[HN Gopher] John Carmack on shorter work weeks (2016)
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John Carmack on shorter work weeks (2016)
Author : luu
Score : 87 points
Date : 2023-06-16 18:02 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (news.ycombinator.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (news.ycombinator.com)
| jayd16 wrote:
| Ironically he invalidates his whole point in the second sentence
| by admitting that there is indeed such a thing as overwork. The
| rest is an argument that underwork is a thing, which no one
| denies.
|
| So its really just a debate on ideal hours and the post fails to
| make an argument there.
| DigiDigiorno wrote:
| Errrr...
|
| 1. He doesn't invalidate any of his points in the way you think
| he does
|
| 2. In the most generous interpretation of your reading of him,
| he frames that amounts over the average 40 hours as sometimes
| being "underwork", which is absolutely something the some of
| the "overwork" camp denies
|
| He might have good points, or he might have bad points, but
| either way it's not because of your additions to the discussion
| just now. (i.e. I award you no points, and may God have mercy
| on your soul.)
| froggertoaster wrote:
| [flagged]
| dang wrote:
| Please don't cross into personal attack on HN and please
| don't post unsubstantive/flamebait comments. You can make
| your substantive points without any of that.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| ahmedalsudani wrote:
| From the HN guidelines: Please respond to the strongest
| plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one
| that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
|
| You are constructing a strawman. Go read his comment again. He
| differentiates between knowledge work and physical work.
| jayd16 wrote:
| I don't think Carmack would deny that overwork exists for
| knowledge workers. He admits that anyone can have a peak and
| not be at it. I don't think Carmack would deny that a
| knowledge worker can be overworked and increase their bug
| output, for example. I do not believe anything I've said is
| against a strawman.
| ahmedalsudani wrote:
| The strawman is reducing his comment to "really just a
| debate on ideal hours and the post fails to make an
| argument there."
|
| It's not about ideal hours at all. I'll post the entire
| comment here for anybody that might not have clicked
| through so you can actually decide what it's about.
|
| Quoting Carmack:
|
| I find these "shorter work weeks are just as effective"
| articles to be nonsense, at least for knowledge workers
| with some tactical discretion. I can imagine productivity
| at an assembly line job having a peak such that overworking
| grinds someone down to the point that they become a
| liability, but people that claim working nine hours in a
| day instead of eight gives no (or negative) additional
| benefit are either being disingenuous or just have terrible
| work habits. Even in menial jobs, it is sort of insulting -
| "Hey you, working three jobs to feed your family! Half of
| the time you are working is actually of negative value so
| you don't deserve to be paid for it!"
|
| If you only have seven good hours a day in you, does that
| mean the rest of the day that you spend with your family,
| reading, exercising at the gym, or whatever other virtuous
| activity you would be spending your time on, are all done
| poorly? No, it just means that focusing on a single thing
| for an extended period of time is challenging.
|
| Whatever the grand strategy for success is, it gets broken
| down into lots of smaller tasks. When you hit a wall on one
| task, you could say "that's it, I'm done for the day" and
| head home, or you could switch over to something else that
| has a different rhythm and get more accomplished. Even when
| you are clearly not at your peak, there is always plenty to
| do that doesn't require your best, and it would actually be
| a waste to spend your best time on it. You can also "go to
| the gym" for your work by studying, exploring, and
| experimenting, spending more hours in service to the goal.
|
| I think most people excited by these articles are confusing
| not being aligned with their job's goals with questions of
| effectiveness. If you don't want to work, and don't really
| care about your work, less hours for the same pay sounds
| great! If you personally care about what you are doing, you
| don't stop at 40 hours a week because you think it is
| optimal for the work, but rather because you are balancing
| it against something else that you find equally important.
| Which is fine.
|
| Given two equally talented people, the one that pursues a
| goal obsessively, for well over 40 hours a week, is going
| to achieve more. They might be less happy and healthy, but
| I'm not even sure about that. Obsession can be rather
| fulfilling, although probably not across an entire
| lifetime.
|
| This particular article does touch on a goal that isn't
| usually explicitly stated: it would make the world "less
| unequal" if everyone was prevented from working longer
| hours. Yes, it would, but I am deeply appalled at the
| thought of trading away individual freedom of action and
| additional value in the world for that goal.
| rat9988 wrote:
| [flagged]
| nitwit005 wrote:
| > This particular article does touch on a goal that isn't usually
| explicitly stated: it would make the world "less unequal" if
| everyone was prevented from working longer hours. Yes, it would,
| but I am deeply appalled at the thought of trading away
| individual freedom of action and additional value in the world
| for that goal.
|
| The conclusion that an article discussing productivity research
| is secret conspiracy against people who want to work a lot of
| hours, is a bit mind boggling.
|
| He never suggests he's tried working fewer hours. Have to wonder
| if the guy is just one of those people incapable of taking a
| break.
| solarmist wrote:
| Pretty sure that's the case. He has one deep interest at a time
| and literally everything else is a distraction from that.
|
| He is a "live to work" person who's never had to "work to live"
| since his first couple years when the learning of it was enough
| to sustain his forward movement.
|
| Sure he has crap work he needs to do, but it's all in service
| of what he already cares about. So no cognitive dissonance.
| cma wrote:
| Carmack since the 2000s mostly always worked multiple jobs at
| less than 40hr. Working 30 hours on software at Id and 30 hours
| at his rocket thing is about like a half-time employee who does a
| hobby wood working job on the side. At Meta he eventually became
| part time CTO less than 40 hours and worked on his AI stuff on
| the side until fully moving to it.
|
| There is some difference in that he was probably doing lots of
| programming at all the different jobs, rather than an unrelated
| hobby (maybe not that different than the woodworking analogy
| though, he began talking about lathing rocket parts a lot), but
| 40 hours at one place tended to be too boring to him through
| large parts of his career more than he lets on in that comment,
| though the AI stuff came later.
|
| There's also a big difference in working on assigned tasks you
| maybe disagree with vs deciding which tasks are needed, having
| power of delegation, etc.
| matwood wrote:
| He's also a high level grappler. There are a lot of software
| people at my BJJ gym. I find it uses many of the same skills as
| programming.
|
| I know it's not a popular sentiment, but I've always just
| merged work and non-work. Found jobs I enjoyed and eventually
| became part owner in a company. In 20 some odds years of
| working, I've never hated a job like I read people here seem
| to, so maybe I did something right.
| norir wrote:
| I saw this quote on some other thread recently on HN that is
| relevant:
|
| General Freiherr von Hammerstein-Equord, the present chief of the
| German Army, has a method of selecting officers...: "I divide my
| officers into four classes as follows: The clever, the
| industrious, the lazy, and the stupid. Each officer always
| possesses two of these qualities.
|
| Those who are clever and industrious I appoint to the General
| Staff. Use can under certain circumstances be made of those who
| are stupid and lazy. The man who is clever and lazy qualifies for
| the highest leadership posts. He has the requisite nerves and the
| mental clarity for difficult decisions. But whoever is stupid and
| industrious must be got rid of, for he is too dangerous."
|
| Carmack clearly falls into the clever and industrious bracket and
| his perspective is skewed by his own disposition.
| elijaht wrote:
| Seems like napoleon said it too:
| https://www.johndcook.com/blog/2010/12/27/dumb-and-gets-thin...
