Comment by whack | Hacker News Reader

Comment by whack | Hacker News Reader

The other piece that gets overlooked in the Google story is the value of hard work. When reporters write about Google, they write about it as if it was inevitable. The actual experience was more like, “Could you work 130 hours in a week?” The answer is yes, if you’re strategic about when you sleep, when you shower, and how often you go to the bathroom. The nap rooms at Google were there because it was safer to stay in the office than walk to your car at 3 a.m. For my first five years, I did at least one all-nighter a week, except when I was on vacation—and the vacations were few and far between.

My husband [the venture capital investor Zachary Bogue] runs a co-working office in San Francisco. He runs his company out of there and other startups cycle through. And if you go in on a Saturday afternoon, I can tell you which startups will succeed, without even knowing what they do. Being there on the weekend is a huge indicator of success, mostly because these companies just don’t happen. They happen because of really hard work.

This was actually the part I found most surprising and interesting. One the one hand, it's scary that you have to put in insanely long hours like that to succeed. But on the other hand, it's liberating knowing that one of the keys to success, is something everyone has access to.

If some random person had made the above comments, I would have laughed them off as an insane workaholic. But knowing that this advice is coming from someone's who's seen it first hand at early-stage-Google, and many other startups... it's hard to ignore it, no matter how much I may want to.

Nonsense. This directly contradicts over 150 years of research that says working over 40 hours a week doesn't lead to increased productivity (and actually hurts it). [0]

In the 19th century, when organized labor first compelled factory owners to limit workdays to 10 (and then eight) hours, management was surprised to discover that output actually increased – and that expensive mistakes and accidents decreased. This is an experiment that Harvard Business School’s Leslie Perlow and Jessica Porter repeated over a century later with knowledge workers. It still held true. Predictable, required time off (like nights and weekends) actually made teams of consultants more productive. [1]

[0] http://www.salon.com/2012/03/14/bring_back_the_40_hour_work_...

[1] https://hbr.org/2015/08/the-research-is-clear-long-hours-bac...

What you're saying is probably true for 99% of workers who work-to-live. If you're someone who's working 80 hour weeks, because of fear/greed, then I agree that your productivity is going to suffer.

But I don't think this is true for the small minority of people who are so passionate about the project, that they are intrinsically motivated to put in insanely long hours. I've experienced such intrinsic motivation during various parts of my own life, and the resulting 80 hour work-weeks that I imposed on myself didn't feel like a productivity drain at all. I think this is what Marissa Meyer and other startup founders are referring to, when they talk about the insanely long hours they worked during the early stages of their company.

Completely agree. I'm guessing most studies are done using population averages and perhaps with non-programming jobs.

It would be really interesting to study this specifically among start-ups, academics, or game developers where some people put in very long hours.

That might be true, but I'd like to see research done on that. Regardless, what's clear is that this belief is used to justify overworking the masses: "The Google guys became so successful because they worked 130 hours a week. Why can't you put in a few extra hours a day, Johnny? And while you're at it, pee less often." We need to stop glorifying long hours at the expense of ruining mental/physical health and human relationships (among other things).

If you're putting in 80 hour weeks and feel drained and burnt out, it's not because you're greedy or fearful, it's because human biology puts hard limits on these things.

There are plenty of people who put in 45 hour work-weeks, and then spend another 20-40 hours on hobbies that are extremely cognitively demanding, and still manage to achieve great things during those extra 20-40 hours. It's not a biological limit, it's a motivation/passion limit.

Watch out for survivorship bias[1]. Business books are full of it: Look only at companies that achieved A, and then find the B they did in common. B must cause A. Ignore the companies that did B and did not achieve A. Ignore the companies that achieved A without doing B.

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias

The amount you work is one of the few variables in your control. I'm still a believer that luck plays a bigger role than most will give credit.

Also, people tend to think they work harder than they actually do. I'm sure they worked hard, but there's almost no chance they were working 130 hour weeks, certainly not consistently. There are only 168 hours in a week. I also don't believe the one all-nighter a week line. Working like this would completely destroy your productivity.

I found this especially true in US culture.

There seems to be a lot of "showing off" of and around your work.

Yep, not just in work, but in personal life too. Everyone is always so "busy" but if you actually probe, it's mostly false or exaggerated. I don't know why having free time is such a dirty word.

Frankly speaking, one all-nighter a week sadly is quite possible for early google employee.

I know of early days operational people (SREs were not a thing yet) need to stay in campus to resolve production issues. They need to stay all-night or come to office in midnight regularly every week.

The "how often you go to the bathroom" line is a pretty big hint that there's some amount of bombast in here. How long does it take to go to the bathroom?

Nobody's ever failed because they pee too often.

i've done plenty of the above, and while we have achieved some modest success, we're no google.

not to mention all the people who worked even harder, and failed anyway. or worse.

i think when you make your money $100M at a time, you just tend to think you're right about everything. can't say i blame her, i probably would too.

maybe i should look into marrying a VC also.

I am very suspect of 130 hours/week being sustainable at a level of quality anyone would appreciate. I do think it's easier to achieve in a management position. I don't see how a developer can be productive working those hours regularly. But the article seems to imply you should be ready to work that many hours all the time, not during crunch times to get things launched. The latter is definitely possible.

But maybe this is just one of those legendary questions people ask to weed out those who would immediately balk because they want to have a life outside of work.

I've never worked in an early stage startup, but what is it exactly that those working more than 100 hours per week do?

I don't think there is causation but correlation between success and work hours. Both come from determination.

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