Should you Work Hard? (2019)
jacobobryant.com
jacobobryant.com
> It's not entirely clear to me why working hard has become a Bad Thing in certain parts of the US.
I am shocked because this sentiment is entirely clear to me: most people must work hard to survive and their work will likely never be rewarding, financially or personally. Meanwhile, inherited wealth allows a class of people to "work hard" with zero downside risk, all the while claiming they have earned their due. The fact that someone as wise and reflective as Sam Altman cannot understand this is puzzling. He says earlier "I have yet to meet a slow-moving person who is very successful." Again, I cannot fathom how one can fail to observe how class privilege bestows automatic success to certain people regardless of the speed at which they move. Trust funds accumulate, there is never concern over making rent or providing food, and they can easily take low-paying internships or found a startup without any personal risk whatsoever. People without this kind of leverage do not have the luxury of seeking "alignment" in their jobs. They do the actual hard work at the firms owned by the warrior class of inherited wealth, and are then admonished for not working hard enough to enrich the owners further.
There's a lot of emotional baggage around rich people, but if you strip it down to individual situations it's pretty simple. I've worked for people ranging from small business owners scraping out $50k a year all the way up to billionaires. How hard they work has no correlation to the money they have. I don't resent a boss with money, I resent a boss who isn't working as hard as me, and most founders/business owners I've worked for have worked harder than everyone else.
In a modern economy most "business owners" are passive shareholders who literally do nothing for that money. I am a partial business owner of many enormous corporations via my retirement account. I don't do any work for any of them, and yet, they continually send me money. Strange!
When investing in a corporation, there is no guarantee that you will gain profit from it, you can even lose your entire investment.
If you were a long-term Nokia shareholder, you would have lost a lot of money since, say, 2005.
When you invest, you put the value of your previous work at stake. You can retroactively sink your work (= money that you earned from it) into a black hole.
> When you invest, you put the value of your previous work at stake.
What was the "previous work" I did when I inherited my father's Walmart stock?
Let us hope that they won't get sucked into plots of the next Bernie Madoff, who will likely come one day.
> What was the "previous work" I did when I inherited my father's Walmart stock?
True, I was thinking about investments of surpluses from your salary.
Then we should first define "success" before continuing the conversation. I worry there might be a bit of a No True Scotsman problem, working backwards from the conclusion of laziness preventing success.
The typical definition of "successful" is almost synonymous with "wealthy" except for popular artists (broadly defined) who for some reason aren't able to earn from their work or achieved popularity posthumously.
Do you anecdotally know someone who said "John is a son of a magnate who does nothing all day, he is so successful"?
There is a different situation when the successor generation multiplies the wealth, but that already takes some effort and good judgment.
Yes, though they don't emphasize the doing-nothing. Further, it's easy for a wealthy person to mask doing nothing with appearing busy yet effectively being a socialite.
> There is a different situation when the successor generation multiplies the wealth, but that already takes some effort and good judgment.
It may take good judgement, but not much effort. VTSAX and chill, as the kids say.
I grew up around the kids of very wealthy people, often multi-generational wealth. Most decided to have jobs. Some had very impressive careers, but when you realize that first opportunity was only because of a parental connection, suddenly it seems a bit hollow. It's not hard to appear wise and smart when you're wealthy, and then you can simply not fuck up and the rest of the pyramid keeps chugging along.
Case in point, Trump. He is a lazy fuck-up, but somehow managed to appear "successful" to a large portion of America.
Frankly, that sounds depressing. Seen like that, people who were born to wealthy parents have no way to prove their own quality. They will always be suspected to be just lucky and riding the easy wave.
"then you can simply not fuck up"
There is nothing simple about that. I consider myself fairly smart and I fucked up royally several times in my life. It did not destroy me, I was able to put the pieces together, but none of the decisions seemed bad at that time, either to me or to people I consulted it with. There is a lot of traps out there.
For a start, don't join Dad's company as VP when you're 22.
Luckily, they don't need to prove quality, because wealth is a good enough proxy indicator for almost everyone. If you're talking about proving to oneself, then they're on the same footing as everyone else.
> don't fuck up
Easy: don't do anything. Leave the money where it is. Take an annual allowance.
I think you're saying it's hard to have the self control to not meddle, to not insert oneself into the power nexus? I suppose. Hubris is human.
The first opportunity is always the toughest. Also grew up around wealthy people, vast majority of them fall into the category you describe.
I was lucky to meet someone early in my adulthood who would always stress "What part did YOU do?" "Show me YOUR code"
What I like about him is you can't get the bullshit you describe past him. He always breaks down what you say into the most simplest form to ascertain what truth exists within your words. He won't let you ride another person's coattail.
That said, I think the quote was taken somewhat out of context. Here’s the original paragraph from Altman:
> It’s not entirely clear to me why working hard has become a Bad Thing in certain parts of the US, but this is certainly not the case in other parts of the world—the amount of energy and drive exhibited by entrepreneurs outside of the US is quickly becoming the new benchmark.
