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I think the difference between someone who "gets ahead in life" and someone who doesn't usually isn't the number of hours spent in the office. Usually its more related to how well you make decisions in your career, and the relationships you build along the way.

Go to therapy. Learn about yourself. Work on your communication skills. Figure out what matters to you and invest in it. (For most people, family and friends are high on that list).

By all means work hard, but be strategic about it. Martyring yourself for your company won't make people respect you.

I definitely thinks it's a factor. You really don't see CEO who worked part time during their rise to power. Maybe there is something to that.

Agreed but there is a big energetic difference between a future ceo personality working long hours vs a supporting staffer who is just sacrificing themselves inefficiently thinking someone will care. People care about results and the appearance of some effort. Long hours are a basic requirement but healthy emotional boundaries are what get someone to the top.

There's several game studios out there whose last two tweets were "we've just won an industry award for our game!" / "our studio is being shut down immediately".

It's worthwhile working for yourself if you do think you're learning, but in today's corporate environment loyalty is just showing your willingness to be exploited.

What do you mean by "getting ahead in life"? That you pass more time doing stuff at work so you are closer to your death without having done the things you like, spent time with the people you love and visiting the places that fill you with joy? Or do you mean money? I am pretty sure if you are good at your job and you are not in a dying profession there will be enough places that show you the respect you would extend to them.

Shilling for work place abuse and unpaid overtime isn't getting you ahead in life the same way begging for forgivness with an abuser will make your life better.

If your corp can't manage people's time realistically, why would you expect them to manage anything realistically? Get out and go to a real place that knows how to run projects.

Don’t ruin your health for someone else. People who throw themselves on this fire in BigCo don’t get recognition or reward, they get abused by the political animals that will take advantage.

Work hard for yourself to build your own. But don’t think for one moment that death marches will result in a swift rise to the top.

Working hard is the only reliable route to excellence, the tough part is making sure you don't get exploited along the way - 50% equity or walk.

This is the sound advice.

Nothing wrong with working hard, but make sure you get something about of it.

If you’re being asked to cancel a holiday because some clown can’t get anything done without setting realistic timelines, don’t do it.

But if you take a job where your boss says “we need to get this done by this date and we need people who are willing to get it done even if that means sacrificing work-life balance” and you get paid like you should for a job like that, then do it.

> get paid like you should for a job like that

Does that happen very often though?

I've been the person working stupidly long hours for many years. Eventually I stopped doing it, and I started to set boundaries around my downtime, and I found out something really valuable: Nobody noticed a difference in my productivity. I was doing far less, but nobody noticed. They all assumed I was still as busy, and doing as much, and it's because the things we all do to be super busy and productive ARN'T productive. You might ship some things faster, but the quality suffers, changes are harder to make later and everyone's tired all the time.

So no, "working hard" won't get you ahead. The people who really get that far ahead in life are the ones networking and learning the political games, not really working. And why do you need to "get ahead" to be successful? I'm ambitious, and I love growing in my career. I'm not someone who is happy with the bog standard things, but I've also learned that when all you value is being ahead of your peers, you miss out on more than you gain. And on top of it, you all end up in similar roles anyway.

One can work hard and still not cancel holidays for work. Plenty of people work through holidays and don't "achieve much in life". I've known many people in higher positions who use all of their time off.

> one of the few who either rise to the top in your field or to create value in the world

"rising to the top" is pure ego-inflation

"create value in the world" -- you'd better make sure that you're creating value for the world in something that's important and meaningful to you, not just "create value for shareholders" (who don't give a f about you) which is what "creating value" means 90% of the time if you're in industry

Work hard != Work on your free time

Achieving a lot in life is not necessary about working hard. Its more about working smart or having a bit of luck. None of the successful (money wise) people arround me worked really hard. The working hard sentence is really nonsense.

I don't think it's nonsense but it's incomplete. A lot of people work really hard and achieve nothing notable. A lot of people sort of phone it in and do alright just by shrewd positioning (or luck). There is no substitute for combining both though: work smart and hard.

The trick is to make sure you're always investing in yourself. Even when you're working for others you be either "learning or earning", ideally both.

>I think this is poor and dangerous advice for anyone who wants to get ahead in life.

Oh yeah, every new-comer to the tech world thinks like this, and 99.99% of them don't get any further "ahead" in life than the rest of us. In fact, many end up further behind.