61–70 of 361 posts
> Motivation is a hired trait. The only place where managers motivate people is in management books Initial motivation is the hired trait. It’s very easy to demotivate people. The trick is to not do that.
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As usual, the problem is not 996 itself but comp. You can get 996, you just have to pay for it. The reason Europeans don't want to do 996 is because the extra effort isn't fairly compensated.
if you surround yourself with people who are only motivated by money, you will believe that everyone is only motivated by money. if you surround yourself with people who are motivated by a creative urge to build something they can be proud of, you may start to believe that this is everyone's motivation. it is often useful to think of people as only being motivated by one thing, to see clearly how application of that…
Nowadays with every market being saturated and tech being a race to the bottom quality-wise, what's there to be passionate about and/or proud of? Do you think people are proud of building yet another OpenAI wrapper or advertising surface? If they actually are proud of those I would feel pretty sad for them.
Also, the majority of landlords don't take payment in "passion" or "pride" and rents have skyrocketed since the glory days of tech.
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Until recently American engineers made a lot of money at comparatively cushy jobs. A decent engineer in the US could make 5x their equivalent in most European nations. Staff+ engineers at FAANG could make 5x that. People in a good position tend to not like rocking the boat.
Again see Steve. Something can look like a good position and still rapidly deteriorate. This one wasn’t that rapid either, you had plenty of warning. I remember discussing inequality with friends in 2014, and probably knew about it since Occupy Wall Street (2011). Or earlier.
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As usual, the problem is not 996 itself but comp. You can get 996, you just have to pay for it. The reason Europeans don't want to do 996 is because the extra effort isn't fairly compensated.
if you surround yourself with people who are only motivated by money, you will believe that everyone is only motivated by money. if you surround yourself with people who are motivated by a creative urge to build something they can be proud of, you may start to believe that this is everyone's motivation. it is often useful to think of people as only being motivated by one thing, to see clearly how application of that…
Making the most money per hour merely allows me to spend more time with my family rather than working more for less and giving my creative energies to greater society or an employer instead of directly to my wife and children.
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> But some people do wish to participate in an early stage startup You don't need to push yourself into burnout as an employee in order to participate in an early stage startup. > earning €80k 80k€ gross is not a lot for a decent SWE in western europe. The reason people complain in Amsterdam is not the hours, it's that your comp is shit.
140k AUD. In major cities in Australia that is a reasonable mid level salary. I imagine that is good in Prague.
80k a few years ago was the price point at which you would get few Western Europe remote candidate and many Eastern Europe ones.
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Not only is it rarely compensated, it's rarely effective. Software work is bursty and creative, not mechanical and hourly.
you are lucky to have lived a career where that is true. it is largely true in the states and sometimes true in startups. there are corners of the world where it is less true than one would hope.
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Not only is it rarely compensated, it's rarely effective. Software work is bursty and creative, not mechanical and hourly.
you are lucky to have lived a career where that is true. it is largely true in the states and sometimes true in startups. there are corners of the world where it is less true than one would hope.
And it's readily visible in terms of software quality and technological capability of the company.
When I read about 996-style culture I am happy to be European. That would not work here. 40 hours per week max and most engineers prefer to not work more than 32 hours a week. So you have a good work/life balance. I currently work 4 hours a week.
I'm in EU and I can't agree this describes most engineers. Overwork culture is also present here and exploited by a lot of companies.
Scandals in the papers around the crazy hours workers at big-4 consultancies in Vienna typically do, which again went unpunished by labor agencies, since there were no written orders from management imposing those long hours but workers just tactilely accepted it as part of the work culture there.
Similarly, a mate of mine at major finance gig in Frankfurt noticed that they were working longer hours than their colleagues from NY. Heard similar stories from colleagues from Italy and France.
So work hours are super dependent on local culture and industry. The meme about everyone in the EU being paid to slack off all day is not as common as people imagine, unless maybe you work for the government or got lucky to score a great gig in some dysfunctional monopolistic megacorp.
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because comparing yourself to your competitors will get you a faster horse buggy, not an automobile. if you're in a startup, you should be risking making automobiles. if you want to make faster horse buggies, go work for AT&T.
Good ideas need the right timing to line up. AT&T can afford to keep a research project around until the timing is right where a startup needs to find market fit immediately.
but i take your point to mean there are large companies that have budget to maintain projects that do not have an immediate need to be profitable. and agree that for startups, it's a great idea if you're building things for which a market is emerging. everyone talks about how Steve Jobs is a miracle worker. not to diminish his accomplishments, but he was also very lucky. he wanted to sell apple 2's into a market that was just starting to want to buy apple 2's. i'll give him the iPhone, however. i think he was smart enough to understand the forces were aligning to make a product that your average user would like.
but apple didn't spend 30 years making the iPhone. they had to wait 'til the market was there and manufacturing costs were low enough and bandwidth was available. i'm mostly agreeing w/ you, but i think ideas can weave in and out of companies and organizations. CALO jumped from DARPA to SRI to Apple to Quato and motivated several more startups.
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because comparing yourself to your competitors will get you a faster horse buggy, not an automobile. if you're in a startup, you should be risking making automobiles. if you want to make faster horse buggies, go work for AT&T.
Ah, the mythical secret weakness of all startups: another startup doing the same thing.