Cutting your salary by 40% - <AUTHOR> https://codewithoutrules.com/2017/09/18/when-startups-pay-less/ <comment><USER2> I enforce a militant "40 hours only" policy for my employees, and it's incredible for productivity. When you work longer hours defect rates increase, code quality drops, and things are on fire all the time. You also lose really good people due to burnout.

Sustainable pace is super important for creating and maintaining high performance teams. Crassly, it's just a more profitable way of doing business.

I wish more managers would stop buying into the myth of "time in seat == productivity", and look at the real output of their teams. When you actually run the numbers there's a lot of results that run counter to conventional wisdom.

<comment><USER3> Pfft. A man-hour of labor is a man-hour of labor. Which is why I fully understand why my employer is requiring me (and the others on my team) to make up the 48 hours of labor I lost when I evacuated due to Hurricane Irma (even though the office was of course closed for much of that time).

I'm spending the extra hours perusing/posting on HN and looking at job listings :|

<comment><USER4> > Pfft. A man-hour of labor is a man-hour of labor.

Not all hours are created equally.

I do my best work with hyperfocus.

I don't just mean more work, but far higher quality work that's at the edge of my intellectual capabilities.

This is the work that's most rewarding and gives results that I'm proud of.

But I can't get significant time "in the zone" on a 40-hour week.

All the normal but necessary distractions take at least four hours a day, and I need at least an hour or two of "non-zone" work before I can hit my stride and achieve flow.

So I find 60-70 hours a week is essential to doing my best work.

But I can't sustain that level of effort continuously for years.

So I balance that out with a week a month of low-intensity "work" (slacking/procrastinating/socializing) plus at least twelve weeks per year of contiguous time for uninterrupted travel, long-distance trekking, rebuilding relationships damaged by hyperfocus, etc.

<comment><USER5> I think you'll find that pushing back on the four hours of usual distractions per day will be more productive than working long hours.

Personally, I find the usual distractions more tiring than coding, based on years of experience.

I estimate at least 2 hours of work lost per hour of meeting, once you add in meeting prep, calendar wrangling, walking, after and before meeting back chatter, realizing you have 30 minutes till lunch/commute after/before the meeting, being tired from presenting/listening/arguing, etc.

One strategy is to have meeting-only or meeting-free days, so meetings primarily ruin your productivity for other meetings and not your actual work.

Meeting-only days scale with team size, but can backfire by enabling the total number of hours in meetings to increase.

<comment><USER6> "I think you'll find that pushing back on the four hours of usual distractions per day will be more productive than working long hours."

Pretty much this. When you are explaing long hours by on the job ineffectively, then you need to deal with on the job ineffectivity - especially if you are in any kind of leadership position. Otherwise you end up rewarding innefective workers and punish workers with better organizational skill.

General feeling that it is ok to work ineffectively because we stay late anyway was one of the things I resented the most in previous job. And people who caused interruptions and wasted everybody time were seen as "hard workers" because they stayed late.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I often think about Arthur Rubenstein, the phenom mid-century pianist, for whom a lot has been written about his mission in early life to "practice as little as possible." There's a lot of hyped up romanticism in these quotes and anyone who plays at his level has spent a lifetime playing piano, period. Regardless, his guidance about spontaneity, creativity, and the relationship to practicing too much, which I equate to the current discussion on overworking, is highly interesting.

"I was born very, very lazy and I don't always practice very long, but I must say, in my defense, that it is not so good, in a musical way, to overpractice. When you do, the music seems to come out of your pocket. If you play with a feeling of 'Oh, I know this,' you play without that little drop of fresh blood that is necessary—and the audience feels it." Of his own practice methods, he said, "At every concert I leave a lot to the moment. I must have the unexpected, the unforeseen. I want to risk, to dare. I want to be surprised by what comes out. I want to enjoy it more than the audience. That way the music can bloom anew."

Not all work benefits from risk, the drop of blood, the unexpected, that are all baked into the right amount of effort, but a great deal of valuable and innovative work does.

<comment><USER8> My brother is in a bluegrass band. They've been around for 10 years now, and there's a lot of music they've played so many times I'm sure they could do it in their sleep.

There are a few songs that I really do think they used to do better, back when they were just starting out. Specifically, some of the fast, most technically difficult songs that they used to play right up until they were at the edge of what was possible for them. Those songs were full of an energy that they just don't have anymore, now that they can do them perfectly without a sweat.