The preceding paragraph talks about finding your joy/purpose and working hard at it as well. He also has an entire section about how to make it easy to take risks (cover your basics first) so you can take advantage of any lucky breaks where you could work hard and reap the potential gains. I agree that it is presumptuous to assume that everyone can “cover the basics” and still not have time to work hard on other things and I do think that our society and culture of individualism are to blame.
At the end of the article there’s an HN comment amended that advocates for universal basic income and laments the fact that opportunity is “unevenly distributed.” So there is an acknowledgment of the true problem, even though it’s almost negated by the assertion that since Altman has seen people go from rags to riches it’s definitely “possible.” I hope for more than the “possibility” of success for anyone when they are working hard, and I would hope that everyone else shares that sentiment.
Anyway, it’s a slightly more nuanced take than what was quoted for this article, and it’s probably worth a read in its entirety:
Don't get me wrong, I know wealth inequality exists and it's incredibly unfair, but I don't think it makes sense as a counterpoint to what he's saying.
The peasants were poor, not stupid. That's what drove them to follow their own interests, not the lords'. For context it made sense for the lord to have peasants work more than they wanted. But the peasants often preferred not to for a number of econmic reasons, among them not being able to capture the gain, and risk minimization.
IT is rife with examples and it trickles out to other disciplines.
In a good scenario. Many hard workers are just seen to be suckers and exhorted to work harder. In my experience only about 50% of companies promote or give raises primarily based on merit.
China: Wealth does not survive three generations
Japan: The third generation ruins the house
Italy: From stables to stars to stables
Australia: From goon to Grange to goon
England: Clogs to clogs is only three generations
Scotland: The father buys, the son builds, the grandchild sells, and his son begs
- Rashid bin Saeed Al Maktoum
Economist Gregory Clarke has found that social mobility is/was about the same in modern America, modern Sweden, medieval Europe, ancient Rome, and the Communist bloc.[1]
If the specifics of a society's class structure had a substantial effect on most or even many people's ability to pursue economic opportunities, then we wouldn't expect Clarke's findings to uphold. Instead there's hardly any variance in long-term social mobility between human societies. Certainly modern democratic socialist Scandinavia must impose less overt class privilege than 16th century aristocratic Scandinavia. Yet the two have nearly identically low mobility.
(Note that social mobility and inequality are two different things. A country like the Soviet Union, may have the rich be only slightly richer than the poor, but still makes it hard to move from the latter into the former.)
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/feb/04/social...
Working hard for yourself, for money, for the love of your craft or something you believe in, it is fine and dandy. But thinking about working day and night for the dreams of others, dedicating the vast majority of your time and energy to a faceless corporation who can dump you like a bored boyfriend, or doing menial, pedestrian jobs that pay little to nothing and would be unbearable for even the most flat-lined brained person living today, well, it gives a different vibe, doesn't it?
I remember when reading the Away drama that I was stunned reading that customer service representative were making less than 50k in NYC and had to tolerate the verbal and emotional abuse of a power-tripping clueless executive for 12-14 hours a day. That's hard work for the dreams of others. And it is never the hard work, it is lack of agency and feeling one's fate depending on the mood of (often) lunatics.
My father passed away when I was 12 and my mother did little-to-nothing to teach me after, and while I've been blessed with problem-solving skills and a good foundation of ethics from my father, none of that would matter without hard work, including self-reflection and learning on what I need to improve.
I think it's safe to say I had a rough start, and it's hard for me to see my peers get handed things by their well-off parents, but jealousy didn't allow me to buy a house or move up in my career. Sure, I'm no founder, nor am I by any means wealthy, but I am grateful for what I have, given I had nothing before.
For those who find themselves in a similar situation, I highly recommend the book "The Richest Man in Babylon"; for me, the most important lessons were 1) humility, 2) save money for yourself and make it earn you money, and 3) seek to improve your earning potential. I know it's easy to be upset others are given what you need to earn, but frustration won't help you retire or achieve your goals.
I am the same as you. Purely self-made. Handed nothing.
Here's a situation I saw which changed my view from yours to the person you're replying to:
My friend is successful. He did not go to college since he couldn't afford it. Rather he worked after graduating high school and attained a senior engineering role before his peers had graduated college.
Well...the company he was working for folded. He desperately took whatever the next job was because he was young and did not have much savings to fall back on nor a college degree. That next job was across the country and in his words "was a waste of two years". He stayed at that dead end job for resume purposes in a city he hated but had to relocate to.
Now I have another friend. That friend graduated college, moved to a new city. His parents paid for the first year of rent in the new city while he looked for the best possible job in software. He got a great job.
You see the massive disparity? The first guy essentially threw away two years of his youth working a cubicle farm job because he did not have inherited wealth to fall back on. Today, he's doing very well but that does not change what happened to him.
Seeing that first hand changed my "boot straps" thinking. The world isn't fair although I agree, you can make it more fair.
