A contrarian take on working long hours • Hacker News Board

Re: A contrarian take on working long hours

#121

Post by kingboss » Wed, Mar 23, 2022, 11:33 PM UTC

majewsky wrote: post #82

TameAntelope wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure why you think I believe it to be heroic, I just think I shouldn't be shamed for spending my time how I want to. You'll note how the shame is being attempted in this very comment thread. It makes me sad. :(

I think "shame" is a needlessly inciteful description. The main issue is that, in a company with multiple employees, your behavior is not happening in isolation. When one person is working 80 hours a week, it is very common for management to see everyone who chooses to structure their time differently (e.g. because they have kids or elderly relatives to care for) as a slacker. If it turns out that management is not t…

He is just working himself to death making somebody else rich and thinking that this is a win-win situation. It would be hilarious if it wouldn't be sad. Also he seems to be working in a startup which means he will most likely go bust and all his work will have been for nought.

Re: A contrarian take on working long hours

#122

Post by black_13 » Thu, Mar 24, 2022, 12:25 AM UTC

applgo443 wrote: post #112

A meta rant - There's a lot of cancel culture at play around working hard. I don't understand why people are trying to guilt/shame others into working less. And yet, at the same time, watch documentaries about successful people (Kanye, Michael Jordan) talking about how hard they used to work and celebrate it. In order for you to be on the top of your field, you need to put in hours and hours of work. You'd have to sa…

No post body was provided.

Re: A contrarian take on working long hours

#123

Post by presentation » Thu, Mar 24, 2022, 2:39 AM UTC

kingboss wrote: post #119

applgo443 wrote: post #112

A meta rant - There's a lot of cancel culture at play around working hard. I don't understand why people are trying to guilt/shame others into working less. And yet, at the same time, watch documentaries about successful people (Kanye, Michael Jordan) talking about how hard they used to work and celebrate it. In order for you to be on the top of your field, you need to put in hours and hours of work. You'd have to sa…

"Working hard" has been proven time and time again that doesn't work. Most of the success stories you heard of weren't because of hard work but because luck and connections. But don't worry work 16 hours a day and you will be the next bill gates in no time. bruhhahahahaha I still find it funny that there are so many people who think hard work pays off.

IMO in the average case hard work doesn’t move you forward, but in exceptional cases it is a huge game changer. It’s probably true for most people that putting in crazy hours is pointless, but I absolutely believe that if you’re in a position to tolerate the effects and reap the benefits of those extra hours, it absolutely can be worth the pain.

Re: A contrarian take on working long hours

#124

Post by msla » Thu, Mar 24, 2022, 3:48 PM UTC

hypertele-Xii wrote: post #41

msla wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Two people can have political disagreements without one of them being ignorant.

In principle if two people disagree politically, they are both ignorant. If they were enlightened, they'd agree on a common policy.

People can disagree on which values they want to emphasize without either of them being ignorant.

Re: A contrarian take on working long hours

#125

Post by allison_pickens » Thu, Mar 24, 2022, 6:38 PM UTC

Hi there - author here. I'd like to clarify a couple of points that seemed to be missed in much of the dialogue here: (1) The reason this article is contrarian is that I am proposing making investment decisions (evaluating companies) partly based on talent efficiency (when coupled with strong metrics for revenue growth, etc). Most VCs make investment decisions partly based on how hard they perceive the team is working. But I think that long hours can be a negative signal for the company's prospects. (2) In this post, I am not particularly interested in the question of whether it's to an individual's benefit to work long hours. The question I explored in this article was about whether it's to the company's benefit.

Re: A contrarian take on working long hours

#126

Post by EricE » Thu, Mar 24, 2022, 7:48 PM UTC

"In my experience, long hours may actually be predictive of poor future results."

Reminds me of the WWII story about discussions to add more armor to planes that came back from battle where the holes in plans were, when someone pointed out there was no need to armor *those* places, those planes came back. Where armor obviously needed to be added was to the places where the surviving planes *didn't* have holes.

Re: A contrarian take on working long hours

#127

Post by EricE » Thu, Mar 24, 2022, 8:16 PM UTC

kingboss wrote: post #119

applgo443 wrote: post #112

A meta rant - There's a lot of cancel culture at play around working hard. I don't understand why people are trying to guilt/shame others into working less. And yet, at the same time, watch documentaries about successful people (Kanye, Michael Jordan) talking about how hard they used to work and celebrate it. In order for you to be on the top of your field, you need to put in hours and hours of work. You'd have to sa…

"Working hard" has been proven time and time again that doesn't work. Most of the success stories you heard of weren't because of hard work but because luck and connections. But don't worry work 16 hours a day and you will be the next bill gates in no time. bruhhahahahaha I still find it funny that there are so many people who think hard work pays off.

Luck? I don't believe in luck, I make luck.

Same thing with connections. Want to know why connections mattered in every job I have had, including my current one? Because I worked my ass off, did more than was asked of me, volunteered to do work outside of my immediate scope of work and most importantly made a point to always be on at least one cross-organizational or team outside my immediate work unit so I could actually be noticed by others. Yeah, you aren't going to be successful solely from "working" for 16 hours a day - what you do with those work hours matters too.

And you know what? It worked. The best jobs are the ones that come looking for you.

Another way to stand out? Become part of the internal expert network that exists within every organization. I ended up interacting with a lot of our contracting folks and I would always go out of my way to let them know I was available for "geek speak" translation - if they ever had something technical they didn't understand to just call me. Even if it wasn't for one of my contracts. Stuff like that provides dividends that can't be expressed by some silly metric. I'm pretty introverted but luckily those kinds of conversations tend to be one on one.

I find it beyond hilarious that there are so many people who think luck and "connections" are how most successful people got to where they are. Keep telling yourself that if you like and good luck with that long term. Success is not accidental and yes, good old fashioned (meaningful) hard work will still pay off.