<comment><USER9> \+ 1 for bluegrass

That particular form presents an interesting challenge. Many performers tend to stay with memorized breaks, or within certain patterns, that they can do on stage without breaking a sweat. The blood only shows in jams or informal performances. Unlike jazz, where it is not. cool. to play the same solo twice anywhere.

<comment><USER10> This.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> As much as I'd love to believe the "work more than 40 hours a week, because SCIENCE!" party line, I have a hard time accepting it, and I think so do most people who hear it (outside of HN, at least).

For one thing, it's highly convenient that the standard US work-week happens to be the exact "correct" amount of hours to work to maximize productivity.

For another, anecdotally at least, most people know plenty of people who work longer hours and do it successfully. And most of the really successful people out there will mention that they worked insanely hard at some point. Are they all lying? All wrong?

The article itself mentions people doing extra hours of coding on personal projects, and we all know some people who have started companies that way. What, do these projects simply not exist? How does that make any sense?

You can think it's exploitation to ask people to work hard, but this is to work on a team with a world-class researcher who most people would _love_ to work with. Is it too much work for some people? Sure. Are there others for whom it is worth the trade-off? Probably. Why does everyoªne on HN just assume they know better than those people themselves, and set off to make them feel bad and exploited? Working really hard is a totally legit and rational choice under some circumstances.

(Btw, worth pointing out that this article is at least partly a pitch for a book about working less hours. Not saying this invalidates its points, but it is certainly taking advantage of the publicity Andrew Ng's post has gotten to sell a product).

<comment><USER12> > For one thing, it's highly convenient that the standard US work-week happens > to be the exact "correct" amount of hours to work to maximize productivity.

It's not in the slightest bit down to convenience. It's because 40 hours was quite simply discovered to be a more productive length of day, well over a century ago, back in the later stages of the industrial revolution.

In the US, if memory serves, the move to a 40 hour working week largely started out at the Ford Motor company back in the early 1900s, after Henry Ford experimented reducing hours and discovered that the number of mistakes made by workers went down drastically, and productivity increased. This swept across the industry because the improvements were impossible to deny. Slowly but surely that spread across other industries until it became the staple.

40 hours isn't done by custom, it's done because it's proven to be _the_ most productive working week. This isn't a case of scientists discovering that "what people are used to is what they're most productive at". For most of the industrial revolution people worked 12hr+ days, and that was considered, even by the labour force, to be perfectly acceptable. Hauling that back to 8 hour days was a herculean task that no major factory owner was going to do without damn good evidence that it would improve things.

<comment><USER13> _It 's because 40 hours was quite simply discovered to be a more productive length of day_

That was true when most of the workforce was doing manual and factory style labour. To the best of my knowledge it hasn't been rigorously reproduced for works that spend their days staring at a screen thinking.

<comment><USER14> And if it's not been rigorously tested, then there doesn't seem to be any strong case to assume that the ideal number for office work is higher, rather than lower, than 40.

I'm also wondering how commute time (and method of commute) factors into this. Does 30 minutes of physically strenuous cycling before/after work have a positive or negative impact on office workers? Does the same time spent in a car navigating stop'n'go traffic have a different effect? Both involve some element of mental effort, but both are quite different from the rest of the days tasks. Certainly in my experience one helped my mental state and one didn't.

<comment><USER15> I recall reading somewhere that one of the best predictors of employee turnover is commute length. But that was for call center employees, and I can't recall where I read that, so take it with a grain of salt.

Anecdotally, I once moved from having an hour long commute to a 5 minutes walk from work. I did end up leaving, but I feel that I enjoyed life much more living close to the office. Getting an extra two hours every day allowed me to enjoy life much more.

<comment><USER16> I guess commute doesn't need to be minimized, it just shouldn't be too long. I cycle to work which takes me 20-25 minutes and I enjoy it. It gives me a break between work and home so that I can separate the two.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> This is insane. I've actually been looking to reduce my work hours to about 30, because even 40 seems too much. Having had a couple of burnouts before, I want my life to be more than my job, and I truly believe this would make me better at my job in the long term. After a day of full time work I almost never have the energy to do some of the other things I want to do. I want to be able do more open source, learn a foreign language or a musical instrument, spend time with my partner, study some new cool technology, do some exercise etc. I was very disappointed to see a big name in the industry to promote exploitation like that.