Meanwhile when someone is poor they are expected to have zero failures in judgment and the poor generally have better judgment but when they do have a lapse the effects are catastrophical.
You are 100% right.
And to respond to the other commenter -- the first guy didn't have much in savings because he was sending money back to his parents.
That's how bad it is. When you are born into wealth, there's a sort of "rubber band" helping you move up the ladder. When you are born into poverty, that rubber band pulls you down instead of propelling you up.
I can speak to this myself, I have helped my parents/family enormously at cost to my financial wellbeing.
And by the way....when a son/daughter does well, gets into software, makes a healthy $150k salary in SV, that does not change the financials at home. That $150k salary has to keep coming and you have to keep giving it to your family to make a real difference over time. At the same time, you have to pay SV rent, you have to buy a car, go on dates with your significant other, have a life of your own, etc.
As someone who grew up lower-middle class, who read HN for ~10 years and became slightly-upper-middle class, I think working hard is an unattractive proposition, and becomes ever less so as the timer ticks. I have seen people burn out like candles, to no avail.
My advice continues to be: "Do not ever work hard, unless you find yourself in a good strategic position where working hard benefits you". I cannot say that such positions of strategic advantage are non-existent for a normal software developer, but these became rare. Other HNers note, and I agree with them, that for someone to be raised in hierarchy for hard work is a rare occasion, especially if we talk about a real raise (say, above senior developer or a team lead). It takes a rare company and a departing higher-up to make working hard ROI > 0.
To expand on it:
* Realistically, the era of PG essays' applicability and easy startups is over, and has been over for several years. We are entering a new socio-economic regime which could be called "new guilded age/neo-feudalism". I may sound leftist saying this, but bear with me, I'm actually not leftist at all, it's just the truth of our situation. Lords became lords, the rest remain the rest.
* In this regime the low-hanging fruit is all but taken, the value has been captured, and the tech economy enters maturity, which is a polite euphemism for "MBA phase" of value extraction. It's not just me decrying this, Elon Musk has recently said the same: https://www.wsj.com/articles/elon-musk-decries-m-b-a-ization... . Expect disappearance of small businesses (so, don't invest in tech skills used by small businesses). Expect more rat racing at work, more subscriptions and dark patterns in digital products. Also maybe expect slow merge of BigTech and US government in the next couple of decades, effectively giving us a BigTechGov with all that entails.
How does a generic middle class software developer rationally cope with the reality of this brave new world ? Here is my version of it, if someone knows how to enhance this advice, please do so in the comments:
1) Work as little as possible, to earn as much money as possible (basically minmax the professional game, choose high-paying moderate barrier to entry programming niches). Take breaks, fly to pretty islands with sunny beaches as much as you can. Never bear with bad workplaces if you have opportunity to switch, you have no obligations to this system, the age of corporate IBM pensions is over. For top management we are but replaceable parts, and our loyalty is neither required nor expected.
2) If you have what it takes (intelligence and neuroplasticity, basically), leetcode for FAANG while doing 1. This allows you to reach endgame - early retirement - more quickly.
3) If you do not have what it takes, do not leetcode or study algorithms (it's a waste of time without applicability to faang), go for tier-2/3 silicon valley unicorns. If you can, get a raise, become a manager as quickly as you can, because programmers have a short shelf life, while managers have much simpler day to day responsibilities, and long shelf life. I know what I'm talking about, because I have been a manager. Basically, working your life away in a position of individual contributor is a sad fate I wish everyone avoided.
4) Live frugally, do not overspend. Invest as much money as possible in a mix of index funds, bitcoin, gold, property. Again, do not "invest" money buying tech products and various products sold to you by MBAs - these money will be wasted.
5) Slow down your ageing as much as you can - take metformin if you tolerate it, use whatever interventions necessary to avoid metabolic syndrome, monitor your biomarkers, do aerobic exercise once in two days (I prefer biking for example). Monitor your spine health, avoid deterioration with any means necessary. With serious approach it is possible to feel/look 10 years younger than you are.
6) Find a loving partner, make at least three children. Children are good for everyone, and for you in your 50s-60s. Don't bother with college education for your children, you either won't be able to afford it, or it will be free by that time. The best gifts you can give your children are high IQ and good health, both of these are highly heritable (though could be ruined by environment), so look for these in your partner as well. If you have questions regarding IQ and how not to ruin it, mail me.
7) Retire as early as possible, focus on low-capital-expense high-satisfaction activities, e.g. spending time with your kids, studying abstract subjects, sports.
8) THE END.
Great advice to live by.
Question about #5 though - do you have any links to read about metformin and why you recommend it? I generally avoid putting things inside my body unless it's got a fairly extensive body of research behind it.
About metformin. I'm neither a doctor nor a biologist, but if life science jobs paid more, I'd heartily studied for a bio degree and worked in this profession. I'm a slightly educated gentleman who has read his Molecular Biology of the Cell and some hundreds of scientific papers of varying quality. It's my hobby.
