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Shopify CEO says long hours aren't necessary for success

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Re: Shopify CEO says long hours aren't necessary for success

#191

Post by dahfizz »

nsxwolf wrote: post #182
AmericanChopper wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I worked in restaurants and bars when I was younger, and pulled in 80-100 hours every week for a few years. When I got my first engineering job I did the same thing, trying (successfully) to learn and develop my career as quickly as I could. I’ve also gone through phases of working 60+ hours as a contractor, trying to save as much money as possible. For me at least, doing that much productive work in a week was never…

I did this when I was young, and I don't think it got me anywhere. I should have spent my 20s doing a lot surfing or something, anything really other than what I did. I should have got home at 5, and if that got me fired, whatever, got another job.

I get what you're saying, and I respect 20 year olds who want to live that way, but I personally disagree.

I had to work to support myself during college, so I was already used to the "grind". So I decided to keep up the high effort and accelerate my career while I was young.

You can have fun at any age. But investments pay off over time, so it made sense to invest in myself early. Now that I have a good career and don't have to prove myself, I can take things a little slower and have fun "surfing or something". Plus, now I have the money to actually fund my hobbies.

Re: Shopify CEO says long hours aren't necessary for success

#192

Post by cdiddy2 »

Its funny following this story since I saw the original tweet from Ryan Selkis a crypto twitter entrepreneur. https://twitter.com/twobitidiot/status/1209443243924045825

It has spread to take over twitter and spawned articles and CEOs of large companies weighing in, and now on hacker news. Fascinating to watch where our news starts from and how it spreads

Re: Shopify CEO says long hours aren't necessary for success

#193

Post by penagwin »

whatshisface wrote: post #68
penagwin wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm diagnosed with ADD and have a prescription for Ritalin/Concerta. I'm a full time programmer, and I think my sustainable "real work and focus" time is max 6 hours. Today looks more like 4. A higher dose does not increase that time, at least for me. I'm curious how those without add/adhd are affected.

I've heard from many people that if you're legitimately on the drug the experience is totally different than if you're taking it without a brain chemistry that needs it i.e. as a study drug. I wonder if that means that people who have ADHD could possibly have different or fewer side-effects than people without, if the two groups respond so differently. Are there any large scale studies about the long term health impl…

I think there is something definitely to this. As a basic example, I can still fall asleep without too much trouble even after taking my Ritalin/Concerta (And I'm above the typical starting dose as well).

Re: Shopify CEO says long hours aren't necessary for success

#194

Post by nwienert »

pm90 wrote: post #101
nwienert wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re getting downvoted but I strongly believe coffee is a huge net negative on productivity especially in the long run. It has two scary effects: one is it seems to sacrifice some creativity for some raw output (along with a sort of scattered and less human feel to communication). Two is that it degrades sleep quality. Which probably means a lack of memory formation at the margin over long time periods. These are j…

Hmm, I like coffee very much but I don't really use it to get shit done as much as to open my mind to creative thinking. Perhaps I'm using it differently than most people do? Without coffee, I will feel sluggish and sleepy all morning. With coffee, I feel alert and inquisitive. I have a rule against drinking coffee after noon, so it doesn't affect my sleep patterns. Discovering coffee in college was really what allow…

The reason you feel sluggish and sleepy is because of coffee (your addiction to it), along with perhaps a variety of other imbalances in your diet, sleep or exercise.

For most of my adult life I drank coffee, with occasional breaks. When I quit a couple years ago I had what felt like burnout for nearly two months. It took up to 6 months after until I really felt fine within a few minutes of waking up. And now my sleep is far easier and better.

Caffeine has a 12 hour half life. That’s incredibly long. Your body is absolutely addicted to it after just a few weeks.

Everyone is different. I am more sensitive to caffeine than most. But it’s absolutely not the case that you need coffee to have energy in the morning. Coffee is a bandaid that temporarily fixes a problem by causing imbalance elsewhere.

Decaf is wonderful though! All the pleasant taste and routine.

Also I find it funny I’m being downvoted given I’m not making scientific claims but rather hypothesis and anecdote. Too many caffeine addicts that don’t want it to be true!

Final note. Focus is easy to come by if you have two things: a good environment (quiet, natural) and an interesting problem. I think the reason why everyone is addicted to coffee in tech is similar to why hard laborers get addicted to painkillers: it gets you through the shitty parts of your job. It’s why college kids get addicted to coffee and adderall as well. You’re being forced to do something that’s far outside your interest, and often in a bad environment. Well that, and it’s fun to do a drug that has a “come up” like caffeine.

Final final note: caffeine has a very specific effect on your thinking. It’s not a debatable point it’s just true. Look at the spider web experiment. It’s makes you excited certainly, it gives you a rush, but it’s almost like a mania much like other stimulants. The weird thing is it almost doesn’t hurt so much in business because so many people do it, so your clients are often also on the same drug as you.