| anotherhue wrote:
| > Kurt von Hammerstein-Equord 1878-1943
| crtified wrote:
| Many of Johns points are sound, as expected, but the entire
| discussion lacks an overarching context, namely: "what is your
| goal?". That diverse, foundational variable defines all that
| comes after.
|
| Deciding _not_ to do something is consequential too, because
| Opportunity Cost exists whether you like it or not.
| facet1ous wrote:
| > Whatever the grand strategy for success is, it gets broken down
| into lots of smaller tasks. When you hit a wall on one task, you
| could say "that's it, I'm done for the day" and head home, or you
| could switch over to something else that has a different rhythm
| and get more accomplished. Even when you are clearly not at your
| peak, there is always plenty to do that doesn't require your
| best, and it would actually be a waste to spend your best time on
| it. You can also "go to the gym" for your work by studying,
| exploring, and experimenting, spending more hours in service to
| the goal.
|
| Absolutely true.
|
| > I think most people excited by these articles are confusing not
| being aligned with their job's goals with questions of
| effectiveness. If you don't want to work, and don't really care
| about your work, less hours for the same pay sounds great! If you
| personally care about what you are doing, you don't stop at 40
| hours a week because you think it is optimal for the work, but
| rather because you are balancing it against something else that
| you find equally important. Which is fine.
|
| And this is really the key to the whole shorter work week
| argument. I agree with John; if you are running your own company
| or initiative in an area you are passionate about, the 40 hour
| week question probably doesn't even dawn on you. Why would you
| want to work less to achieve a goal you are ambitious to reach?
| If anything you are working _more_ because you enjoy it and want
| to see more progress more quickly.
|
| But _most_ people working a typical job (even in tech) are not in
| a position to care deeply about their work and its outcomes - why
| that 's the case is a separate discussion and probably differs
| person-to-person. A good amount of those people might even be
| working on things during those 40 hours that are a _poor_ use of
| their individual time due to bad management, bureaucracy,
| inability to work on things they want to, etc. These people are
| not able to work 40+ hours things that feel or are as important
| as other things in their life such as side projects, family,
| exercise, etc. And so the 5 day, 40 hour workweek feels
| incompatible with their life.
| tigen wrote:
| "Most people" don't get to choose, they're stuck with 40. (Or
| more, for some salaried positions.) The idea is generally "all
| of your time".
|
| In principle they can just not do those particular jobs. In
| practice most "careers" expect "full" time.
|
| Some fields are inherently quite flexible, like some
| doctors/dentists can decide to not schedule anything for a
| week.
|
| In the linked comment JC said "I am deeply appalled at the
| thought of trading away individual freedom of action and
| additional value in the world for that goal."
|
| But the point is that freedom is ephemeral. The world has all
| sorts of incentives that promote race-to-the-bottom behaviors
| (cf. https://www.slatestarcodexabridged.com/Meditations-On-
| Moloch )
|
| In the good ol' days at least a family might likely have the
| mom at home with the kids even if dad gave blood to Moloch
| every day.
| sangnoir wrote:
| > But most people working a typical job (even in tech) are not
| in a position to care deeply about their work and its outcomes
|
| Perhaps most people - after looking at their paystub - are
| acutely aware that their employer doesn't deeply care about
| _them._ In my experience, there is a direct link between how
| much effort I put in going above and beyond in my work and how
| much higher (or lower) than average my salary was - with an
| inverse experience multiplier. I put in lot 's of unrewarded
| effort fresh out of school. I didn't know any better, and
| probably used work to fill up down-time
| hourago wrote:
| > This particular article does touch on a goal that isn't usually
| explicitly stated: it would make the world "less unequal" if
| everyone was prevented from working longer hours. Yes, it would,
| but I am deeply appalled at the thought of trading away
| individual freedom of action and additional value in the world
| for that goal.
|
| Individual freedom seems to be in the mouth of all millionaires
| that can afford that freedom. Most people has to work to live and
| their freedom of choice ends there. And it is already forbidden
| in most countries to "work as many hours as you want" because is
| the only way to avoid a race to the bottom were everybody, except
| the rich, suffer.
|
| This is a clear example of bias and that the fact that a guy is
| talented in one thing does not make him be able to understand a
| different one.
| JohnFen wrote:
| > it is already forbidden in most countries to "work as many
| hours as you want" because is the only way to avoid a race to
| the bottom were everybody, except the rich, suffer.
|
| Remember that Carmack is in the US, where this is not
| forbidden.
| deburo wrote:
| working over 40h is only << forbidden >> where i live because
| paying 1.5x/h is not acceptable from the employer's pov. it's
| annoying from the worker's pov since you're necessarily capped
| at 40h if your employer doesn't want to pay that rate.
|
| i don't understand your race to the bottom argument.
| nonethewiser wrote:
| John Carmack is just right on this. Its non-sensical to claim
| more work gets done in 32 hours compared to 40. You dont have to
| be pro overtime to recognize this obvious truth.
|
| Sure, there are diminishing returns. And being tired can make a
| negative impact. But the "actually a 4 day, 8 hour work week is
| more productive" claims is completely self serving bullshit.
|
| Just imagine working 4x 8 hour days. Now ask yourself if you can
| output anything except negative work on that Friday.
| christophilus wrote:
| I've found that 5 x 6 is roughly as productive for me as 5 x 8.
| 4x8 would be a drop, no doubt. I've got approximately 6 good
| hours per day, and then I'm just not bothering. When I'm really
| in the flow, I can pull 10 hour days, but that's fairly rare.
|
| Also, the long term impact on my happiness and well-being can
| take a while to measure.
| nonethewiser wrote:
| I agree that the limiting factor is more about hours per day.
| Than days per week.
|
| So when working 8 hours instead of 6, there are 2 additional
| hours where you accomplish nothing? What are you doing? Also
| consider that even if you aren't accomplishing anything it
| doesnt mean you're getting less work done.
|
| Like I said I recognize there are diminishing returns. But it
| doesnt make sense to claim you're actually getting less done.
| spiderice wrote:
| You're making some incorrect assumptions. Why do you find
| it impossible that you can be more productive with 5x6 than
| 5x8 because you're more well rested?
|
| If you do 10 work units per hour at 5x6, and you do 6 work
| units per hour at 5x8 because you're worn out, then 5x6 is
| more productive.
|
| Your mistake is thinking that the first 6 hours of 5x6 and
| 5x8 are equally productive. Maybe that's true. Maybe it
| isn't. But to claim that it definitely is and anyone who
| thinks otherwise doesn't have common sense is just silly.
|
| Edit: to further clarify, are you claiming that 5x10 is
| _definitely_ more productive than 5x8? What about 5x16?
| What about 5x24. Or 7x24? Your confidence that you're
| definitely right that 5x8 is better than 5x6 makes me
| wonder where you _know_ the ideal line is and how you know
| that.
| satysin wrote:
| Would you also say it is non-sensical to claim more work gets
| done in 40 hours compared to 48? Or perhaps 56 hours?
|
| Why is 40 some magical number to productivity? What if 40 hours
| leads people to padding out their day with extra bullshit like
| meetings or needless admin that ends up sucking away more of
| the time they could spend on their actual work than if they
| never had to pad things out by only working 32 hours?
|
| For transparency I live in France where the standard work week
| is 35 hours. Also I've never found the French with their 35
| hour work week are less productive than our friends in Asia
| with 45+ hour work weeks. Regardless of time worked the
| productivity output is roughly the same for any given week.
