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Comment by pbiggar | Hacker News Reader

> I consider developing to be a creative kind of job, one where more arse-in-seat time means lower or even negative productivity.

As much as I would like to believe this, I don't think it's true. Looking at people who do PhDs, including myself, they work 60-80 hour weeks because you can get more done in that time than working 40 hour weeks. Every startup founder ever has worked extremely long hours. Googlers and Mozillians are in the office long past 5pm.

Certainly your productivity drops on a sliding scale probably after 20 hours of work, but to suggest that 100 hours does not get more done than 40 is pure fiction.

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There was a great post here a while back that said that research showed not only does total productivity start to decline if you go too far beyond 40 hour weeks on a prolonged basis but (and this is the kicker) your subjective evaluation of your productivity gets out of whack so you're less productive but you think you're more productive.

If you’re trying to get a PhD and your advisor expects you to work 60-hour weeks, then you either work 60-hour weeks or you consider a different path in life. That speaks volumes about what it takes to impress your superiors in a semi-feudal institution, but not much about productivity.

Personally I think that 40 is a little low. Especially considering you aren't working at 100% all the time. For me the sweet spot between a creative brain and enough churning-out-code is 60 to 70 productive hours a week. These include things that aren't strictly work work, but help with serendipity and ideas.

This all seems to me that you were trying to hire a machine. They will work on weekends and evenings without too much complaint, but form my experience as an employee, there are very few humans willing to work those kinds of hours and be happy about it. On an odd occasion when needs must, yes, but every day and every week will always lead to the inevitable. For most people (and maybe even more so in the UK), working at a startup is just another job, maybe not to you, but to them it will be. I also found as a PhD student those who worked longer hours never finished any quicker than those who enjoyed their time a little more - this is only my personal experience though. Maybe one of your biggest mistakes was not understanding people as well as you think you do - I dunno.

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