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Comment by JumpCrisscross | Hacker News Reader

“presumably under the influence of some strong chemicals”

This is a bigger problem in Silicon Valley right now than anyone seems ready to acknowledge.

We will look back at the easy access to amphetamines - especially for children - in a similar light to the opioid epidemic. To be fair, I think they are less harmful than many opiates, but they are still serious drugs and usage has ~doubled in the last 10 years [1]. Anecdotally, it feels so common/casual for people - adults and schoolchildren - to be taking adderall, vyvanse, concerta, etc. Over 20 million subscriptions in the US [1] means thats something like 5-10% of the adult population.

1. https://www.fda.gov/drugs/drug-safety-communications/fda-upd...

Will we? Opiates leading to a homeless population not being productive, just looking to get high and be high all day and not do anything other than be a zombie, hits different compared to stimulants that makes people work harder and clean things.

I see the "we work 12 hrs a day 6 days a week" as a euphemism for "we take amphetamines".

Whenever you hear someone say they work 80- (or 100!) hour weeks, you should understand what they mean is they had a few crunch weeks once.

A lot of people also equate "face time in the office" to "real work getting done". Especially prevalent in finance circles.

Or the only thing they do in life is come to the office and then mix life with work so effectively it’s a combination of hanging out with friends, eating free food, and working, but it all goes into the work bucket when claims are made about how much they work.

Nothing wrong with that per se, I basically did that in grad school. It’s completely different than actually grinding 100 hours a week though. Also tough to be a part of if you have a life or family outside work.

Yep, that's what I thought too. I contrast it with an accident and emergency consultant I know in the UK. He actually is grinding 70 hours a week and not compensated for it. He works long hours because there aren't enough staff to cover the reality of what's needed.

I do this several times a year. It’s a lot of fun. You basically camp with colleagues and get a lot of collaborative work done. Then you detach and do your deep thinking. The problem is top performers eventually gain an ego and stop attending, and then it just turns into pathetic signaling.

ibb folks definitely work this much every week. big law too. medicine, sometimes.

> Silicon Valley right now

Go back to early 2000's post dot com bubble.

The whole of the bay ran on Adderall and Ambien + what ever else one could get their hands on. It was so pervasive that even a decade later you could find Adderall references in Bay Area hip hop.

Almost 30 years on, and this still has not really changed.

Elon

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