| Apreche wrote:
| John Carmack is someone who has, for the most part, had control
| of what he was working on. During his work hours, he is working
| on what he wants to work on.
|
| Yes, in that scenario, the right number of hours to maximize
| productivity and balance with the other things in life is going
| to be calculated differently.
|
| But for most people, we are working for an employer. We have
| nearly no control over what our work will entail. We do not give
| a single flying rat's behind about that work. We do that work
| solely because capitalism requires us to do some work, and so we
| do for survival. In this scenario, the correct number of hours to
| spend working is as few hours we we can get away with while still
| drawing a salary.
| hhh wrote:
| Why would you not put your maximum into it? do you not see a
| path to excel and grow?
| bojo wrote:
| Maybe I'm a jaded 44yo at this point, but why would you put
| your maximum into it unless it's your own business or you
| have a guaranteed payout for that effort? Not everyone works
| at a startup, nor are all startups successful.
|
| Look at the big tech layoffs earlier this year - they were
| letting both the cruft and top tier talent go. Is it easy to
| say you are truly safe where you are at?
|
| No one will remember or care about your title, your salary,
| or the effort you put into wherever you work. Your next
| employer will have no insight into any of that at all outside
| of your interviews; they'll measure your worth on the job
| unless you are a world class snowflake.
|
| I'm not saying don't continue to learn and excel! But there's
| more to life than your day job. Spoken as someone who
| discovered way too late a proper life/work balance.
| strken wrote:
| Is it worth putting maximum effort into your job if it causes
| depression and burnout (making you less effective at your
| job), makes you sick because of stress (making you less
| effective at your job), ruins your marriage (making you less
| effective at your job), and gives you less time to educate
| your kids (making the next generation less effective at their
| jobs)?
|
| Human effort is burstable, sort of, but for most people it's
| taxing to burst up to maximum effort. Apparently this isn't
| true for Carmack, but I have doubts.
| atq2119 wrote:
| When you're in a typical salaried position, it's unlikely
| that you'll be able to extract more money out of your work
| proportional to the additional effort you put in.
|
| So the question becomes: what else do you get out of it?
|
| Sometimes that can be learning -- maybe go read stuff that's
| accessible to you but outside of your typical work area --
| but in many jobs that's not really possible.
| hourago wrote:
| > So the question becomes: what else do you get out of it?
|
| You nothing. But John, John gets it as share owner. He
| wants employees to work longer hours because he gets any
| benefit of it but the employees pay with their health and
| personal life the price. Externalization is called.
| IshKebab wrote:
| Yeah, listening to Carmack talk about working life is like
| listening to CEOs talk about pulling yourself up by your
| bootstraps. Good for them, but not really applicable to 99% of
| people.
| brigadier132 wrote:
| Read the history of ID software. He quite literally pulled
| himself up by his own bootstraps.
| kapp_in_life wrote:
| Putting more effort into work doesn't guarantee better
| results but it certainly could improve the situation for more
| than 1% of people and to imply otherwise is just as out of
| touch as a CEO saying "anyone can do it".
| globalreset wrote:
| For majority of people work is a mean to the end. If they know
| they'll have to spend more time working, they'll fluff it with
| more not-actually-work to compensate. That's all there is to it.
|
| An extreme natural workaholic will have a hard time understanding
| it.
| elromulous wrote:
| I'm not sure that John Carmack, someone who's known for his
| legendary coding ability and work ethic, is going to be
| representative of most engineers / programmers out there. The
| term 10x gets thrown around a lot to the point of banality,
| Carmack is actually one of those 10x humans.
| strikelaserclaw wrote:
| its easy to work 12 hours a day when the thing you do is what
| gives you pleasure.
| AndrewKemendo wrote:
| Which is entirely his point
| elromulous wrote:
| Exactly. And at Carmack's status, he can afford to only work
| on things that give him pleasure.
| Zetice wrote:
| *was one of those 10x humans.
|
| He's kind of gone off the deep end now, though given this
| comment he may have always been a little out of touch with
| reality.
|
| He was a hero of mine, but now isn't (and IMO that's fine).
| ctrlp wrote:
| In what sense has he "gone off the deep end"? Why was he once
| a hero of yours but no longer?
| Zetice wrote:
| 1) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35991322
|
| 2) His general admiration of Elon Musk and positive opinion
| of a man who flagrantly and regularly violates the very
| societal norms that have provided him with the
| opportunities he built his life around.[0]
|
| 3) His inability to navigate Facebook/Meta to effect the
| change he felt was necessary [1]
|
| 4) "My core thesis is that the federal government delivers
| very poor value for the resources it consumes, and that
| society as a whole would be better off with a government
| that was less ambitious." (I should have known about this
| but didn't until relatively recently) [2]
|
| 5) The comment he made as the topic of this submission;
| he's completely out of touch with reality for anyone who
| isn't him, but doesn't seem to care at all or even really
| understand what other people might want.
|
| John Carmack's way of thinking is useful for people who
| want to directly create things themselves, and who don't
| trust or can't figure out how to motivate or incentivize
| people to amplify their work.
|
| When I was like that, John Carmack was my hero. Now I
| realize that to be the most effective version of myself, I
| need to have relationships with others who make me even
| better than I could possibly be alone. For that, John
| Carmack is not a good person to look up to, as he doesn't
| seem to be capable of growing his reach beyond himself.
|
| So he's not my hero, he's someone I look at and now see all
| of the flaws that may have already been there, but weren't
| relevant for the time I valued him as an inspiration.
|
| [0] https://mleverything.substack.com/p/elon-musk-john-
| carmack-a...
|
| [1] https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2022/12/john-carmack-
| leaves-m...
|
| [2] https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=18953
| 20834...
| nancyhn wrote:
| He knows Elon personally. You know him from media
| narratives and too online envious activists that
| desperately want a villain. Spaceman bad. He makes us
| look like slackers! We want collapse and revolution, he
| wants to pull civilization into an era of sustainable
| energy and reusable rockets and maximized freedom.
|
| I'll defer to Carmack's personal experience on this one.
| Aeolun wrote:
| Yeah no. I've read his tweets. Even if he has ambitious
| goals Elon's an asshole at times.
| c-hendricks wrote:
| TBH being willing to get to know Elon on a personal level
| knocks Carmack down a few more pegs for me.
|
| It's clear to me Carmack lacks empathy, so his slide into
| American right-wing adjacent views is pretty on par.
| Zetice wrote:
| Sorry but why do you think I'm trying to convince you of
| anything at all?
|
| I was asked why _I_ no longer consider Carmack a hero,
| and I gave _my_ reasons. I don 't really care if you
| believe me or not.
| VirusNewbie wrote:
| This says a lot more about you, the people you surrounded
| yourself with and the media you consume than him.
| Zetice wrote:
| Obviously; I was asked why _I_ don 't consider him a hero
| any longer. That will, by definition, reveal more about
| me...
| laurels-marts wrote:
| Would you mind expanding? How did he go off the deep end?
| TehShrike wrote:
| I think the split on these conversations isn't usually between
| extremely effective people and not-very-effective people, it's
| usually between people who aspire to be more effective/get more
| done, and people who think that par is fine.
| parineum wrote:
| > it's usually between people who aspire to be more
| effective/get more done, and people who think that par is
| fine.
