

#319

Post by greenrd »

dj_mc_merlin wrote: post #172
Mustache wrote: post #117

I'm not sure why there so many negative comments. I work from home for myself and I can say not having a boss to report to makes it easier to get bogged down in non productive tasks. When I used to go to an office and had a manager there was always that external pressure to get things done. I have to constantly remind myself to be productive and not spend time on time wasting websites so I can see how just knowing so…

Most people would agree that having somebody keeping you accountable in the same room does tend to increase productivity in the short term. Long term, not being micromanaged has a positive mental impact. Regardless, I think most people are rather reading between the lines, since there's some weirdness to hiring (from Craigslist) a "productivity manager" who watches you, does house chores and cooks for you. This is ba…

> Long term, not being micromanaged has a positive mental impact.

This isn't micromanagement, except to the extent that they are preventing him from visiting time-sink websites (unclear to me why his website blocking tech didn't work for that). They aren't actually directing his work activities in any way, so not only are they not micromanaging him, they're not managing him at all - in fact, he is managing them. All they are doing is making sure he's "on the clock".

I weep for the future of a world where zoomers have entered the workforce during covid lockdowns and think that remote work is normal and working in an office, with a boss sitting behind you or whatever, is what "micromanagement" means. Newsflash - it ain't.

Re: I hired 5 people to sit behind me and make me productive for a month

#320

Post by greenrd »

dasil003 wrote: post #72

The obliviousness to the human element and power dynamics here is shocking. It would be one thing for an eccentric billionaire to do something like this; it would feel sort of par for the course and understandable that they don't really have to answer to anyone there's no downside in letting it all hang out. But a 21-year-old Meta engineer with big ambitions? It's sort of mind-boggling.

The bar for what is considered "problematic power dynamics" among the woke and/or left seems to be getting lower and lower.

Recently I've seen the claim that a meetup organiser shouldn't flirt with meetup attendees, because reasons... power differentials I guess? The idea that a fully-grown woman should be capable of noticing a power differential and making her own decision as to whether to enter into a relationship, with that in mind, didn't seem to have occurred to the poster.

But this really takes the cake. Someone is paid to sit at a desk with their laptop and do virtually nothing for >= 5 hours and cook at a basic level for If he was the one "watching porn" then yeah, but it was one of his assistants! Or maybe she was joking.

I also note that there was not even a hint of flirting or "problematic" sexual/romantic behaviour from him in this account, so any problems in that arena would mostly likely originate from your own imagination.

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