Why are successful professionals still working 70 hours a week? | Hacker News Reader

Why are successful professionals still working 70 hours a week?

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97 pointsskartik83 comments

Because I like to work.

People who don't like to work often misunderstand this when looking at the stories of successful people. They think successful people force themselves to work hard in order to be successful. In fact successful people often like their work so much that there's nothing else they'd rather do. I doubt for example that there's anything Jeff Bezos would rather do than run Amazon. I bet it seems to him the way a gigantic Lego creation seems to a 7 year old.

Exactly. My father told me a story of when he was stuck in traffic with somebody who was then about the 10th richest person in the world. To make conversation, my father asked him what his plans for the coming year were. The guy listed all sorts of business goals. My father asked if he had anything personally that he was planning. The guy basically replied that those were his personal plans. He made no distinction between work and play.

There is a HUMONGOUS difference between owner of a business and employed by a business.

Makes sense for the "10th richest person in the world" to work long hours. It's his call. He is working basically for himself.

Totally different when you're making say 50K and the "10th richest person in the world" wants YOU to work all day every day too.

This hits the nail on the head. Most of the value that you're creating is captured by someone else. So why should you be expected to spend all your life to benefit someone else's interests?

It's quite strange that today slavery is a completely taboo subject (rightfully so) and yet workplace slavery is not only tolerated but encouraged. It's essentailly the same; someone else uses their coercive power over you to essentially steal a big chunk of your life. The worst part is that it's a first-in best-dressed, roll-of-the-dice kind of game.

Speaking as an outsider to Western/American culture, this is one of the worst parts of America. There are millions of people peddling the bullshit dream of "success" (whatever that means) and the implied message of "work harder" in every corner of the media and workplace. Which is great if you reap 100% of the rewards, but for most its only a way to make them compliant worker-bees competing with each other for scraps that the higher-ups dose out at their leisure.

Unless we’re in some kind of rent-seeking or monopolistic situation, you never get 100% of the rewards. Businesses increase their revenues by providing more value to clients.

Most of the value that you're creating is captured by someone else. So why should you be expected to spend all your life to benefit someone else's interests?

Exactly. And they push you hard to squeeze just a little bit more out of you, every day. I am currently working a contract. They offered me a full-time post, to move to one of the move expensive cities on the planet, and make half of what I do now. Naturally, I questioned the defunct logic in this particular offer, and the come back was "but you will be full-time". Suffice to say, the negotiations, such as they were, rapidly went downhill from there. My client is pretty pissed with me for not wanting to work for half of what they are paying me now. Whatever. My next contract is on the horizon, I have several lucrative offers on the table, and I am pretty sure my current client will be surprised when I hand in my notice.

Somehow, clients are taken aback when I discuss remuneration in terms of receiving a fair share of the value I create. They point at their ability to snare others for a minimum as evidence that I am not playing the game correctly.

Well-paying contracts are tools that big boring corporations use to lure talent that they couldn't otherwise get... Then if you stick around long enough, you start to get comfortable in the role; that's when they offer you a full time position for half the pay - By that point your skills have become so specialised for that specific company/role that you don't really have any alternatives anymore. You're a house-broken dog; while you weren't paying attention, they hooked you up on the leash and are now sleeping in the kennel. I have big respect for software contractors who manage to keep doing contracting past their 40s.

It's not slavery, because you're not forced to do it. You signed a contract agreeing to those conditions.

It isn't binary. I like my work, work long hours, don't own the company, and am treated well. I'm lucky, of course. But not every such situation is exploitative.

I watched a talk recently where Ivan Sutherland approvingly quotes Fred Brooks as saying "I don't plan to retire, I plan not to retire."

p.s. Please don't use allcaps for empahsis on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Do you feel that because you're contributing to the health and wellbeing of a community (as HN's community steward), that provides you with purpose above and beyond the usual monetary compensation?

I think people who work 40+ hours are supportive of doing so when they're contributing to something they believe in, or they enjoy it beyond compensation.

I think so, yes. Also, we have creative control over what we do and that makes the work much more satisfying.

The GP does have a point about how rare this is. It's just not a point that pertains to the original question.

There's nothing wrong with being passionate about your job

In a sense not, but it does make it easier to exploit you.

Just look at the game dev industry. Lots of passionate people there, and lots of companies who will exploit that. In the end, those people lose their passion.

Being passionate about work can make you very happy. But always make sure you don't get exploited because of it. You will need to set your limits.