|
| _at work_
|
| Most (all probably) people aspire to be more in whatever
| their passion is.
| TehShrike wrote:
| The discussion in the original post is responding to "Why
| working fewer hours would make us more productive". We're
| talking about how to be more productive in general.
| simon_000666 wrote:
| " my point is purely about the effective output of an individual.
| If we were fighting an existential threat, say an asteroid that
| would hit the earth in a year, would you really tell everyone
| involved in the project that they should go home after 35 hours a
| week, because they are harming the project if they work longer?"
|
| -- doesn't this depend on the outcome of your work to fight an
| existential threat? If you fail then going home after 35hrs was
| exactly the right thing to do (as you've optimized for making the
| most of your remaining time on earth) if your successful then
| however many hours you spent was worth it.
|
| Surely this entire argument is pointless unless you know the
| result of the time you spend?
| strken wrote:
| He tells you literally and exactly what he means: his "point is
| purely about the _effective output_ of an individual ".
| Emphasis is mine on _effective output_. His opponents argue
| that there 's a peak in productivity, such that if workers
| wanted the greatest chance at stopping the asteroid, they
| should choose to only work 35 hours a week. He argues that this
| peak either does not exist, or is way more than 35 hours.
| madrox wrote:
| As someone who worked 10-14 hour days in their 20s, I know for a
| fact it made me more effective and I achieved more. I also scaled
| way back in my 30s to have more of a life. I don't regret either
| decision. What Carmack says maps to my own experiences. People
| making ad hominem attacks at Carmack for why he's wrong are just
| that may be in for a rude awakening in life.
|
| What I think is really at odds in the comments is this: people
| want to work less and feel like it's ok, but don't feel like it's
| appropriate to come out and say that.
| jacobmarble wrote:
| I love work. Sometimes I work 50 hours for my full-time employer,
| and sometimes I work 30 hours for them, and 30 hours for my own
| side project.
|
| Not everyone loves work as much.
|
| Having the choice to work more or less is good. We should be
| compensated for whatever value we provide, measured in a way that
| agrees between employee and employer (or between market and
| person/business).
|
| So what's the problem?
| dcsommer wrote:
| It's threatening to equality (wealth disparity) and also
| social/cultural values (aka work vs.
| family/neighborhood/community/etc.). These are all important
| equities, as is the ability enable high performers to work
| well. It is apparently difficult to find the right cultural
| balance that enables maximum achievement and all the rest, too.
|
| I disagree with any top-down pressures to "solve" this tension.
| hourago wrote:
| > We should be compensated for whatever value we provide,
| measured in a way that agrees between employee and employer (or
| between market and person/business).
|
| That is a local optimization that hurts the global output. What
| is efficient for one individual may be damaging when applied to
| all society.
|
| Just a theoretical example is that your dedication to work
| makes you a worse parent, or a non-parent, removing a more
| knowledgeable, better educated and more healthy human from
| existing.
| frakt0x90 wrote:
| The measurement of value.
| systemvoltage wrote:
| There are lots of people that contribute less to society than
| they consume, and they are morally OK with that.
| sangnoir wrote:
| Why does it feel you're describing everyone who is not an
| able-bodied 18-65 year old?
| threeseed wrote:
| Based on what though.
|
| You could argue that many developers are a net-negative for
| society given that the industry wastes a lot of time building
| X idea in Y language for every combination of Y.
| systemvoltage wrote:
| There are lots of people that are not as productive. Fine.
| But it is the moral part that I have a problem with. They
| are morally proud that they don't contribute to the
| society.
|
| "Don't be a burden on others" is one of the values I grew
| up with. Should be a universally good thing IMO.
| klabb3 wrote:
| I could sit on my ass and play games all day, reek in all
| the unemployment benefits I possibly could, and still be
| nowhere near the bottom of net contribution to society.
|
| The amount of social benefits that remain in people's
| pockets after the grifters have taken their share are
| rounding errors compared to say bank bailouts and
| government subsidies (in the US).
|
| I don't think being a burden on others is good, but it's
| nothing compared to active destruction, which can come
| with huge force multipliers. Every large organization
| have high ranked people that are _rewarded_ for their
| destruction. There are entire industries dedicated to
| leeching off of honest people, like tax prep and time
| shares.
| rat9988 wrote:
| Honestly I find John's argumentary less interesting than either
| glyphi's answer he got or the article he is originally replying
| to.
| adverbly wrote:
| The fact that John Carmack thinks he needs to respond to articles
| targeted at the general population is a little bit surprising to
| me. Is it not obvious to John that he is at least 4-5 standard
| deviations from the mean here?
|
| I would be more than happy to listen to John talk about what
| works for him and strategies that he finds effective. But hearing
| him try and critique articles targeted at the average person or
| average developer or even average 10x developer... like... Does
| he not understand how different other people's lives are than
| his? It reminds me of when you hear politicians try and talk
| about the struggles of regular people. It is so cringe.
| madrox wrote:
| I find it rather cringe that we are judging where Carmack
| chooses to spend his spare time in a thread about people
| working less (where he was explicitly mentioned in the parent
| comment he responded to). In addition to being an engineer,
| he's a leader of engineering teams. He would benefit more than
| most from applying cutting edge managerial science in
| organizations he operates.
|
| As an older engineer I find Carmack's observations interesting
| and quite accurate.
| Aeolun wrote:
| I think he just very rarely has a moment when he's just really
| done. Which is probably because he's mostly worked on things
| that he wanted to be working on.
|
| I find this mindset easy to replicate when working on my
| personal projects. Effectiveness may drop a bit after 1am for
| obvious reasons, but otherwise any hour is much like another.
|
| The problem comes when trying to get yourself to do something
| that you don't really want to do, or when you need to deal with
| the umpteenth time someone broke the same system due to the
| same mistake or the third discussion in a day where people miss
| the obvious solution. You can only have so much of that in a
| day before you mentally check out.
| fasterik wrote:
| It doesn't seem to me like he is generalizing from his
| experience and applying it to the general population. He's
| pushing back on the very specific claim that working fewer
| hours leads to higher productivity. He admits that this might
| be true for certain assembly line-type jobs or jobs where
| someone just wants to collect a paycheck, but it's not
| necessarily true in the case of knowledge workers who care
| about what they are working on. I think that applies to a
| substantial minority of people in developed countries.
| threeseed wrote:
| He's pushing back on the idea with zero research and zero
| expertise.
|
| You could literally ask your taxi driver for their thoughts
| and it would be as helpful.
|
| I prefer to see what the outcomes are from real-world
| experiments which to date are showing that shorter work weeks
| can be effective in many situations.
| fasterik wrote:
| Disagree. Sure, he's not an empirical researcher, but he
| does have decades of experience being highly productive. I
| think his opinion holds some weight. He's also clear that
| he's speaking from personal experience and not making a
| scientific claim.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| > but he does have decades of experience being highly
| productive
|
| ...in software engineering. But then he steers into talk
| about menial jobs. I worked minimum wage jobs for over a
| decade before I got an app published. I rather doubt
| Carmack worked a manual job for very long but perhaps
| someone can correct me.
| mjr00 wrote:
| > He's pushing back on the very specific claim that working
| fewer hours leads to higher productivity.
|
| And rightfully so. Ask anyone who's been through the grind of
| a startup; for knowledge workers, pulling 80 hour weeks
| _does_ get shit done faster than working 35 hour weeks. To
| say otherwise is wishful thinking.