While it is true that there is a vast universe of "dietary supplements" that do nothing reliably measurable in homo sapiens, and then there are some legit FDA-approved drugs that don't work as intended in most individuals of homo sapiens either, I think there are varying degrees of evidence to support the claim that some approaches to life extension do work, if slightly, for many average human beings. And then there is an interesting question of increasing healthspan, not just lifespan.
There is a spectrum of quality of evidence, with gold standard being high-powered double blind randomized controlled trial, followed by lower-powered RCT studies, followed by not-really-double-blind studies, followed by replicated large observational studies, small observational studies, and then studies in nonhuman primates, mice, worms and yeast cells. Even this evidence is not ideal, given financial incentives, replication crisis, publication bias, etc, but still.
In my more or less informed opinion, compared to other approaches for life extension in homo sapiens, metformin has shown that it lowers all cause mortality in humans (see RCTs, look at Gwern's review of metformin), both diabetic and non-diabetic. Given that metabolic syndrome prevalence approaches ~50% for people older than 60 in US, I think the case of metformin for life extension becomes even stronger (given it can likely prevent the onset of metabolic syndrome which lowers healthspan & lifespan). So, especially if you have some relatives with obesity/metabolic syndrome, taking metformin to have a chance of escaping this fate is a no-brainer for me.
There are some caveats: some quarter of people (myself included, I have to look for other ways due to personal incompatibility with metformin) do not tolerate metformin, because it interferes with digestion, and of course some people won't benefit from it or may even be harmed by it (though it's a very safe drug, as far as drugs go).
Generally, our fate is a product of GxE/genetics x environment/nature x nurture, and a case could be made that for a minority of people with exceptionally good genetics (here, related to lifespan, which is moderately heritable) most pharmacological interventions would ruin this fine-tuning. But I think that for vast majority of people, myself included, our genetics is not optimal (in absolute sense and for our current urban environment) and at best we can hope for a fate of our ancestors, regarding lifespan, intelligence, and common illnesses, if we do not change our environment (incl. pharmacologically).
To have a chance of having a slightly better biological fate than my ancestors, I research human biology/medicine and apply some findings to myself, understanding that this implies some responsibility & risks. Other people may choose to have a similar hobby, or to find something better to do. That being said, to look at one's biomarkers (for example post-prandial glucose, liver enzymes, vit-D levels, iron levels, etc) and to apply some non-drug methods to bring them into the green zone wouldn't be risky at all.
... If at this point there is still interest in deeper route, here are some starting points for research:
1) The Book http://gen.lib. rus.ec/book/index.php?md5=44EA074D6F741D2 F1FA1E005775F361E (could be incomplete)
2) scholar.google.com & sci-hub (could be biased)
3) Overviews of the topic from other hobbyist researchers https://nintil.com/longevity/ https://nearcyan.com/supplements/ (could be incorrect)
> If you have questions regarding IQ and how not to ruin it, mail me
Well, would you mind giving us all a hint here? I'm curious.
Given IQ like many other human traits can be modeled as GxE, one can optimize the "E" part, which boils down to avoiding ruining the realization of genetic potential of the child (i.e. the influence of the environment is often negative). There is a list of small factors in early life that are associated with IQ and related life outcomes. Mostly these tend to have something to do with pre-natal, natal, and early childhood environments.
To give just one innocent example - the month of conception statistically influences many life outcomes, including lifespan (+ 6 months of it if the child is conceived in winter and born in autumn), likelihood of Alzheimer's, multiple sclerosis, and 2-4 points of IQ difference.
One can argue here about statistical controls, but let's avoid this line of thinking.
You would think that by now, YC knows where to look for good startup founders. So if they are increasingly going to Africa to recruit founders, it tells you that at least in their experience, privilege is not a good metric to optimize for.
Perhaps it's easier to succeed in finance or some other industry if you come from a privileged background, but in startups grit matters, and the privileged kids don't have it in the same amount as immigrants and anyone else who had to fight for survival.
Hard work is part of the equation of success, a necessary part I would argue. There's not a lot of successful lazy people - inherited wealth is not success, it's just a higher baseline. Success to me is something you achieve, not something you can inherit.
The money quote is:
> You can get to about the 90th percentile in your field by working either smart or hard, which is still a great accomplishment. But getting to the 99th percentile requires both....
That seems beyond debate to me. Being at the 99th percentile is a relative measure and you don't get there unless you work smarter and harder than most everyone else.
Once you get in a position of leadership (that is you have leverage) I'd argue working smart is far more important because that is a force multiplier on everyone working for you.
If you somehow do both then you're Elon Musk.
Looking back, many of the jobs I took were just for the big pay increase. But unsurprisingly, I wasn't happier. Worse, it became harder and harder to leave a job (or leave this IT career) because the idea of financial setback was bigger with each job.
By no means am I rich. In fact, other life things erased my financial gains; so I'm left with less time in my life and few achievements or memories (work related) worth remembering.
And while family and children are some of the best things in life, they also tend to be in conflict with hard career work and success. Some people pull it off, but most of us don't.
