996
211–220 of 561 posts
Re: 996
#212Small business owners work 997 and you don't see them incessantly posting about it. That's the catch, though. They own the business. Founders can subject themselves to 996 all they want but it's a failure of management to expect that from employees for less than 1% equity.
I took a break from tech to open my own bookstore and I definitely work more hours than when I worked at a pre-IPO $7B startup. I'm way less stressed. At least my bookstore doesn't wake me up at 3am 3 nights in a row, and expect me to come to work the next day.
Re: 996
#213Earlier quoted context omitted.
What happens when the companies band together to compress wages? Like what happened with the high-tech employee antitrust litigation. Individual employees are far more numerous (therefore harder to coordinate) and have way shallower pockets than companies, so the negotiation power is always going to be lopsided.
> What happens when the companies band together to compress wages? Like what happened with the high-tech employee antitrust litigation. What happened with that litigation is it got shut down and those companies pay some of the highest compensation now. One of the few jobs you can get that pays that much compensation with fewer educational requirements and better hours than alternatives in that compensation range (sur…
Possibly it's just a one time thing that was limited to just these companies.
Or possibly the incentives that led to this are still in place, and the current judicial climate is way more lenient towards big companies. Who's to say?
Re: 996
#214Your work really turns to shit after 6-7 hours anyway. Your ability to think clearly is hampered without a reset.
Re: 996
#215These times really do feel like those once-in-a-century redefinitions of work and labor, similar to how we got Child Labor Laws and 40-hour work weeks from the labor movement early last century. Intrinsically, more people are realizing that the former social contract was long ago fed into a shredder, and that the lack of a formal contract will have consequences. Technology broke down the 40-hour work week by enabling…
Can you elaborate on this?
>companies stockpiling chemical weapons and machine guns
I recognize the historical references in the other clauses of this sentence, but I wasn't aware of companies stockpiling chemical weapons for use against workers. I'm not doubting - just curious to learn more about the dark history here.
Thanks!
Re: 996
#216Someone made a back-of-a-napkin calculation that a 165k 9-9-6 job in the UK pays a similar after-tax hourly as a normal 38-hour 75k job.
Re: 996
#217996 is just theater for investors. Saw this happening even at YC companies. There was always that stupid expectation of overworking, staying until 9. The reality is that people twiddle thumbs. And the disorganization and micromanagement power plays are enough to negate any additional worked hour. This ranges from pure disorganization in terms of what to build to having 3 hour meetings with the whole fucking company w…
> 996 is just theater for investors. Investors who have not heard of the research into productivity that says long hours have no significant benefit for skilled work? Who have not heard of diminishing returns? Who have no experience of the reality of working long hours themselves?
Yes, many such cases
Re: 996
#218True story. I grinded hard at a startup for years. This was a decade ago so the concept of 996 wasn't part of the lore yet. But it was fun. We stayed late and I made life long friends. I worked closely with the founder (really awesome dude) as I was an early-ish employee. The company ended up not working, our equity went to zero and we got what you get when you don't get rich, experience. I ran into the founder rando…
I will forget names of people I haven't seen in a long while but whom I legitimately value and am glad to kave known. And I am not a founder type, who are being exposed to 10x people compared to me. It's just a human thing, don't let it bum you out.
Totally. The point is, this guy who's mission I dedicated a good portion of life to clearly doesn't think about me at all after the fact. I'm sure he's gratefuland values me. But if I was part of his story he'd remember my name.
Re: 996
#219In China, its birthplace, '996' always seen as practice of failed management. Because for at least half of the 72-hour workweek, most employee will mentally checkout (in Chinese we call this 摸鱼). Although middle managers know their subordinates are inefficient, they still impose working hour KPI on their team, so they can demonstrate their own value to upper management.
I used to work for Huawei where 996 or worse wasn't uncommon. While middle management definitely pushed for extended working hours, I didn't get the impression that anyone viewed it as failed management. If anything, upper management knew exactly what was happening and was encouraging it. Hell, you have the likes of Jack Ma glorifying 996, calling it a blessing.
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Re: 996
#220Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you're smart enough to get hired for one of these roles, and you're willing to work 996, be just a little bit smarter and found your own startup and take all the upside.
> and take all the upside And all of the risk. Encouraging anyone to start their own company is deeply irresponsible. Most startups fail. If you're needing encouragement to do it - if you're not already fully deluded that you're the special snowflake unique genius who will succeed where all others have failed - you shouldn't be doing it.
>> Most startups fail.
so how is it different being a salaried employee at one of these companies? You say they're likely to fail; shouldn't you get the bigger lottery ticket then?