|
| But yes, he was responding specifically to a comment about
| his work ethic as described Masters of Doom. It's much
| different when you are working in a small team, on a project
| you're passionate about, which will make you an enormous
| amount of money if it succeeds.
|
| _Should_ you put in 80 hour weeks when you are FAANG
| employee #35,714? Probably not, unless you see some strategic
| career reason, i.e. project is public and high-profile which
| you can then leverage to get a job at a competitor for 50%
| raise, etc.
|
| If you put in 80 hour weeks as FAANG employee #35,714, would
| you accomplish more? Absolutely. Would your personal life
| suffer? Absolutely.
| cultofmetatron wrote:
| > pulling 80 hour weeks does get shit done faster than
| working 35 hour weeks.
|
| sure in the short run that holds true. its just not
| sustainable. most people will burn out spectacularly after
| a few months of this and prolly leave the industry
| entirely.
| JohnFen wrote:
| Yeah, I'm mostly with you.
|
| I do think that most people won't produce more (of the same
| quality) working 80 hours/wk unless they are exceptionally
| motivated.
|
| However, with the right motivation, people will. I'm
| guessing that what that motivation looks like varies from
| person to person. For me, it's when I'm starting my own
| venture.
|
| I'm willing to sacrifice to such an extreme degree for
| that. I cannot imagine any other company being able to come
| up with sufficient motivation to make it possible for me to
| work productively 80 hours/week, though. It's not a matter
| of me being willing to do it, it's a matter that I wouldn't
| be able to do it.
| chris222 wrote:
| Disagree. 80 hour weeks is not sustainable so if you are
| basing your startup success on that than you are doomed.
| antisthenes wrote:
| Carmack is an exceptional individual, but when it comes to
| personal productivity, I truly believe it is a unique thing,
| where everyone must find something that works for them.
|
| Kind of like taste in music - find what you like, and don't be
| that asshole that judges others for their taste.
| varjag wrote:
| These discussions inevitably split the crowd into nine to fivers
| and enthusiasts.
| happytoexplain wrote:
| This is a fundamentally false binary. There are absolutely
| loads of people who are both of those things, usually due to
| their enthusiasm for their day job being matched by their
| enthusiasm for other things.
| nonethewiser wrote:
| Im not an enthusiast and really balance work life balance but I
| get more done when working 9 hours instead of 8. That shouldn't
| be a controversial take.
|
| Whether thats worth it or if employers can reasonably expect it
| is another matter. But absolutely more work gets done. This is
| a topic where the reddit and hackernoon takes are comically
| extreme sometimes.
| robryan wrote:
| Yep and I am going to get more done in 5 days than 4. Maybe
| this doesn't play out over a large group but I just find it
| hard to apply those articles about the 4 day work week
| actually being more productive to my personal experience.
| varjag wrote:
| I admit you make a great point.
| slt2021 wrote:
| You conveniently ignored the part that modern work is not only
| about coding, it is a lot about collaborating, politics,
| reviewing and writing bunch of non-sense paperwork, policies,
| manuals etc.
|
| I wouldn't mind to work long hours if that would mean purely
| coding.
|
| But no, employers prefer to throw bunch of non-coding tasks at
| engineers and introduce politics, the more higher up the chain
| you go and the more impact you want to make.
|
| If you let me code and get stuff done, I will happy do it.
|
| However if you require me to create dumb paperwork, track JIRA
| tickets, create reports about reports, demand using the latest
| TPS REPORT cover on all my deliverables - you will get 9-to-5
| PERIOD
| add-sub-mul-div wrote:
| Yeah I used to be a huge contributor of discretionary effort,
| back when the job was fun. My current agile job is such a
| chore though that I can't wait to finish for the day.
| eduction wrote:
| > I wouldn't mind to work long hours if that would mean
| purely coding. But no, employers prefer to throw bunch of
| non-coding tasks at engineers
|
| You can't have it both ways. If you want to just code, call
| yourself a coder or programmer.
|
| An "engineer" is of a profession devoted to "the application
| of science and mathematics by which the properties of matter
| and the sources of energy in nature are made useful to
| people."
|
| Making your work useful to people involves communication and
| research beyond coding. Maybe it ain't jira tickets but it
| also ain't "purely coding."
| slt2021 wrote:
| It is not even engineering. A lot of software devs have
| become slaves on the alter of Agile software development. A
| senseless machine that only cares about the number of your
| JIRA tickets, and making sure your agile shibboleths like
| standups, retros, sprints and etc are conducted.
|
| You can look at gogle - the company that has never produced
| any useful product beyond a few of search/ads, youtube,
| gmail, and maybe google docs. Thats it. Nothing more.
|
| and gogle is considered very efficient in its engineering
| processes, that entire industry copies it.
|
| meanwhile the most disruptive innovation comes from small
| teams that dont care about formalized rituals and jsut
| focused on execution and coding, they dont need PM, TPM,
| and Agile Coach, and Engineering manager to deliver value
| camdat wrote:
| Am I expected to expend my enthusiasm for programming on my
| employer?
|
| I find it insulting that I must be a "nine to fiver" if I
| advocate for labor. My passion isn't building what my boss
| wants, it's building what _I_ want.
| gloryjulio wrote:
| I would only work more if that means more money (overtime
| pay, promotion etc). Otherwise that's a no
| lawn wrote:
| I earn enough money so I can choose to work less. I
| wouldn't work more even if it means more money.
| chasd00 wrote:
| I agree, i really like my job and my coworkers but i'm not
| doing more of it for free. That's for sure.
| varjag wrote:
| There are plenty in the industry get the opportunity to work
| on what they _like_ working on.
| camdat wrote:
| You're not saying anything here. Sure there are people like
| that, but the nature of capitalism means that people _must_
| work to survive.
|
| This requirement precludes finding work you enjoy, and thus
| those that have the opportunity to work on something they
| like are in the minority.
|
| Put another way, would you quit your job immediately if
| you're asked to work on something you don't want to do? If
| not, are you a "nine to fiver"?
| Zetice wrote:
| Ideally your incentives get aligned such that you're not
| spending your enthusiasm on your employer, but on yourself
| via your employer.
|
| You should be invested in the success of the people who you
| work for, financially (or whatever you value).
|
| You're a "nine to fiver" if your incentives don't align. That
| _can_ be your fault, but often isn 't.
| camdat wrote:
| This implies that accepting a job that pays more, even if
| it doesn't align with your incentives, is being a "nine to
| fiver", which I disagree with.
|
| Innate to our economic system is the tension between labor
| and employer. Us as laborers want a higher share of the
| profit from our labor. Employers seek the opposite, and
| "fulfillment" provides them the means to extract it.
|
| Consider the wages of game developers, which have stagnated
| compared to less "fulfilling" SWE work, because employers
| are able to supplant higher pay with work that people are
| passionate about. If being a "nine to fiver" prevents me
| from falling into that trap, so be it.
| Zetice wrote:
| I'm sorry but no, it doesn't imply that at all. Your
| incentives can be, "Earn enough money to justify spending
| time on a problem."
| camdat wrote:
| > Ideally your incentives get aligned such that you're
| not spending your enthusiasm on your employer, but on
| yourself _via_ your employer.
