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Comment by justapassenger | Hacker News Reader

Is it me, or does this article basically romanticize abusing workers and glorifies running projects without a plan, just with a goal?

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I assume that an "all-hands" meeting at 1AM means an all-hands for everybody working the night shift, not the entire staff. Yes, shift work sucks, but that doesn't necessarily mean overwork.

Having several SpaceX employees in my circle of friends, I would not assume that at all.

Are your friends up at 1am because they're excited about what they're doing?

No because optimizing for ad click rate just doesn't get me out of bed.

Shift work also correlates with elevated levels of various diseases and cancers.

I don't think it's abusing workers if it's perfectly clear to everyone before they get on board what they're signing up for. I think most people applying for those jobs are dying (figuratively) to get in on it because it's such a unique opportunity to work on something big, hightech and exciting.

Absolutely, but I do think the people joining know what they are signing up for.

AFAIK they work in shifts, non-stop; crazy hours & weekend is irrelevant in this context.

This part of the article is about shifts for assembly workers:

So Musk is making the machine to make the machine. Musk has brought lessons learned from Tesla’s assembly line so workers do not burn out. They will work three 12-hour days and then have a four-day weekend. Then they’ll work four 12-hour shifts with a three-day weekend. Thus, with four shifts, the Boca Chica site can operate at full capacity 24 hours a day, seven days a week. SpaceX is throwing in hot meals every three to four hours, for free.

I think that schedule actually sounds pretty great. I mean, it wouldn't work in my life now because I have kids and a dog and whatnot, but in my 20s? I'd have done 36-72-72-36 in a heartbeat. Imagine always looking forward to a three or four day weekend!

Or he doesn't care about burnout. Because of the branding of how cool space is, and robotic missions that actually advance the science not being as sexy, he has a fresh supply of excited people (rant about the science vs the sensation). Knowing former SpaceX employees informs that.

I'm happy with my 9-to-5 schedule now -- I can stop work at a specific time, and mostly stop worrying. Mostly. But it's not the same kind of freedom as knowing that the weekend has started, and that there is a multi-day period where you can start forgetting about that whole world (barring emergencies, of course).

Rotating between three and FOUR-day weekends? Wow.

If you want to change history, you'll put up with a brutal working schedule.

If you want a cushy 9-5 job, just apply to the nice big corporation down the street. At the end of the day, you just go home and enjoy your comfy bunny slippers.

If you want to change history for the better you will do the better for the people now. Putting up with brutal working schedule reminds me of the coal mines of England on industrial revolution, no coal mine owner or worker from that time comes to my mind now.

Fine. It's bunny slippers, then.

This sounds suspiciously identical to a tweet Elon posted last year that went 'viral', including the bit about how people working 9-5 (like that even exists at most corps today) as somehow being 'weak'.

> suspiciously

lol, you've found the nefarious element!

(It could be that I'm actually quoting from memory but, if so, it's not conscious.)

Changing a world is a marathon, not a sprint.

I've noticed in my life, over the last 20 years, a strong correlation between companies being successful, which means, making money so they can keep paying their employees, and concerns with those companies making their employees work too hard or for too little.

Maybe this problem can be solved, by changing the system, but unless you are in a situation where you can avoid competition, until the system is changed companies may have to do some degree of hard work to survive.

You require a significant amount of equity and board seats assigned to employees or their representatives, so they share in the gains and have control over the direction of the org.

That just means that the employees are more likely to be well taken care of. This intuitively would suggest the company is more likely to be successful, but i think GP's observation is that the opposite might be what we actually see in practice. At least right now.

The model I suggest is used in Germany, and works well for both the business and the workers. On a smaller scale, Costco implements something similar in the US with positive results (Customers and employees before shareholders, but shareholders still profit).

I'd rather have something like a engineering corps that could keep engineers employees during recessions when the private sector can't afford it. Almost like and engineering reserve. I'd rather have the stability than more profit.

I agree! The US did this as part of the New Deal [1], it was called the Works Progress Administration (WPA) [2], making the federal government the largest employer at the time. You'd want to integrate that with employee unions; during good times, businesses work with unions to source labor. During hard times, the government steps in as the employer of last resort, using cheap nation state debt issuance to fund infrastructure projects to fill in private investment gaps. You of course then have to pay back that debt with taxes when the economy is booming again.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Deal#Summary_of_First_and_...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Works_Progress_Administration

Most Great Man narratives do.

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