Inherently? No, but it does come with potential for negative externalities.

If you consider that work passion to be a moral virtue and this comes through in your discussions with others, that contributes to pushing society towards a culture of being overworked.

If you try to overtly filter for passion within hiring at a company then that encourages bullshitting and reduces the efficiency of managing employees. You'll be trying to give "passion" benefits to a bunch of secret mercenaries.

If you're non-business inclined and passionate then this can lead to capturing far less of the value that you generate than you otherwise could. This is effectively charity to the business owning class. If you're working for $80k when a few extra conversations—or even just sentences—over the years could have put you at $150k, then that's effectively a yearly donation of $70k to the people in the world who need it the least. Even if you don't care for that money for yourself because you're too busy having fun working to spend it, then that's an awful lot of good you could have done for others that you're failing to do.

What's more with this one is that it also hurts your colleagues by acting as a salary anchor which again, results in a greater share of the value being generated going to the owning class.

Wanting to work all the time and being passionate aren't the same thing.

True, but that’s what people mean in an interview when they ask if you are passionate about I dunno, doing payrolls in COBOL or something

The difference is the type of work you do and how you feel about it, not whether you're employer or employee. There are businesses it's a grim schlep to run, and jobs that are very interesting.

Perfectly agreed.

That's sad.

Could you please not post unsubstantive comments here?

It's not unsubstantive in my opinion. It's just an expression of my opinion, which is questioning the thought of making no difference of personal and business goals combined with an emotional component (sadness).

This reply is already more substantive than a mere "That's sad", which may or may not have any thought behind it. If you fleshed it out a bit more into a thoughtful point, you'd have a good HN comment.

Merely stating an opinion doesn't count as substantive. There needs to be something to interest the reader.

You're right. I'm sorry.

I don't believe in overwork, nor do I believe it is sad. There's a big difference working 70-hour weeks achieving the goals you've set for yourself, and working that much to avoid getting fired.

That's patronizing. How about 'I would find that sad if I was in his position'.

When I see you use "That's patronizing", I feel conflicted because it seems to be in the same evaluative style as "That's sad". I am not sure if it's constructive to use a style being criticized against a person.

(this is me practicing nonviolent communication or something :)

The solution is not to feel offended when you're being criticized. As long it doesn't get abusive.

That's fair--it sounds like you're saying a person receiving criticism should be resilient to that criticism to some extent. I'm interested in hearing what you think the solution (if any) is for the person giving the criticism.

(to be clear, I don't feel offended by the parent comment)

Why?

Because there are vast range of experiences beyond the world of work which can fill and enrich a human life. To be not engaged in the rest of the world is to live a half life. No one died regretting time no spent at work or money unmade

"No one died regretting time no spent at work"

Citation needed.

Here's one example of a situation where I could very easily see someone regretting not spending more time at work.

As a professional creative, I'm betting there are a fair number of authors, film directors, screenwriters and so on who died regretting they didn't finish their latest work, or didn't spend more time on the thing they really wanted to make. That's work.

you're lucky to have a life where you get to do that. but do you have subordinates?

people with a lot of autonomy are harmed less by long hours and stress. i mean quite literally, if everybody is working 70-100 hours under intense pressure, the boss will experience fewer mental and physical health problems.

keep this in mind if there are people lower on the pyramid than you. what you yourself are willing to do might be quite harmful to them, not to mention the reward they get might be far less.

Of course, the problem is that people in this position tend to assign high moral virtue to what is essentially their hobby, and then tend to make the jump to thinking that people who are not willing to work 70 hours a week are somehow unworthy of rich, comfortable lives.

Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk can work all the 70 hour weeks they want. The problem is when they begin to force their subordinates (or indirect support personnel like the poor accounting schmuck in the article) to do the same.

The article isn’t talking about Jeff Bezos, but the associate at the law/consulting/banking firm staying up all night papering up the Whole Foods merger.

The question in the title is purely rhetorical, the FA itself is making a deeper point that if you yourself choose to go nuts, it's a bit unwise to expect everyone else around/underneath you to do the same.

Same, people always ask me why I do this to myself but I don't see it just as a job, more like part of my life and I kind of enjoy it and can't do without, albeit I must admit I am a workaholic and not everything out of this is positive.