|
| If the "via" here is "by giving me money to do what I
| want", then I agree. GP is arguing that fulfillment from
| work is necessary to be an enthusiast, thus the
| assumption that your response is related.
|
| Even in the purely financial scenario though, aren't the
| incentives still in conflict? If both you and your
| employer's incentive is "earn as much money as possible",
| then you are both vying for the same pool of profit.
| Zetice wrote:
| It can be money, depends on what motivates you.
|
| And I never said there wouldn't ever be conflict, though
| if you fail to see the value provided to you by your
| employer, that's on you.
| whoisthemachine wrote:
| If you're salaried and you too often work more than nine to
| five, then you are necessarily devaluing your work. I don't
| see how devaluing yourself aligns your incentives with the
| company's incentives, whose incentives are to clearly get
| as much work done for as little money as possible.
| slt2021 wrote:
| the current meta game is: you work over-time to deliver
| more and exceed expectations, then you get promotion and
| +money
|
| if you don't expect promotion, then there is no incentive
| to over-work and overdeliver.
|
| This is how modern tech companies get ahead of legacy
| corps: hire young high energy and high capability folks,
| and let me compete with each other for tiny pool of
| promotion money. As a result everyone will overwork, but
| you have to pay only to a few who gets promoted.
| thriftwy wrote:
| I can imagine why a person would want to spend more than 40 hours
| working per week for a limited period of time, but I can't
| imagine why you would want to stay in that state for a prolonged
| period of time.
|
| Even if I can be more productive working 9 hour days, so what? I
| did not get born for being _productive_.
|
| Long workdays also point at bad planning, lack of proper task
| delegation or plain old overload. Overload is also bad in the
| sense that it implies a big backlog, and when you have big
| backlog, important things get not done.
| fasterik wrote:
| Fundamentally it's about meaning. People like Carmack find it
| meaningful to do ambitious projects and push their abilities to
| the limit. Some goals require more time investment than 40
| hours per week.
|
| Obviously not everyone finds that lifestyle appealing, and
| that's fine. But I don't think it's hard to understand why
| somebody would spend a lot of time on the thing they truly
| enjoy doing.
| thriftwy wrote:
| I understand that, but you should probably do your ambitious
| thing and retire by 40 then. If it takes a whole life,
| delegation and modest pace are paramount.
| fasterik wrote:
| Carmack recently started a new company at age 52 with the
| goal of creating artificial general intelligence. Whether
| or not that is a realistic goal, I don't think a modest
| pace is going to maximize his probability of success.
| thriftwy wrote:
| He's not the only one human being on the planet Earth,
| there's eight billions of us. Somebody else will do it a
| few months later if he goes to rest and enjoys small
| things.
| fasterik wrote:
| You're talking like there is some objectively best way to
| live life. My point is that meaning is subjective. Maybe
| for Carmack, resting and "enjoying the small things"
| would make him less happy than working on projects. Why
| does your perspective take precedence over everyone
| else's?
| thriftwy wrote:
| This is all fun and games until you burn out. Even
| ancient Greeks already knew that modesty is the way to
| go.
| fasterik wrote:
| _> This is all fun and games until you burn out_
|
| Sure. Training for a marathon puts you at risk of injury.
| That doesn't mean that everyone who runs a marathon has
| an injury, or that everyone with ambitious running goals
| should go relax on the beach instead. Ultimately, there
| is no objective standpoint from which to say that people
| should choose different goals, because goals are based on
| personal subjective values.
|
| _> Even ancient Greeks already knew that modesty is the
| way to go._
|
| Perfect example of the appeal to tradition fallacy.
| wkat4242 wrote:
| I'd rather see him do it than someone who doesn't care
| about ethics and just wants to make money fast.
| chris222 wrote:
| Isn't his opinion basically irrelevant since he is someone like
| Musk that has _zero_ concept of WLB.
| systemvoltage wrote:
| I think the biggest secret to success/happiness in today's
| zeitgeist of anti-work ideology is to do just the opposite - work
| your ass off to the absolute limit. Your brain isn't as weak as
| the society tells you. Entire state of life becomes awesome and
| fulfilling. People reward you, they appreciate you, you help them
| improve their lives, and there is no better feeling of gratitute
| than be helped by someone that works hard. Ignore society,
| especially Hackernews mentality. It's not healthy to read this
| forum where 99% of the comments are anti-work. In a meta way, HN
| is a great place for me to find what _not_ to do.
| _dain_ wrote:
| _> It's not healthy to read this forum where 99% of the
| comments are anti-work._
|
| news to me. consider the possibility that people who disagree
| with you loom larger in your mental landscape than they really
| are.
| ck425 wrote:
| Do you really think "anti-work" is the prevailing ideology in
| Western society? I'd argue the current popularity of "anti-
| work" sentiment is a backlash to the dominant "work is
| everything" ideology we've had the last couple of decades.
| systemvoltage wrote:
| Today's zeitgeist has taught youngsters to never reach their
| potential and be perpetually inward looking. The exponential
| rise of "mental health" industrial complex and "safe spaces"
| in last 7-10 years is mostly has religious undercurrents and
| less on anything objective. It makes people misrable and
| pessimistic. May be the idea is to get them hooked on
| goverment services? I don't know. I can't steelman it.
|
| I don't have any data to prove, but just speaking from the
| heart and what I see. There is definitely a need to address
| extreme issues and occurrences, but there is no way to
| separate wheat from the chaff and the entire movement has
| taken on weird self-fulfilling ideology.
|
| Worker rights movements today feel less like the worker
| rights movements pre-2010. The absolute pinnacle of this is
| r/anti-work. And lots of it on HN unfortunately.
|
| If you're here looking for optimism, there is none to be
| found. Cynicism everywhere.
| rgbrenner wrote:
| _If you only have seven good hours a day in you, does that mean
| the rest of the day that you spend with your family, reading,
| exercising at the gym, or whatever other virtuous activity you
| would be spending your time on, are all done poorly? No_
|
| I want to hear what Carmack's wife and kids think.
|
| There's definitely a trade off... that he doesn't acknowledge
| that indicates to me that his own priorities entirely involve
| work.
| AndrewKemendo wrote:
| "Although John Carmack is a multimillionaire, and his company
| brings in close to $20 million a year, he is still a self-
| described workaholic. "I still work 80 hours a week," he
| admitted to Mark Lisheron of the Austin American-Statesman. "It
| used to be 80 hours on software, now it's 40 hours on software
| and 40 hours on Armadillo." Carmack did ease up a bit after he
| and his wife, Anna Kang, had their first child in 2004--he was
| getting home from the office at about midnight instead of 2:00
| AM or 3:00 AM. Kang, however, insists that Sunday is family
| day, so Carmack compromises by reading technical manuals to his
| infant son. "
|
| Unclear how relevant this is given it's age but it's the
| closest public information you'll find.
|
| [1]https://www.notablebiographies.com/news/A-Ca/Carmack-
| John.ht...
| xtracto wrote:
| Every time I read those type of comments from workaholics, I
| remember the article on top 5 regrets of hospice people [1].
| I think that the age to burn the candle is between 18 and 30
| or 35 at most. After that,fuck it, people should live their
| lives with their means, and work should only be enough to
| bring food and shelter to home.
|
| [1] https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2012/feb/01/top-
| fiv...
| fasterik wrote:
| That list was compiled anecdotally by a single person, so I
| think we should take it with a huge grain of salt. It could
| be subject to confirmation/selection/reporting bias. For
| all we know, there could just as many or more people dying
| satisfied with their work accomplishments, or wishing they
| had worked harder.
