Pretty sure it was claimed that using "AI" would mean people would need to work less. So they aren't practicing what they preach, and in fact the opposite.
If anyone wants to sterotype the proper response to this thread, I'm down. I'll play:
Work from home made me more productive. AI Coding makes bad code that is harder to code. If we worked 10 hour days, I'd be more productive. Nuclear and Solar power... CEOs make bad code for everyone. If you spend little on programmers, you get bad quality.
Alright I lost a bit at the end. Maybe someone can ChatGPT this into the 4chan sniper meme. "What the ... did you just fucking say about me, you little ..."?
Whats most amazing is that these people are putting in 12 hours a day 6 days a week for the goal of putting hundreds of millions of people out of a job, including themselves. The only people who will benefit in the end are their billionaire bosses they're slavishly working to make even wealthier and they'll all be hung out to dry in the end with everyone else.
These are suicidal and omnicidal acts by stupid, subservient enablers and class traitors who believe the rich and powerful will somehow look out for them rather than kick them to the curb with the rest of us. Effective unionizing, solidarity, and worker-owned co-ops are the rational responses, but semi-higher-paid people scoffed because they assumed with all of the perks the elite jackals wouldn't eat their faces too. Stupid fools.
I'm personally doing kind of the opposite. I'm getting way more done with less time, and spending the difference with family. But things like this do make me realize that my ability to do this might be short lived. So I'm enjoying it while I can.
But also, I'm on team "Its really hard to do the same mental job ~20 hours a week". I can do 2hr x 3 cycles x 5 days a week. But that means breaks.. When I did 12 hour days I was terrible at hours 9-12.
I'll probably be downvoted, I feel like the whole AI adoption and much of our technological progress over the centuries has been a prime Prisoner's Dilemma example.
We would get better results by collaborating, and because defecting (and using the thing in its unsafe, and unhealthy ways) is rewarded we defect.
This is clearly rage bait, given that it starts with one 120-person company doing this and then tries to pivot into “the tech industry” without any supporting evidence that it’s widespread.
> Each job ad contains a warning: "Please don't join if you're not excited about… working ~70 hrs/week in person
If a company is going to demand long weeks, this is the only way to do it: Be up front and explain it in the job listing so nobody is surprised or wastes time interviewing for a job they’re not compatible with.
Modern day tech journalism is just lazy, you browse a bunch of HN and reddit threads, if you're feeling it, ask ChatGPT for some stats to support your propaganda piece and hit publish. Fact check, spell check and everything else is done by AI. It's not like you have to run around the streets with camera crew, interviewing real people, so...yeah. I doubt if even they write the articles themselves, I've seen models on Huggingface for "creative, human-like writing". So maybe it was just a prompt "write me some ragebait on AI companies as I'm having a slow news day and my job is hanging by a thread"
> The company has become something of a poster child for a fast-paced workplace culture known as 996, also sometimes referred to as hustle culture or grindcore.
I thought ClawdBot and an agent swarm fishing in a data lake were doing all the work while the developers were chilling and sipping coffee. Now it is 996? Which is it?
It is also interesting that a surveillance startup that abuses sales people thinks they are doing "incredible things".
at my current company i happen to work 70hrs/week but it doesn't feel like a ton of work, i'm having fun and let's be honest a chunk of the "work" is meetings & hanging out with my coworkers who are also my friends. the vast majority of people's productivity drops off after 4-6 hours of focused work. if i wanted to rest and vest there's plenty of companies to do that but your upside is capped hard
a company that 'requires' 996 doesn't understand why people work that hard in the first place.
That sounds less like “70-hour weeks” and more like admitting only ~30 of those hours matter - everything else is vibes and calendar theater. Which kind of proves the point: forced 996 optimizes for visible suffering, not actual output or upside.
Last year a company reached out to me about an interesting job on their Developer Experience team. What the company is building is super interesting, and DevEx is something I love and am good at.
In our second conversation, the hiring manager mentioned that they all work ten hours a day, five days a week, in the office. I guess you could call it a 975 schedule.
I don't think of myself as "old", but that kind of in-office schedule sounded grueling. So I declined continuing with further interviews.
A 996 schedule sounds like a great way to say, "older developers need not apply."
I'll second this. An external recruiter was under the (incorrect) impression that we are a 996 company. We found out because she said that no senior people she talked to were willing to work those hours.
Ultimately you can make a lot of short-term progress with 23-year-olds who are willing to live 5 minutes away from the office, have no life outside of work, and work 72 hour weeks. But you also end up with a product that was built by people who have no idea what they're doing.
This is a big issue that I also thought about. Current crop of AI tools increases capital leverage, but workers are still left with existing tools. Without push-back, employees will get an even a shorter end of the stick than before. That ain't good for society.
