Yes, I do 996 hours per year. That is exactly 83 hours per month, and as a prime, management can’t divide it any further.
Ask HN: Are you working 996 hours?
11–19 of 19 posts
Re: Ask HN: Are you working 996 hours?
#12You couldn't pay me enough to sacrifice so much of my life for someone else's business.
What if you were in dire straits and needed the money?
Re: Ask HN: Are you working 996 hours?
#13996 hours a year? Sure.
I wasn't put on Earth to create shareholder value. Work is the means to an end. The less of it I have to do, the better.
Re: Ask HN: Are you working 996 hours?
#14As an employee hell no. I've done a couple of crunches, but efficiency tanks. Plan better, be more agile, solve the immediate issues rather than getting fancy, so much one can do instead.
Re: Ask HN: Are you working 996 hours?
#15No, but if I got paid overtime I'd absolutely do it (or something more reasonable like 50-60 hrs/week)
Re: Ask HN: Are you working 996 hours?
#16• 996 schedule
• Ads all over SF that just have our logo with no context
• Hacker house in Pac Heights
• Shared space in Hayes (for calls)
• Tech stack is Next.js/React/OPENAI_API_KEY
• Product is AI SOC-2 verification
• The company will fail, I'll pivot into real estate
Re: Ask HN: Are you working 996 hours?
#17You couldn't pay me enough to sacrifice so much of my life for someone else's business.
What if you were in dire straits and needed the money?
Still no. There's a limit to what I'm willing to give up just for money, and giving up that much of my life is well past it.
I've been in dire straits and desperately needed money a number of times, so I know what that's like. This may be a US-centric kind of thing, but when I've been that desperate, I've started a business. Doing that has led to me improving my situation even when the business technically "failed". In fact, being desperate seems to increase the effectiveness of starting my own venture, precisely because it's such a powerful motivator. Failure is not an option and all that.
I'm totally willing to make such sacrifices -- and more -- for my own ventures, where I accrue the equity, business network, and all the other indirect benefits (that will keep benefiting me even if/when the income stops.) I'm just not willing to do it for other people's ventures. That makes no sense to me at all.
Re: Ask HN: Are you working 996 hours?
#18Earlier quoted context omitted.
What if you were in dire straits and needed the money?
Still no. There's a limit to what I'm willing to give up just for money, and giving up that much of my life is well past it. I've been in dire straits and desperately needed money a number of times, so I know what that's like. This may be a US-centric kind of thing, but when I've been that desperate, I've started a business. Doing that has led to me improving my situation even when the business technically "failed".…
Alright, thanks for responding.
Re: Ask HN: Are you working 996 hours?
#19I work as QA during the day, but at night I become a B̶a̶t̶m̶a̶n̶ solo founder. I started to work like this at the end of April and have had almost no days off. With the day job, it is around 12-14 hours per day till now. It's not 996 hours per year, and nobody forced me, but the internal willingness to finish the main development asap. Yeah, that was quite intensive, but I already accomplished most of the task, and now I am gonna slow the pace.