My advice is to try to recognize when one's career is no longer fulfilling; save a little money along the way, and pivot hard in search of work/life satisfaction even if it means a big downgrade in income. And start a family ideally after you have explored the world and some of your dreams.
I tried to start multiple companies right out of college and failed at all of them, all while taking any other work I could to pay the bills. Working in a call center was by far the worst of the “other” work I did and it led me to consider getting a “real” job based on my skills and degree.
I ended up convincing an advertising agency to hire me and decided to give it my all, despite my misgivings about the industry in general. I worked hard and even enjoyed some of it, and my title/pay/prestige all followed an upward trend as a result. After the first raise I said it would only be another year. Then I got promoted and I decided it would be another year after that. Then I got another raise and a promotion, then we were acquired, then a few more significant yearly raises after that. At some point I tried to convince myself that this was the right path, but I knew it wasn’t. I still wanted to be my own boss and run my own business.
Seven years later and it was incredibly difficult to justify leaving all that money. I also hadn’t saved particularly well as I instead grew my lifestyle to match the money. None of it made me happy or gave me satisfaction, and I felt tied down to the job. As a solution my wife and I decided to move back to my hometown and start our own business together, even though we had tried to start another business together right after school.
Thankfully this time it worked out, although we still have our disagreements about what the future of the business looks like. My advice to everyone is slightly different: chase the money if the opportunity arises, but don’t change your lifestyle. And keep working on other things on the side if you can. Maybe I wouldn’t have progressed as much in my “real” career had I had other side hustles, but I’m sure it would have been a less painful path than the one I took.
My advice is to try to recognize when one's career is no longer fulfilling; save a little money along the way, and pivot hard in search of work/life satisfaction even if it means a big downgrade in income.
Is exactly my plan in 2021. I’m leaving SWE and going back to school for finance and accounting. I’ve always enjoyed and been skilled at the numbers game and have done bookkeeping for a Local community outreach group for many years, I’ve found a very tangible calm doing something more quantitative than building CI/CD pipelines and roadmaps and oncall and feature standups and andnand and and and. I am so thoroughly burned out, disaffected and otherwise sick of my career and some of the doing this after 17 years that I’ve begun having legitimate anxiety attacks.
I had two sitting at my desk last week. When I turned around to get up and get a glass of water I saw the dog cowering in the corner. He had never seen me like that.
That’s when I knew it was time to go. Well, actually no I knew several years ago but the golden handcuffs were clamped tight and I was too scared to go.
Not anymore.
Bye.
This is not to dissuade your choice. Rather, I'm looking for similarities between myself and others, and potential pitfalls to avoid.
I don’t necessarily believe all of the points above are negative but scrum can be an exhausting way to work.
There shouldn’t be deadlines every two weeks, instead you should be working towards a sprint goal. If the goal is not achieved then you can use that knowledge in the next sprint to reduce the amount of scope you try to complete. There are no deadlines per se, because deadlines try to fix scope and time, whereas a sprint only fixes time. The process of estimation and story pointing is where things become more art than science, but provided you are consistent in your approaches this mechanism prevents our inherent lack of foresight from becoming a catastrophic prediction failure.
Meetings like stand ups, retros, and backlog refinement can be super effective tools but they have to be run properly and tightly, otherwise they become worse than nothing.
I guess in this hypothetical team the thing to do would be to raise with the Scrum Master that you’re exhausted, raise in the retro that there are deficiencies in the process etc. and get back to a more sane baseline.
Additionally, many others have already argued against both the common implementation of Scrum, and its "ideal, perfect, theoretical" version. Just the idea of preserving asynchronous communication while introducing fixed, synchronous communication strikes me as an idea by someone who does not understand how people work.
Scrum as a set of process rules should not be particularly difficult for an engineering team to learn. I submit that if a team cannot operate under such a set of rules, it will be unable to adopt any set of process rules, and in addition to that, it will perform especially poorly under a system of no rules (i.e. direct rule by edicts from kings and queens).
Good lord it is exactly this kind religiosity that has me running for the exit.
I guess my question to you is, where are you exiting to? If you know of a process or methodology that is better and can articulate the reasons why, then I will gladly follow you!
This is in my OP that began the comment thread.
I guess I won’t be following you through that exit, but all the best and good luck for the future. I admire your courage in the pursuit of happiness.
Like, sure, you can make a team decision about what goes into this sprint, and what goes into the next one. But the management makes the decision what must be done in three or six months, and there is no negotiation about that.
Yeah, I am a little salty about the state of things. I'd prefer programming in "my basement", and can understand why communication is important. Yet I can't help but feel we've thrown out the baby along with the bathwater.
Reason I emphasize agency is that as long as it gives the best result and meets the requirements (including ethical ones), I don't care how it is done. Result being very broad: features, maintainability of the code, enjoyment of the team, etc.. Anything else that is pushed from the management layers without good reason is needless overhead.
Now what do software devs usually do when we see needless overhead? Ah right, we remove it. If only it were that simple outside software.