|
| _> work should only be enough to bring food and shelter to
| home_
|
| What if you take the thing you love doing and make it your
| life's work?
| selimnairb wrote:
| What his comment is missing is that in families where both
| parents work outside of the home doing a job they are
| passionate about and would like to spend more time doing, they
| almost always are not able to work as much as they would like
| to, either on their actual work, or on side projects. I would
| love to only have to work 32 hours per week at my current
| salary and have one day per week to myself when the kiddo is in
| school. Sometimes I would use this to do "work" (maybe working
| on things I don't have time to get to in my day-to-day,
| learning new skills, having and working on side-projects),
| other times I would use the time to work on the house, do yard
| work, and other times I might go for a hike, or just sleep.
| Consistently having time to do activities like these would make
| me a better worker when I am at work, and a better parent and
| spouse when I am at home.
| robryan wrote:
| He is only arguing against the idea that after a certain number
| of hours productivity becomes negative.
| Rapzid wrote:
| Are you countering by saying 7 hours of work per day is _too
| much_ to be able to spend quality time with your family after?
| Filligree wrote:
| Well, yes, it often is.
| Rapzid wrote:
| Yeah, I mean every job and person is different. But as a
| blanket claim I think it's bogus and John's article seems
| to be pushing back against that in favor of a more nuanced
| perspective.
| Filligree wrote:
| It's Carmack, though. He's so far out of the ordinary, I
| can't take any of his claims in this regards seriously.
| _He 's_ the outlier, and it's difficult from that
| position to write about what the average worker might be
| like.
| rgbrenner wrote:
| All time involves trade offs. None of it's free.
| caeril wrote:
| > what Carmack's wife and kids think
|
| FWIW, they divorced a couple years ago.
| olivierlacan wrote:
| Please do not take advice on cognitive science, personal health,
| finance or relationships from renowned experts who have found
| immense success in entirely different fields of knowledge.
|
| John Carmack is a very intelligent person who can teach you a lot
| about many extremely complex engineering-related matters.
|
| Applying his advice on health and work-life balance without a
| full understanding of the many variables that skew his
| perspective and his own daily life is probably a bad idea.
|
| Expertise is not automatically domain-transferable. Anyone
| claiming otherwise is suffering from hubris, or star-struck.
| riedel wrote:
| To be honest he is very much commenting about his roam of
| experience and not as research article but as a personal
| comment on HN. This should be allowed and should not be
| discredited as such (as this comment is a comment on the OP and
| not on someone saying that this comment should be generalized).
| Being in such an environment with some other obsessed
| researchers around me and the European court ruling that
| requires work documentation to be enforced just published. I
| understand the direction of the comment although I think it can
| only be applied to very limited situations. The argument seems
| to be like: do not regulate or discredit drugs because there is
| some people successfully self optimise with them knowingly
| taking certain risks...
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| John Carmack is very passionate about what he does and you'd
| likely have a hard time convincing him not to do it. Case in
| point is that he's still working despite likely being rich enough
| not to.
|
| Most people are working jobs they wouldn't necessarily be doing
| at all if they had some other means of paying the bills. This is
| who people are talking about when 4 day work weeks come up.
| nonethewiser wrote:
| But do you think you would accomplish more by working 4 days
| instead of 5?
| gravypod wrote:
| (Opinions are my own)
|
| I, personally, am planning to do this. I think I will improve
| my work output significantly. Some context: I am a "high"
| performing SWE at a big tech company. If you bank up all your
| vacation days up to 300HR reserved you stop accruing and
| you're forced to take a day off every pay cycle from then on.
|
| I'm at like 200HR (I have only taken like ~10 days off in ~3
| years) and some time next year will hopfully be at 300HR and
| take every other Friday off.
|
| I personally don't have trouble with accomplishing my goals,
| I've basically convinced everyone in my org to let me to
| projects I think have impact, I am the "go-to" on my team for
| all knowledge of our software, I lead X-team stuff pretty
| frequently, etc. Lots of 20% projects and initiatives.
|
| What constantly slows me down: I'm mid way through a problem
| and I have to stop to do laundry. I would attend this meeting
| but I need to run an errand at a place which is only open
| during work hours (ex: DMV).
|
| On weekdays I do a lot of work, at night I unwind from a long
| day, and my weekends are almost entirely taken up by
| chores/relatives/errands/friends.
|
| If I could have one day each pay cycle I could probably
| remove a significant amount of chores from my weekend and
| relax much more.
| pseudalopex wrote:
| Some of us ran the experiment.
| chasd00 wrote:
| maybe a better question to ask is can you accomplish the same
| by working less? If so then working less would be fine.
| jiggawatts wrote:
| As a data point: he's currently divorced.
|
| Working your ass off makes you more productive, yes, but it comes
| at a cost. Personal time, family time, etc...
| DevKoala wrote:
| He addresses it on the post:
|
| > Given two equally talented people, the one that pursues a
| goal obsessively, for well over 40 hours a week, is going to
| achieve more. They might be less happy and healthy, but I'm not
| even sure about that.
|
| What worked for me and my current partner is being upfront
| about my career goals and the lengths I was willing to go to
| achieve them. I've now been in a strong relationship for 7+
| years which is twice whatever I lasted with other partners who
| found me sometimes reserving a weekend to work/research a deal
| killer.
| Dudester230602 wrote:
| Isn't it common for a spouse to like "6 figures" but not what
| it takes.
| geraldwhen wrote:
| You can make lots of money working 30-35 hour weeks.
| Perhaps those working 60 hours a week just aren't as
| clever, or haven't found a valuable enough niche.
| Insanity wrote:
| Bad data point, plenty of people get divorced whom work regular
| hours. You're also making assumptions about the cause of a
| divorce we frankly know nothing about..
| ollien wrote:
| I didn't read it like that at all, more that he doesn't have
| a major commitment that a lot of people do.
| jhp123 wrote:
| > If you only have seven good hours a day in you, does that mean
| the rest of the day that you spend with your family, reading,
| exercising at the gym, or whatever other virtuous activity you
| would be spending your time on, are all done poorly?
|
| If I do focused mental work for even seven hours I'm completely
| wiped. I absolutely can't read a normal book at that point.
| Clicking the next meme on reddit is about all I can manage. And
| yeah, my wife and kids aren't getting a lot from me on those
| days.
|
| I'm surprised that Carmack seems to find this _absurd_. Am I
| super atypical? Or is he? I 'm actually curious: after let's say
| 5 hours of in-person interviews, do most people come home and
| fire up the CAD software to work on rockets or whatever, like
| Carmack, or do they hang out on the couch vegetating and feeling
| like they have a minor hangover or head cold, like me?
| avocabros wrote:
| There are plenty of people who do side projects outside of
| work, train for marathons, etc. That doesn't mean you're
| atypical - most people don't run marathons, for instance - but
| I don't think Carmack is this wild, totally out-of-band 1 in a
| million in terms of energy/motivation
| goostavos wrote:
| In-person interviews are kind've a weird thing to just throw in
| there. I describe them as very, very different than the focused
| mental work that happens during the normal course of a day job.
|
| Interviews are high stress, emotionally draining, and,
| honestly, frequently rather degrading due to being talked down
| to. It's like having the fight or flight part of your brain
| firing on max for 5 hours. I agree that the only thing I really
| want to do at the end of such days is turn off.