“Insecure overachievers are exceptionally capable and fiercely ambitious, yet driven by a profound sense of their own inadequacy. This typically stems from childhood, and may result from various factors, such as experience of financial or physical deprivation, or a belief that their parents’ love was contingent upon their behaving and performing well.”

For those whom look for meaning or self-worth in work your efforts are seriously misguided. It’s very easy to make oneself busy so that you never have unscheduled quiet time to examine your inner demons. The perpetuation of the overworking culture is hurting us as a country at large. Do you really want to live in a country where people have no hobbies and have little free time to play and simply be?

I run a successful business and we work 4 nine hour days, Friday’s are almost always off and we start everyone with 25 days vacation. You can do that at your org too! Try it for a year and you’ll find that your turnover will drop, people will be more engaged with their work, more creative ideas will emerge from your work force ,morale will improve and people will be knocking down your door to work for you. Give your employees and yourself plenty of time for a life outside of work and you’ll reap the benefits.

So just because Jeff Bezos has worked tirelessly at Amazon for over two decades that means he's trying to show mommy and daddy he's a big boy? That seems like some next level armchair psychoanalyzing.

For some people "work" is the culmination and intersection of a number of hobbies they have thought about for decades. Some people are lucky enough to have the line between work and play to be so blurred that they get paid ridiculous money to have fun.

Bezos is also known for his appreciation of sleep

You can have meaning or you can have happiness. You cannot have both -- at least not all of the time. This conflict can be seen clearly in a movie like "Office Space", where both the male and female leads are working for happiness (and survival) whereas the work environment expects them to be working for meaning. (How many pieces of flair are you wearing?)

The trick to this discussion is that people on one side of the discussion frankly don't understand folks on the other side. The things they say and do don't make any sense. If you're a meaning person, you read the title of this essay -- "If You’re So Successful, Why Are You Still Working 70 Hours a Week?" and think if you're successful, why wouldn't you be working 70 hours a week? You're doing what you love, making a difference in the world! It's only those that are unsuccessful, those who work for meaning but aren't very effective, that would spend a lot of time doing nothing.

For both camps, it seems the world is full of people from the other camp, basically ruining things for the rest of us. It would be great if we could convey this critical piece of information to people early on in life. So much time and energy is spent in conflicts with other folks where it's not needed.

"People with careers need to learn to shut the fuck up around people with jobs. Don't let your happiness make somebody sad. [...] When you got a career, there ain't enough time. When you got a job, there's too much time." -- Chris Rock

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tnlNUZqFzgY

That outlook on life is horrible in so many ways ...

I used to work 60 hours a week because I absolutely loved what I did. It gave me meaning. Then I had a son and it fell to 40... Then 30... Then I quit. Now I'm home with him and absolutely love what I'm doing. I still feel successful nurturing a little human. It gives me more meaning than my job ever did. Financially I need to work again, but I doubt it will ever be the nexus of my day.

What a great story. And so now you spend 60, 70, or more hours a week with your son, which gives your life meaning.

Nobody said you have to have the same values for your entire life, or that somehow you have to go punch a clock to make a difference in the world. This is about happiness and meaning, not work or family. The two don't have to have anything to do with one another.

You and you alone decide what your values are and what gives your life meaning -- and whatever that is can and probably should (?) change throughout your life.

Are you male or female?

Typically I'd question why it matters but I appreciate that this is a very gender role specific topic. I'm male.

Were you a web developer?

I found my web dev colleagues were much more aware of the gender imbalances in the world and the expectation that I (female) would be the nurturer in my family.

I'm a geographer (The STEM program that was 51% female at my university). I'd like to think I have nurtured a balanced progressive view of the world, but we all have our biases.

This comment really baffles me, particularly the Office Space reference. Generally I see that movie invoked specifically to reference the meaninglessness of most white-collar work. TPS reports and pieces of flair are supposed to be absurd examples of things that employers to do dehumanize and control employees - the opposite of meaningful goals.

I think most people want meaningful (purposeful?) lives. Some find that almost exclusively through their work, some through their nonprofessional activities, some through their families. Most are probably a mixture. I think people often find happiness through figuring out what's important to them and organizing their life around that.

I think there is more nuance to meaning and happiness. The process of attaining meaning, in my view, is torturous. Think of any field - sports, theater. I don't think any athlete or sportsperson would call the process of attaining meaning a happy process. It's no fun to wake up at 5 in bone chilling cold for a workout. There's definitely some element of happiness driving this process. From what I can postulate, it's the end result or the chain of end results that brings about meaning and happiness. Somehow I can't disintegrate the two.