Generally speaking: I just don't have the energy for the amounts of bullshit that comes with being in this career anymore. No job is immune from bullshit, this much is true--but I kind of hate this cop out because it strips agency from people in minimizing the amount of bullshit they are subjected to on a daily basis.
For me, that means to hell with this career. I very much want to do something different, so that's what's going to happen.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25251029
Good luck on whatever voyage and path you end up taking, I genuinely hope you find a spot of zen for you and yours.
EDIT: BY THE WAY--I will probably never stop coding, as there are always opportunities to be efficient in bookkeeping and do some low level automation (in fact I do this already). I've also got a home lab running a few local services and I enjoy tinkering. I'm just not at all interested in writing and maintaining feature/production code for another SaaS platform or "tech company". Not at all. Never again. The idea of even interviewing for one of these jobs has the heart rate ticking up and the jaw to clinch up.
It seems most people still hold their love for coding or what spawns from that coding. It is the environment in which they code, that creates most of the frustration (and doesn't seem to be stopping anytime soon).
I wish you the same luck.
Wholeheartedly agreed
my own two cents is consider work as only an income stream for you (and your family if you have one). Making your passion your career just turns what you love into the daily grind of your job. I like my job but I sure as shit will not do it for free. My passions in life I will gladly do for free
However, pivoting to something you think brings happiness is not always a great advice. It's worth mentioning the "So Good They Can't Ignore You" book by Cal Newport, which basically argues (I give you my simplified interpretation, I might be botching it) that happiness comes when you become very good at something, and changing careers in the pursuit of happiness will make you be less good in something and in extension, also less happy.
Maybe this is the reason for the ubiquity of over-engineering and other patterns of over-complication - quite a few people enjoy deep work, but the vast majority of jobs in software development, or writing, or even a fair few in science, turn out to be only hard work when done with optimal efficiency.
The first time I saw this pattern was with a place that used their master database as the central integration point for a lot of different code bases. They could have simplified things greatly, but that would have required multiple teams to simultaneously change how they used particular tables in their code. The database was controlled by a central group of database administrators who were very busy and had different incentives than the teams they supported. Getting all these people on board for a change was possible only if it rose to an executive level. Which if it could be achieved at all, required lots of politicking.
So in practice, every team had to make up for the garbage architecture through hard work. Which however much they meant well, tended to reinforce the problems.
We use ant with a lib-folder - worked on maven in my spare time - nobody cares. Worked on automated tests - nobody is willing to discuss this or do the required changes like fixing Angular timeouts and assigning some unqiue-id's to elements that tests don't break. We misuse the API from the parent project we are building a plugin for - some calls take 3s or more instead of feasible 100ms if correctly implemented. We have a useless PHP addon that constantly breaks for "performance" but it's slower than doing it in Java correctly. Brought all of this up. It's not even a topic.
People who study the Challenger accident talk about "normalization of deviance". When things are bad once, people react. But if they're bad regularly, people just get used to it. Bad is the new normal. And that's very hard to change.
I think the only times I've seen significant progress had 2 common elements. One is a fucking disaster. Something has to blow up so badly that the grand poobahs feel the pain, and make sure everybody beneath them does too. The other is a bubble of sanity. Maybe it's one team that has a few people like you, enough to say, "Well in this team, for this product, we're going to do it fucking right." And then that team has to show that doing it right produces great results, results that prevent the fucking disaster from ever happening again.
So for your sake, I hope you either change your organization or change your organization. You deserve better.
Deep work has nothing to do with over-engineering and everything to do with non-distracted focused time doing something that actually releases dopamine and feels good.
Deep != complex
When I think back to the times I was putting in a lot of extra hours, I wasn't getting results in proportion to the time spent. Partly because being tired your capacity declines. Partly because, in retrospect, we were all performing hard work as a way of impressing clients, bosses, and each other. And partly out of some phenomenon related to "revenge bedtime procrastination" [1] where I just ran out of self-discipline and would secretly take the breaks I should have been taking anyhow.
Some years back I hired movers. Previously my experience moving had been the casual thing with friends and family. We took our time, joked around, took breaks, kept entertained. But these movers were relentless. They never rushed and never seemed stressed, but if there was work to do they were on it until the work was 100% done. And when there wasn't work to do, they were perfectly chill.
I keep coming back to the memory as how I want to work. No bullshit, hard work when it's time to work, and really letting go of it at quitting time. It's harder to achieve for software, but I will keep iterating in that direction.
[1] https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20201123-the-psychology...
That only works because their job is perfectly defined. The scope is finite and always in sight. I'm not quite convinced this would work for creative work or a project that's somewhat open-ended in features and/or scope.
To give an example of this: I can do this type of no-bullshit relentless work when I exercise in a gym. 1.5hrs of a strict routine with a fixed number of reps. And a hard stop after that.
Never found the same type of ability for deep work.
