New trend: extreme hours at AI startups

blog.pragmaticengineer.com

30 points·amazonhut··9 comments

May be worth it for founders if you're naturally obsessive about the problem you're solving. No bueno for employees (or anyone with less than say ~5% equity)

This isn't a trend. This is just worker exploitation.

do they pay them for every hour they work? I'd be down. but if I'm getting paid for just 40 hours, they can eat my shit

Bring back the T-shirts!

https://www.folklore.org/90_Hours_A_Week_And_Loving_It.html

Got it. Work myself to death so my CEO may become a billionaire based on a vague notion of AGI. Why people willingly do that is beyond me.

The hype is the product and I smell a bubble. Now, how do I turn my cynicism in to money without becoming the people I loathe?

Sometimes it’s fun. Especially if you have nothing better to do. When I was 25 I worked crazy hours (12h a day easy) because I loved what I was doing, I was learning at a super high rate, and I still had enough time to go on dates/out with friends etc.

It set up the rest of my career

same here!! And at that age, it keeps us out of trouble. Not a lot of time for dating or other expensive activities ;-)

I thought AI was so good that it helps folks and do their work for them.

I expect these guys to have a lot of free time and be super assisted by the genius level LLMs they are developing.

ive been banging this drum and no one has an answer

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