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There are hardly any jobs like that in the world. It would also be hard to create them via some state intervention, because it's very hard to create "meaningful, high impact, high autonomy" via bureucratic process.

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I don't mean state intervention as most programmers are quite privileged, but a company that creates something like skunk works for people for burned out people

*If* such a thing could be done under typical corporate incentives/behavior, then I suspect the “high impact” part would need to be scrapped. Because when something is important to a corporation, it turns its eyes that thing (so to speak), which disrupts the other properties.

Or, “high impact” could be spread over the long term. So, unknown-payoff R&D. It would need to be an “invest and ignore” strategy and require a lot of institutional trust.

As Steve Jobs put it, "we're in a business of making phones, not hiring people". It makes way more sense for a company to get rid of an employee when they admit to burn out, rather than try to help them.

Yes, but I think this and (un)paid sabbaticals may attract a elite talent that is in short supply (at least in the US). But then again this is my speculation.

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