We managed that here: https://williampietri.com/writing/2015/the-big-board/
And that's despite the fact that it was a startup. It helped that my cofounder had 3 kids under the age of 5. He came in on time and he left on time. We all busted ass while we were there, but when we left, we mostly left. One real test for me was when I had to take weeks off to help a sick relative. Even though I was the technical cofounder and had been involved in every bit of the code, I got maybe two calls where they really needed me. It was a sign that we're built a real cross-functional team.
This is the key, I think.
It's driving a truck vs. delivering goods.
Laying stones vs. building a house.
Answering emails vs. solving the problem.
One of my pet peeves is this notion that dying regrets is some sort of yardstick for how to live your life. At any age, it's easy to look back and think "why didn't I just...", but life is complex, and actions have unintended consequences. Personally I subscribe to the "que sera sera" philosophy. Control is limited. Life is a rollercoaster, just strap in for the ride.
But I agree with my boss on this matter. If you have kids, I think you should scale down your operations, have a 9-5 and spend time nurturing mini-yous to the fullest potential.
When you're in your youth working, you have no idea what this number is and better to be safe than sorry. If the amount of work you need to do to get through life with your target level of comfort were "solvable", then people would do it. But capitalism is a world of exponential growth, decay, and unpredictability.
When all financial advisors stop padding the hell out of their client's target retirement date just to be safe, then we can say this regret is solely on the conscience of the person on their deathbed.
Investigation into the playing of imperfect information games has revealed that one way to get a Nash strategy is by: playing in proportion to regret, then taking that strategy space which will oscillate around the nash strategy and averaging it. If you play the average of that set of strategies you will play the nash strategy.
Meanwhile, if you look at the world's richest human, his financial situation is a direct result of a decision made on the basis of regret. He made the decision to found his company on the basis of thinking about what he would regret. So we can also find a focus on regret as a successful strategy in the case of an outlier success.
Your view assumes that those with dying regrets lack much critical analysis. That they espouse these regrets without having critically considered the alternatives. That no one has said to them 'oh you had a comfortable life, quit complaining' or 'if you hadn't worked, you wouldn't have had such a comfortable retirement'.
I suspect they have been told this over and over. And I suspect that they have thought critically about those regrets.
I guess I'm concerned about your quick dismissal of their potential wisdom.
I'm certainly not rich but I don't need a 5 day salary to survive. I'd much prefer to get paid less and work less but this doesn't seem to be an option
I've even went as far as building a website listing jobs with 4-day work weeks:
/rant
Side note: why are you classifying a 4 day work week as 28 hours? Wouldn't it be 32?
In the UK the typical work day is 7 hours (9-5pm with an hour unpaid break). I'll be honest though, I've had a few people ask me this same question, so the name may change pre-launch
My son who is 14 had very, very average marks last year. He is a very bright and capable boy so I was really dissapointed. This year he is top of his class with an average mark of 18/20.
As you can imagine, I am all happy and everything and I told him that I am proud etc. - all the right things a parent says.
To what he told me that the marks in the class he is in this year decide which high school he will be admitted in. And he wants to be admitted to the best one.
So he obviously started to work hard to get good marks. That lead to the best high school. Where he will be probably average until the marks start to have a meaning again etc.
I was initially bemused at this approach, so far from the work ethics his father tried to instill in him.
And then, after some thinking, I think he is right (which is a major change in the way I was thinking). Grades are nothing more than a gateway to the future and ultimately do not mean anything more.
So "hard work" when it makes sense to do so.
I may be misremembering the exact argument, but some insightful commenter here once mentioned a while ago that although Hannibal Barca would in all likelihood have had a stressful life, his relationship to that stress would probably be much different from what we imagine due to our perspective as worker bees whose relationship to work isn't defined by autonomy, glory, or decisions that really have an impact.
When I see Altman's quote:
>It's not entirely clear to me why working hard has become a Bad Thing in certain parts of the US.... I think people who pretend you can be super successful professionally without working most of the time (for some period of your life) are doing a disservice.
It strikes me that for a person to be confused by this, they would have to be completely isolated from the working reality of most people. I'm not familiar with Altman's life, but if I had to guess he was never in a position where the long-term connection between effort and gaining autonomy/mastery/meaning was broken.
It's as simple as that. You have to work on the right stuff, and very often it's a matter of perspective.
One angle - if you can look at work as play, then it changes everything. You're engaged in a challenging exercise and looking for ways to take it to the next level while learning a lot in the process. If you can engage that way, with each task being a stepping stone rather than a chore, then it's a totally different mindset.
The other thing - it's easy to say "I wish I didn't work as hard" and somehow imagining the more leisurely version of yourself having the same lifestyle, but obviously what we have (eg, financial security for our family) is an outcome of the work we do. It feels to me like "I wish I didn't work as hard" is a lament of a well-off person who somehow doesn't connect their situation to the work. A person who actually sees the direct connection between their hours worked and family safety would never say this.
Life is a trade-off and we have roles to play. Sure it's great to see your kid 24/7 but do you want to do that living under the bridge in poverty? There's of course a balance to strike between the two but the acceptable range is actually pretty narrow.
