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Re: 996

#361

Post by rsynnott »

graemep wrote: post #281
rsynnott wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of these VC types, ah, not the smartest, to put it mildly. See their twitters (or, well, their investments; remember WeWork?)

A lot of their investments are made on the basis of what they can sell it for before it all falls apart. So in that context theatre in general makes sense. Not sure why long working hours would be - its not something people fund managers about with regard to an IPO, for example, so it probably does not hugely raise exit values.

They seem, as a class, very susceptible to dumb trends. This _kind_ of works for them, because occasionally something that looks like a dumb trend turns out to work (remember Facebook games? Still amazed that became a thing), and VCs only require a rather low success rate to operate, but usually a dumb trend is just a dumb trend.

Irritatingly, every time, people use this to claim that the dumb trend is the next big thing. A few years ago, anyone sensible could see that NFTs were bloody ridiculous, but you’d have lots of people on here proclaiming a glorious new NFT-based future, because, after all, the VCs were pumping money into it.

Re: 996

#362

Post by 1penny42cents »

stavros wrote: post #41
Aurornis wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Companies that try to demand extreme hours with average pay have very high turnover. As employees realize they’re getting a bad deal and that they can find a better ratio of pay to hours worked at other companies, they leave.

Sure, but why does this rhetoric both persist, and only go one way? You never hear anything about an expectation from employers to pay more than what was agreed. If I'm an employee with miniscule equity, why would I put in any more time and effort than what was agreed?

People without equity will work harder if they expect it to bring career or compensation growth.

If it’s a great company, people will work extra hours to move ahead, knowing it will pay off in their careers. “Great company” is always relative to the individual and where they are in their careers.

As people mature in their careers, they split off into “people with equity who continue to work hard for it” and “people without equity who have a good work/life balance”.

But as long as there’s the promise of a life-changing development, people will (sometimes rationally) work outside of their agreed hours.

Re: 996

#364

Post by johnsmith1840 »

santiagobasulto wrote: post #303

You're all answering from a very privileged standpoint. I started my career in tech from a small town in Argentina. When broadband was prevalent around the world (2012) I was still working with a dial up connection on a $200 computer. I grew up seeing what poverty and lack of opportunities does to people, and I was determined to break away from that. I got a job at a startup by sheer luck, and it completely changed m…

Very true.

I had a coworker (Phd Stanford) go and tell a bunch of poorer neighborhood highschoolers "you don't need a phd to be sucessful" while partially true it's painful to watch those sitting in the sweat and blood of their forefathers discuss how it's actually morally wrong to work as they did.

Thank god for H1B because foreigners are the only ones who actually seem to understand this anymore.

USA has a "nobel class" it's almost identical to the british empires class structure. Thr upper class of the british empire directly thought working hard was a negative hence the "gentlemen" did almost nothing.

Your job in life is progress not to subsist on your parents and grandparents work.

Re: 996

#366

Post by citizenpaul »

ford wrote: post #245

I've never understood the risk trade-off for early stage employees (Employees ~4 through ~10-20). At this stage equity packages are often But the odds of success are still quite low - In venture funded companies I think it's wrong to say that at That being said - I get working hard if you're appropriately rewarded for it. Just less so if it's primarily on behalf of someone else.

There is a reason the bay is filled with foreign workers. The investers are well aware they are offering a bad deal. They want (not need) to exploit people with as few options as possibe.

I belive religous texts are mostly a coded way of rerfering to this type of person aka demons and to stay away from their offers..

Re: 996

#367

Post by chaostheory »

We already have the research to show that 996 is only sustainable in spurts of a few weeks at most, and it comes with downtime of a few weeks. It’s stupid unless you want an army of zombies.

Re: 996

#368

Post by quadruple »

99* and 00* are what I do during hackathons, not work. I write some of the worst, god-awful code I've ever seen during hackathons, because I need to get the idea working. I(and the company) can't afford to merely "get the idea working" in production.

Re: 996

#370

Post by citizenpaul »

epolanski wrote: post #317
imajoredinecon wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. I work at a highly successful small company with a reputation for being grindy, and what that looks like in reality is probably 55 hours a week of largely focused productive work: typical core hours are 9-6:45ish, and you work longer a day or two a week and put in the odd evening or weekend hour. It’s hard to imagine working 9-9 every day

55 hours is still insane. I could only do it in a highly growing startup as an early engineer, with the expectation I'm out in few years.

Really? Ive yet to encounter a job that expected less than 55hr as general minimum.
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