It's perfectly ok to not find that meaning and happiness at work, but find it somewhere else. Otherwise, like Warren Buffett says you'll just sleep walk through life.

I agree. I am vastly oversimplifying for a large audience.

Anything you do that doesn't bring immediate gratification is work, whether you're going somewhere to punch a clock or just cleaning up the yard after a storm. Some people manage to do a lot of work without finding any happiness. Some people are able to find happiness in most any kind of work. Perhaps they are more internally-focused?

When I see people that society regards as having a lot of purpose and meaning in life, athletes, religious folks, and so on? Frankly it looks like a struggle. As you say, it's no fun to wake up at 5 in bone chilling cold for a workout. There's no external stimulation here, yet there are people at 5am that have a pleasant feeling that they are on the way to do some good in the world, no matter the external circumstances.

The interplay between meaning and happiness is quite complex and nuanced. I not don't think you can separate them out cleanly but at the same time there are two completely different things at work and they deserve separate consideration. When we conflate the two, it makes the reader dumber than they were before they started. Much better to start from a position of "These are two different things" and then talk about the interplay between the two than treat them all as one thing and lower the level of the discussion.

Perhaps they are more internally-focused? Yep, I am flummoxed by people who don't seem to be bothered by chores. One of my friends said she enjoyed doing the dishes. Something beyond my understanding drives them.

Much better to start from a position of "These are two different things" and then talk about the interplay between the two Spot on ! I've so far been unsuccessful at understanding this interplay.

You're assuming everyone finds meaning in work. Some people find meaning in other things.

I think there is a dichotomy, but I don't think it's meaning vs happiness. Rather, it might be people who find meaning in what they do for a living, vs finding meaning in what they do outside of work. The key, I think, is identity; your answer to the question: "what are you?"

Happiness is a more complex question, I'd refer people to Maslow's hierarchy of needs. I'd add that happiness is usually fleeting, contentment and engagement with life is more achievable.

I don't understand why meaning and happiness are mutually exclusive. For me, I rarely can have one without another. do

Also importantly, overworking yourself does not lead to happiness and only to illusion of meaning. Long term 70 hours a week schedules are not about effictivity or happiness. Even if you absolutely love that job.

For the most of my career, I was certain that there was something wrong with me. After the first few months at a new job, a sense of meaninglessness grew in me. Is this it? Am I really babysitting this ASP.Net app from here on out? I tried to find meaning in my work but always came up short. Cue a miserable year followed by a job hunt. Rinse and repeat every 2-4 years.

After 12 years of this, it suddendly struck me - I don’t like working. I don’t hate it, not at all - I enjoy coding and fixing bugs. However I fail to see any deeper meaning in the work I do. So last month, I quit, started my own consultancy and sell my skills and time to the highest bidder, max 6 hours per day. Couldn’t be happier! I really feel more like a plumber or electrician than a coder and for the first time in my career I don’t feel anxious about doing something meaningful, because I’ve redefined what “meaning” is.

Thanks. As someone who struggles mightily with the same, I’ve always thought that path is one I should follow, but I’m not great at networking / hustling for the next contract, which you kind of have to do, right?

The local market here in Sweden is super-hot so I can pick and choose. Usually, I go through a broker who takes 10% of everything I invoice but does all the selling for me.

The article profiles people in a bunch of professional firms, but ignores the changing market for those professionals. An ABA study showed that in 1965, a typical billable hour target for a lawyer was 1200-1600. Today, 2000 hours is a typical target. That can’t be explained by culture. Law has always drawn “insecure overachievers.” In reality, it’s due to the changing marketplace. Decades ago, it would be highly unusual for Philadelphia company to retain a DC firm for a matter. Today, it’s routine—your competition is nationwide. Golfing with local business people doesn’t cut it for business development anymore. And like other industries, the work has shifted to larger players in big markets (NYC/Chicago/SF/DC).

External competition also breeds internal competition. I used to work at a firm in New York. There was no competition in the partnership, by design: everyone was paid in a lock step fashion strictly by seniority. Business development meant checking your messages when you got back from lunch. Partnership was for life and partners never left. That was typical 30-40 years ago. Today it’s very much the exception, a model retained by a handful of firms that have major institutional relationships. The typical model today is “eat what you kill.” Partners are compensated based on how much business they bring in, and regularly hop from firm to firm depending on who is offering the best pay package.