Now, if you love your employer, sure work hard for them.
Once we could organize ourselves in highly productive democratic nation-states, then yes, just being a lord became shameful, but it wasn't an option at the time.
Organizing democratic nation-states first came by creating nation-states, what could only be done (and was only done) by the king or people supported by him.
Only after that people started thinking about democratizing anything.
And you are doing that by comparing to equally naive analysis of other times.
I compared it to feudalism for illustrative effect, but I believe the comparison also has merit in itself as de facto feudal power was further bolstered by cultural constructs that further limited the scope of analysis in favor of the status quo. We operate under similar constructs with hustle porn, by-your-bootstraps, CEO worship and so on. Of course, this is a matter of subjective and cultural perception but I wouldn't call it naive.
Nowhere did I propose a complete framework to radically improve all of society, nor was it necessary to do so for the scope of my argument which merely cautioned against needlessly submissive (and naive!) ways of looking at employment that add burdens way beyond what physical reality or the organization of society bestows.
For me HN is an invaluable resource since it has allowed me to take a peek into some realities that were hitherto unimaginable.
This sort of reality clash will only become more poignant in the future as the gap between highly skilled workers and the rest deepens to become a canyon. It's already the case that you find my perspective weird, so imagine how weird it will be to future HN posters when the inequality has reached even higher levels and they can't even conceive of someone having to apply for jobs to get one.
Just wanted to say - that's awesome.
> This sort of reality clash will only become more poignant in the future as the gap between highly skilled workers and the rest deepens to become a canyon. It's already the case that you find my perspective weird, so imagine how weird it will be to future HN posters when the inequality has reached even higher levels and they can't even conceive of someone having to apply for jobs to get one.
I think the chasm is not as wide as you think - at least for me. It's easy for me to relate to the difficulty of a job search, and at least intellectually to connect to the difficulty of scraping by in a low skill/low wage situation. I grew up poor so it's not that hard to see it actually.
The reason I reacted to your post is that the attitude it espouses is poison to those who embrace it. Here's what I mean - if one believes that all employers are abusers out there to fleece you like a feudal lord (from your analogy) then one doesn't actually try to find working dynamics that are better than that so they pass up opportunities. Small example - my in-laws run a small business that treats employees very well (like, health insurance for unskilled workers type well) - but if someone believes all employers are evil then folks don't go and seek out their type.
In this case, I made the analogy with feudalism because the perspective seemed to fall in the diagonally opposite trap, that of just-world or bootstrap thinking. I believe the equilibrium lies in trying to see power relations as they are, which is obviously a difficult task that I don't claim to be proficient at. These power relations are wrapped in so many social constructs that my intuition tells me to be extra-critical to correct for these hidden influences.
Another aspect is that I don't have an outlet to discuss intense topics in real life, so I jump at the chance online. I hope other posters can relate to this ;)
Dito! I have to say, I really enjoy your thinking and posting (except for the first one) style. You seem incredibly self aware and able to instantly contextualize yourself within a broader framework. Very rare skill - I hope you are putting it to lucrative use with a great employer :)
Great companies are generous to the employees and hire the kind of employees that go above and beyond for the company. I've seen this at all the places I've worked, it really is the best setup.
Career is there just as something (i) I can keep busy with, (ii) sort of like, and (iii) gives me some income. The rest of the day is what really matters to me and I try to concentrate on that. Hobbies, family, friends etc. That's what really matters to me.
To think of it differently imagine if you didn't have to work to make a living; what would you do? I try to ask myself that question and do those things even if sometimes I have to tradeoff.
Your deep passions and skills might not be aligned with what society wants and is willing to pay for.
But, it is totally fine if you personally prefer to have a quiet family life and spend as much time as you can with your children. If that is what your heart tells you is meaningful - set your life up that way.
It’s a personal decision always. Neither is right or wrong. People are different. It’s ok to find something meaningful that others don’t value the same way.
Just buy more Chinese goods.
What’s the point of working hard when there’s no reward?
Motivation is the reason for acting a particular way.
Intrinsic is value within the self.
Therefor any kind of motivation is intrinsic since motivation is produced by the self so you’ll have to elaborate for me by what you mean.
Paul Graham started YC with his wife who was his cofounder.
Example: Our company is a small retail business in my hometown. I want it to be more than that and my wife would be happy if we kept things the same, so long as finances allow (they should, barring some unforeseen catastrophe).
So we are aligned on nearly every “important” aspect of the work except this one. It’s tough because one of us either has to become aligned with the other’s views, or has to work without that alignment if that’s not possible.
I feel very privileged to have this kind of problem as opposed to not being able to pay the bills etc, but it still feels bad at times. I think that’s life though, where you need some of the bad to appreciate the good.
I tend to avoid working with people that I know
Sure, the old person might be saying “I wish I’d worked less”...it doesn’t follow that working less will actually make you any happier for most of your life.
Constructing your life so you’ll be happy on that deathbed seems like a gross misapplication of life’s potential.