Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Sleep deprivation is not a badge of honor

37signals.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–45 of 45 posts

Re: Sleep deprivation is not a badge of honor

#41

Post by DaniFong »

davidw wrote: post #31
DaniFong wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm pretty sure I agree. Certain problems require too much headstate to solve in smaller time quanta, and that at a certain point, when I'm bleary eyed, I lose enough caution to think daring thoughts. Part of it's just the adrenaline, too. And if you have friends goading you on, an allnighter can be pretty fun.

But taking a slightly longer term view - how is your productivity the next day? What's it average out to over a few days with a big loss of sleep?

I can't give you a good answer to this, because it's the only productive rhythm I've known.

Re: Sleep deprivation is not a badge of honor

#42

Post by [deleted] »

pg wrote: post #27
nostrademons wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Sleep deprivation is not a sufficient condition for winning, but empirically it seems to be a necessary one." It doesn't seem to be a necessary one either, given the existence of counterexamples. Eg. Pierre Omidyar started E-bay while keeping his day job and adamantly refused to work more than 8 hours/day on it even after going full-time. One of the reasons he stepped back from a management position was that he didn…

Not everyone in a startup has to work hard, so long as some people do. But someone had to be carrying a pager when the servers went down, or eBay wouldn't still exist.

[deleted]

Re: Sleep deprivation is not a badge of honor

#43

Post by frizz »

pg wrote: post #27
nostrademons wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Sleep deprivation is not a sufficient condition for winning, but empirically it seems to be a necessary one." It doesn't seem to be a necessary one either, given the existence of counterexamples. Eg. Pierre Omidyar started E-bay while keeping his day job and adamantly refused to work more than 8 hours/day on it even after going full-time. One of the reasons he stepped back from a management position was that he didn…

Not everyone in a startup has to work hard, so long as some people do. But someone had to be carrying a pager when the servers went down, or eBay wouldn't still exist.

> But someone had to be carrying a pager when the servers went down, or eBay wouldn't still exist.

Fortunately, that can be one of multiple people working in shifts so nobody has to be up for 36 hours at a time.

Re: Sleep deprivation is not a badge of honor

#44

Post by mattknox »

It might not be a badge of honor, but it is often the best thing to do in the short term. This isn't even new to startups. My grandfather was looking for work in the middle of the Depression, and got a 2-day 'feel-you-out' kind of assignment at a gold mine. So he worked 48 hours at a shot, and got the job.

Re: Sleep deprivation is not a badge of honor

#45

Post by daniel-cussen »

Prrometheus wrote: post #29
aswanson wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What goes on (that you are allow to share) in those places that requires so much time and energy? I can see building things taking a lot of effort, but is it just for theater that people put in so many hours in those places?

In investment banking, you usually work on a small team of 3-6 people. The work day is very different depending on whether your team is currently working on a deal or is between deals and pitching clients. If your team is on a deal, then there could be honest-to-goodness work keeping your team busy for 100 hours a week. Tasks include preparing the materials used to market your client to potential investors (including…

Can't bosses pay junior executives less? Can't junior executives leave and go somewhere else? Why don't market forces come into play?
Post reply on HN