Re: Shopify CEO says long hours aren't necessary for success

#195

Post by walterclifford »

anon73044 wrote: post #100
NathanKP wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd still say that John Rockefeller is more impressive. Adjusted for inflation John Rockefeller's company Standard Oil was worth over $1 trillion. Or Johan van Oldenbarnevelt, the guy who started the Dutch East India company, which adjusted for inflation was worth over $8.2 trillion. Modern companies have nothing on what entrepreneurs did in the past and how much money they made. It doesn't matter how many markets El…

>I'd still say that John Rockefeller is more impressive. Adjusted for inflation John Rockefeller's company Standard Oil was worth over $1 trillion dollars. >Or Johan van Oldenbarnevelt, the guy who started the Dutch East India company Yeah, it's amazing what those guys could get away with back in the days of slavery and before regulation. /sarcasm

Standard Oil was founded in 1870, five years after the 13th amendment completely abolished slavery in the US.

Rockefeller's success is attributed to his relentless pursuit of horizontal and vertical integration, not cheap labor via slavery.

Re: Shopify CEO says long hours aren't necessary for success

#196

Post by SecurityAmoeba »

bwb wrote: post #28

I don't believe anyone really does 80 hours. I just don't think it is possible and I don't think you can call sitting at a desk doing nothing "work". I've done 60 hours during intense periods just fine... but it was only effective because of the nature of the work I was doing at the time. And, I usually took a break down the road to compensate. In no way was it even 50% creative work. 4 to 6 creative hours seems righ…

I work in IT Security. I do 2-4 pentests a week. I shouldn’t, but I work for a small firm and don’t have much control. I easily do 80 hours a week. If I don’t we don’t get enough done, we bleed clients, and I worry about clients getting hacked. I should not work 80 hour weeks, I do not think it should be possible, but I definitely work 80 hour weeks and I am not wasting time. I do web app pentests, network and infrastructure pentests, and emergency response when they need help, and that is easily an 80 hour week. Maybe 5-10 hours of that is meetings. The rest is legitimate work.

Re: Shopify CEO says long hours aren't necessary for success

#197

Post by Kenji »

bwb wrote: post #28

I don't believe anyone really does 80 hours. I just don't think it is possible and I don't think you can call sitting at a desk doing nothing "work". I've done 60 hours during intense periods just fine... but it was only effective because of the nature of the work I was doing at the time. And, I usually took a break down the road to compensate. In no way was it even 50% creative work. 4 to 6 creative hours seems righ…

I think you're completely clueless as to how long it is possible to work per week. Granted, it will destroy you to work 80 hours per week for prolonged periods of time. But it's entirely possible.

Re: Shopify CEO says long hours aren't necessary for success

#198

Post by therealdrag0 »

simonw wrote: post #15
thetrumanshow wrote: post #8

A few thoughts to add to the discussion, loosely related: 1) If I know exactly where to spend my time for the best rate of return, its likely that I'll have to spend relatively few hours achieving success. 2) For most people, the success they can achieve through just having a plain old job can be had for a mere 40 hours. Anything they want above what 40 hours can grant them should probably be done elsewhere (second j…

Study after study has shown that working 80 hours dramatically reduces your productivity during those hours. I loved what Tobi said in this tweet: https://twitter.com/simonw/status/1210622908143415297 "For creative work, you can't cheat. My believe is that there are 5 creative hours in everyone's day. All I ask of people at Shopify is that 4 of those are channeled into the company." 5 creative hours in a day absolute…

Work isn't always creative though is it? It's often more menial: meetings, learning new APIs, stepping through existing code, trial and error, mentoring, etc.

For these your ROI per hour goes down, but your total ROI still goes up even after 5 or even 8 hours. Maybe not for everyone everyday, but for some people some days for sure.

Re: Shopify CEO says long hours aren't necessary for success

#199

Post by Retric »

Proziam wrote: post #185
whatshisface wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can also get hours like that by working multiple low-level service or industrial jobs, or working a lot of overtime at a job that pays overtime. I have known people to do both, and the only thing that really limits it is the cost to your personal life and basic maintenance (relationships, health, home repair, that kind of stuff.) Men with a stay at home wife who is good at managing the home and keeping up relatio…

My parents were living this lifestyle. My dad routinely worked 100+ hour weeks, often sleeping on job sites and very often traveling for work. It kinda makes me chuckle a bit when I hear people say that 'nobody can do 80 hours!' when I spent my entire formative years watching my dad and everyone he knew doing exactly that but doing much harder labor. It really feels to me like people who say this stuff are either ver…

Being at work for 100 hours is different from actually putting in 100 hours of work. I have worked with people that stayed 80 hours a week, but only really worked around 20 hours on average.

If your putting around while a 4 hour script runs, you’re there but not actually working during that time.

Re: Shopify CEO says long hours aren't necessary for success

#200

Post by randomsearch »

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #67
bwb wrote: post #28

I don't believe anyone really does 80 hours. I just don't think it is possible and I don't think you can call sitting at a desk doing nothing "work". I've done 60 hours during intense periods just fine... but it was only effective because of the nature of the work I was doing at the time. And, I usually took a break down the road to compensate. In no way was it even 50% creative work. 4 to 6 creative hours seems righ…

Most of my work weeks clock in around 50-60 hours regularly. It's pretty simple how this happens. It's meetings all day and then once meetings are over it's email, documents, admin paperwork, training etc... Here's an example of just last Thursday which was busy but was at least not double booked and had some times I could stop and go to the bathroom, I also wasn't traveling this day which was good: 8-12 - US Senate…

No offence, but I’ve done extremely creative and demanding intellectual work, and then work like you’ve listed.

What you’re doing is valuable and useful work, but it is a lot easier to do. Much less mentally demanding.

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