The dot com bubble. The reboot of tech after (pre 2008) at the dawn of podcasting, Web 2.0, the "open web".
70 hour weeks weren't unheard of. Why... because the money was stupid and you had skin in the game.
Lots of people got wealthy, very wealthy. Fuck you money wealthy.
I know a lot of people who did that and then kept working. The large majority of them in fact.
If you're here and you're looking at one of these jobs, this is the critical sentence you need to ask when negotiating: "Can I see a cap table." If they say anything other than yes, then your response is "with out a cap table the value of the equity being offered is ZERO, I'm going to need a lot more cash".
“Is not life on earth a drudgery, its days like those of a hireling?
Like a slave who longs for the shade, a hireling who waits for wages,
So I have been assigned months of futility, and troubled nights have been counted off for me.
When I lie down I say, ‘When shall I arise?’ then the night drags on;
I am filled with restlessness until the dawn. My flesh is clothed with worms and scabs, my skin cracks and festers;
My days are swifter than a weaver’s shuttle; they come to an end without hope.”
16 hours of work, 8 hours of sleep - this is what it should be. no PTO. salary don't matter cause you have no time to spend any of it. need to put in 65 years like this before you get the pension. utopia!
54 comments
[ 4.9 ms ] story [ 70.0 ms ] threadWork from home made me more productive. AI Coding makes bad code that is harder to code. If we worked 10 hour days, I'd be more productive. Nuclear and Solar power... CEOs make bad code for everyone. If you spend little on programmers, you get bad quality.
Alright I lost a bit at the end. Maybe someone can ChatGPT this into the 4chan sniper meme. "What the ... did you just fucking say about me, you little ..."?
Let us not be silly that these are the same.
But also, I'm on team "Its really hard to do the same mental job ~20 hours a week". I can do 2hr x 3 cycles x 5 days a week. But that means breaks.. When I did 12 hour days I was terrible at hours 9-12.
Thats why the NBA doesnt present in the Olympics.
We would get better results by collaborating, and because defecting (and using the thing in its unsafe, and unhealthy ways) is rewarded we defect.
> Each job ad contains a warning: "Please don't join if you're not excited about… working ~70 hrs/week in person
If a company is going to demand long weeks, this is the only way to do it: Be up front and explain it in the job listing so nobody is surprised or wastes time interviewing for a job they’re not compatible with.
Rage bait seems to be working judging by the comments over here.
Hello fellow children vibes.
It is also interesting that a surveillance startup that abuses sales people thinks they are doing "incredible things".
at my current company i happen to work 70hrs/week but it doesn't feel like a ton of work, i'm having fun and let's be honest a chunk of the "work" is meetings & hanging out with my coworkers who are also my friends. the vast majority of people's productivity drops off after 4-6 hours of focused work. if i wanted to rest and vest there's plenty of companies to do that but your upside is capped hard
a company that 'requires' 996 doesn't understand why people work that hard in the first place.
Last year a company reached out to me about an interesting job on their Developer Experience team. What the company is building is super interesting, and DevEx is something I love and am good at.
In our second conversation, the hiring manager mentioned that they all work ten hours a day, five days a week, in the office. I guess you could call it a 975 schedule.
I don't think of myself as "old", but that kind of in-office schedule sounded grueling. So I declined continuing with further interviews.
A 996 schedule sounds like a great way to say, "older developers need not apply."
Ultimately you can make a lot of short-term progress with 23-year-olds who are willing to live 5 minutes away from the office, have no life outside of work, and work 72 hour weeks. But you also end up with a product that was built by people who have no idea what they're doing.
they cannot judge a brilliant insight from a slacker that would have saved thousands of man-hours rushing the wrong way.
do you really want to work for such a company?
70 hour weeks weren't unheard of. Why... because the money was stupid and you had skin in the game.
Lots of people got wealthy, very wealthy. Fuck you money wealthy.
I know a lot of people who did that and then kept working. The large majority of them in fact.
If you're here and you're looking at one of these jobs, this is the critical sentence you need to ask when negotiating: "Can I see a cap table." If they say anything other than yes, then your response is "with out a cap table the value of the equity being offered is ZERO, I'm going to need a lot more cash".
“Is not life on earth a drudgery, its days like those of a hireling? Like a slave who longs for the shade, a hireling who waits for wages, So I have been assigned months of futility, and troubled nights have been counted off for me. When I lie down I say, ‘When shall I arise?’ then the night drags on; I am filled with restlessness until the dawn. My flesh is clothed with worms and scabs, my skin cracks and festers; My days are swifter than a weaver’s shuttle; they come to an end without hope.”