Of course all this isn’t necessarily bad. Increased competition means more work, more hours, more availability. But where there is a lack of competition, that’s often a sign of people being kept down. Back in 1965, many firms didn’t hire Jews, Asians, African Americans, women, etc. Business was given out over drinks instead of having competing firms pitch for it in a transparent way. All of those things increase competition and decrease the value of “good old boy” networks.

I wonder if organisations are getting the benefits they perceive, I suppose if you bill by the hour you are but I know from personal experience nothing kills my creativity like overwork.

It is odd to ask this question without any consideration of culture.

Perhaps our culture defines "success" in a way that can only be achieved by working 70 hours a week.

Also, where is the law that says devoting time to idle leisure is superior to working?

Are these 70 hours productive? I need downtime to think. So if you include thinking as part of that 70 hours then fine.

I'm technically a successful professional, but I'd certainly love to work less than 70 hours weeks. I don't have a choice, we're understaffed. It's been shown in black and white to management who is betting a sale will bring those people in. The scam comes into play when we realize we're salary. I used to look at salary as something to achieve, flexible work schedule where I could put in the work and go home when I was done. Now the work is never done. I enjoy what I'm doing, and I'm good at it, but the drive to push everyone in the tech industry into burnout is a cancer that's carving the industry out.

Sometimes it helps if you think back to one year before you started with your current work, what things were important to you then.

New success quickly becomes the new baseline and a personality that chases success will continue to pursue greater success.

Is it bad to just like work?

I couldn't think of anything I could do for the number of hours that I work that wouldn't send me insane. Travelling, hanging out with friends, partying, sports, random interests - not that I don't like them a bit, but I would lose it after just a few weeks.

At the heart of it all is the amount of insecurity we have about our work, it's quality and relevance.

My parents probably had this. "life is short" dominated anyone who lived through the great depression, and WWII and I think it influenced their sense that purposeful activity was better than other choices, what was work and what was pleasure blended, because you had a sense it was better to make things happen, than let entropy rule.

I had this as an engaging drive until 15-20 years ago when I somehow lost my work ethic, in a dark corner and I've looked for it fitfully since, but if I am honest, not very hard. I appreciate that its better to build, and leave something behind, but I am less driven to do this 24/7.

And then on your death bed :damn! I could have put in 80 hours a week!

Regrets, regrets... Regrets.

What is success, really?

I have to work almost all the time. My day typically begins at 3am and ends around 7pm. The reason for this is that my own projects and goals are often contingent on the successful completion of projects by other teams, and organizationally we tend to hire C workers at best. So I spend a lot of time pushing other people and other teams. It doesn’t make me popular but it does make me effective.

Where will this lead? How would you react if you were laid off ?

I was laid off about 4 years ago. My boss Skyped me (really!) and said there was no easy way to put it but they were moving the business in a different direction and I, along with my team, were being laid off. I laughed at him, said ok, and hung up. Then I stomped around angrily for half an hour. Then I hopped on LinkedIn and started applying for every open position that looked appealing. In 12 days I was made an offer and started the following week.

You’re replying to the CEO of Apple.

That's a very bad thing for a CEO to ever say. He is the one dictating that his organization hires C workers at best.

But, anyway, I'm really curious about know how he would answer that question.

This is great! I'm probably a high c* so if apple are hiring I'm in!

* hello Dunning Kruger!

It's great to see an article about this. I think it's clear that as automation replaces a lot of jobs we're all going to work less (finally) and find meaning, purpose and happiness in other ways.

Certainly some people really love their work, and that's fantastic. Other people would rather work less, and that's great too.

The number of hours people work is not important. What is important is whether they freely choose to work that amount of hours or not. There are poor people who work a lot more than 70 hours a week (2 to 3 different jobs). But that is not something they choose to do.

Also, measuring success in money earned is misguided. Success is personal. Success is achieving what gives meaning/fulfilment to you independently of what gives meaning/fulfilment to others.

Maybe those valuing a lifestyle with less work opt-out earlier and work part-time in a just mildly successful career

Working 70 hrs a week is a signal to me that one is not competent. Computers work for me, not the other way around. As for the people with "bullshit jobs" I assume they do it because of imposter syndrome. The only other category I can think of is doctors, doing it because there's literally no one else who can save a life. That's a management/credentialism issue.

Maybe that's how they became successful. It's a well established fact that industriousness is one of the strongest predictors of success in people.

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