|
| That is wildly different from my day to day. After work, I'm
| still hyped to go to the gym, do some woodworking, program
| more, study. The world is an exciting place.
|
| I've also found that if I succumb to the reddit infinite-
| scroll, a sense of numbness washes over me that takes awhile to
| shake free. I scroll like I'm seeking a high and nothing is
| doing it. Contrast that with, say, reading a book after work.
| Such a thing has never left me feeling the same empty feeling.
| PartiallyTyped wrote:
| He is. He is super atypical.
|
| Personally, I am drained by meetings and am in my happy place
| in front of an editor working on a grand project, one that I
| find interesting.
|
| The moment work stops being interesting, eg due to lack of
| complexity, I leave.
|
| Chaos and complexity energise me.
| Madmallard wrote:
| When I'm really motivated on something I will work well in excess
| of 40 hours, perhaps double that, in a week on it and get
| drastically more done than I would ever have done limited myself
| to fewer hours.
| OptCohTomo wrote:
| Here's what Richard Hamming has to say on the subject:
|
| https://www.cs.virginia.edu/~robins/YouAndYourResearch.html
|
| "Knowledge and productivity are like compound interest. Given two
| people of approximately the same ability and one person who works
| ten percent more than the other, the latter will more than twice
| outproduce the former. The more you know, the more you learn; the
| more you learn, the more you can do; the more you can do, the
| more the opportunity - it is very much like compound interest."
|
| The payoff of working more is not linear.
| kevingadd wrote:
| Is more hours more work, though? If so, on what basis?
|
| Frequently when the team was crunching at work, the result was
| that people had to bring their personal lives into the work
| hours in order to be able to actually stay at work longer,
| whether it meant making personal phone calls (because they
| couldn't postpone them until home), or even bringing their kids
| into the office for a few hours before going home. That was not
| Productive Work Time.
|
| Similarly if someone comes in to work while sick, I don't think
| you can argue that those 8+ hours spent working with a cold or
| the flu are going to be at full productivity, and then they
| probably make their coworkers sick too.
| jypepin wrote:
| the question is, when you "work" more, are you actually
| "working" more. I'm not advocating for either side, but I
| believe a few places that have moved to a shorter work week
| haven't seen lower productivity. Might be a sign that most
| people actually can't do ~40hrs of work per week.
| jeremyjh wrote:
| That's because most people work at bullshit jobs they don't
| care about, where productivity can't be effectively measured
| and they are distracted more than half the day anyway. With a
| shorter day you are compelled to focus more to get essential
| things done and this is probably where people get the idea
| that you can accomplish just as much in fewer hours.
| koube wrote:
| I think if you take someone like me, and really most people,
| and have them sit in the office for an extra hour per day,
| you probably won't see much benefit. But I definitely feel
| like there are some people who grind work all day, putting in
| ridiculous hours, and they do amazingly work, beyond what 1.5
| or even 2 people can do. Especially when you consider career
| progression over time, maybe the people who are hustling will
| have ranked up a couple times over an 8 hour/day person, and
| is contributing at a much higher level.
|
| I think you make a good point that it's more complicated than
| "just stay longer", but I do also agree with GP that there is
| some kind of compounding interest when it comes to how many
| hours work. Don't know how it works though.
| galleywest200 wrote:
| I agree with you. Lots of positions ask you to stay "at work"
| when in reality all you are doing is watching your inbox for
| another email or something even less important.
| f38zf5vdt wrote:
| > This particular article does touch on a goal that isn't usually
| explicitly stated: it would make the world "less unequal" if
| everyone was prevented from working longer hours. Yes, it would,
| but I am deeply appalled at the thought of trading away
| individual freedom of action and additional value in the world
| for that goal.
|
| Am I the only person appalled by Carmack's apparent privilege
| here? In an era when a CEO is routinely making 300x the wage of
| an average worker, and sometimes _thousands_ of times more,
| giving people the option to work less for the same amount of wage
| seems like one of the few ways we can force the ultra-rich to
| give back? No one is _forcing_ people to work 7 hours and they
| could easily work more _if_ they wanted to, but reducing the
| minimum amount of toil required seems to be a net benefit to
| everyone who is not insanely wealthy.
| Aeolun wrote:
| He's not talking about reducing the _minimum_ toil. He's
| talking about artificially limiting the maximum.
|
| People that want to work 12 hour days should be allowed to.
| gsich wrote:
| This can easily be abused.
| [deleted]
| dullcrisp wrote:
| I don't understand his argument here. He seems to be arguing
| against the idea that it's actually impossible to get anything
| productive done after you've worked a certain number of hours
| rather than the idea that a company or workforce can be more
| effective if they work fewer hours.
|
| I can work for 100 hours in a week and get strictly more done
| than I did in the first 40, and yet I wouldn't be surprised if a
| company that required 100-hour weeks from its employees became
| more effective when they reduced their work week to 40 hours.
| smitty1e wrote:
| How do I possibly have more karma than Carmack?
|
| Likely due to frittering away more time on here than he, rather
| than doing "useful" things.
| esotericimpl wrote:
| [dead]
| dcchambers wrote:
| > Even when you are clearly not at your peak, there is always
| plenty to do that doesn't require your best, and it would
| actually be a waste to spend your best time on it.
|
| Wow, that's a great quote.
| allenu wrote:
| It really is. I'm finding that there are some menial
| programming tasks where I really can just turn off my brain and
| listen to podcasts while I work and almost let my muscle memory
| take over.
|
| There are also tasks that require my full undivided attention
| where having anything on in the background breaks my flow and
| just lengthens the task. When my brain power is low, it's often
| from working on these particular tasks and when it helps to
| switch over to one of the menial tasks.
|
| I also do find, as he says, that it's good time to take on some
| experimental/exploratory tasks that may use more creativity and
| less logical thinking.
|
| Seeing when you're depleted in one area but not in another is
| incredibly powerful and is a great productivity booster. (Of
| course, there are definitely times where I just cannot muster
| any energy and those are times where it helps to just step away
| from the keyboard.)
| [deleted]
| mcbrit wrote:
| Most people, and let me qualify them as serious people, have real
| problems figuring out how to accept higher training volume
| without injury in sport or tech or business or whatever.
|
| It's great that John is this monster endurance tech athlete with
| amazing results, but in the same way that the dude that ran a 50k
| or 100k last weekend might not be the best person to emulate for
| you, John probably doesn't align with what makes sense for 99.9%
| of the world's tech population.
|
| Shorter work weeks make sense for almost everyone working in
| tech. I'd put in more 9s, non-ironically, but it's a bad look.
|
| Since the post is tagged 2016, I think it is also more likely
| than not that John would agree with this now; it's very possible
| that he'd also agree with it then, but I didn't go beyond the
| linked comment.
| sseagull wrote:
| I do wonder how much of this is genetic. I know people who just
| need less sleep than I do (which I believe is genetic), and
| they can be more productive than me no matter how hard I try. I
| just need more time to rest than they do.
|
| After a few hours (5ish) of deep work, I can't think straight,
| and start overthinking problems. I could probably train myself
| to go longer, but likely not _that_ much longer. So I wonder if
| there is a genetic basis to that.
|
| (Although even if there is, I doubt people like John Carmack
| would understand)
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