<comment><USER18> I'm working 32 hours: 4 days a week. That leaves me a day with the kids outside the weekend. Oldest kid is at school most of the day, so I take the youngest to the zoo or something. I heartily recommend it.

It's crazy that we're all still working 40 hours a week. Didn't Keynes promise we'd have 15 hour work weeks by now? (He did. He didn't anticipate our bosses taking all the profits from our productivity gains, though.)

<comment><USER19> >He didn't anticipate our bosses taking all the profits from our productivity gains, though.

He also didn't anticipate zero-sum competition for inflexible goods like housing. If I want a nice house in a decent city, I have to out-compete and out-borrow everyone else who might want that house. If everyone around me is making bank and I want the nice house, then I'd better make bank too. Lots of us end up working more than we'd like, in a delicate balance between our desire for _stuff_ and our tolerance of overwork.

Life would be a whole lot easier if we could control our desires but it's easier said than done.

<comment><USER20> > zero-sum competition for inflexible goods

if you consider good housing to be only within a certain distance of some CBD, then yes, housing is zero sum. But there's lots more space available than humans right now, and relaxing the distance/centrality requirement will greatly increase the pool of available housing (and hence, "cheaper").

The only winner when everyone tries to outbid for a small amount of housing is the original owners.

<comment><USER21> All the best jobs are in the big expensive cities. Everywhere around the world, if you want the best job you will need to go to New York, SF, London, Tokyo, Paris, Munich etc. That's one reason why everybody wants to live there.

Second reason would is to be close to a large number of people which greatly increases social activities you can do. In a large city even a niche hobby will probably attract enough people that you can find a group of buddies who like same things.

<comment><USER22> How do you define "best job"? I want to minimize my commute to work. Right now I work about 4 miles from my house, which is a 10 minute drive without touching a highway. If I lived in San Francisco I'd need to make over $300k just to break event when you look at the insane cost of living, and that's not even taking into account the higher federal taxes or California taking its cut.

Most people want to live in big cities _for the big cities_ \- not because of the jobs there. NYC would be really fun, but I'd need to make an insane amount of money to have the same lifestyle I have now and a 10 minute commute to boot. In fact, that'd be impossible, because now I have a yard, a dog, and a car. A 10 minute commute in NYC would pretty much require me to be in a small apartment.

<comment><USER21> >> How do you define "best job"?

If we stay within the context of software engineering jobs, I'd define it as something using latest tech and pushing new frontiers in different areas (AI, machine learning, distributed computing, dev ops).

So it would be jobs working with interesting tech (things like functional programming, or something like Tensorflow, microservices with Kubernetes and Golang, using newest dev ops and automation stack, distributed systems etc) and on interesting problems and novel ideas. Majority of these jobs will concentrate in big tech hubs where it makes sense to invest heavily into R&D like this.

Outside of major tech cities these jobs will be more sporadic and most jobs will be for companies which treat tech as a cost centre so you will end up working on some boring internal CRM systems made from bunch of enterprise overpriced products with horrible APIs glued together with some Java or PHP code.

>> Right now I work about 4 miles from my house, which is a 10 minute drive without touching a highway.

I live about 15-20 min walk from my office currently. If a city has sane transport system it might be more efficient than driving a car. I understand commuting to work by car is more of a US thing. At least in Europe in most major cities you can use mass transit (and most people do). I don't actually need to own a car and can save money as I don't need to buy expensive piece of metal that will start depreciating the same day I bought it, no need for insurance or parking space.

>> Most people want to live in big cities for the big cities - not because of the jobs there.

Of course. I agree. Lifestyle is a major reason why people want to live in NYC or London etc. But I also think that unique and plentiful career opportunities are an important reason. There are simply opportunities you won't wind anywhere else.

>> In fact, that'd be impossible, because now I have a yard, a dog, and a car. A 10 minute commute in NYC would pretty much require me to be in a small apartment.

This is true. I have only lived in tiny apartments my whole life so imagining living in a house with lots of space and a yard/garden is very appealing. Definitely would prefer that.

<comment><USER23> My yard is 11 acres, and I wouldn't trade it for the world. 17 min commute.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Unless he's paying seven+ figures annually, all working 70 to 90 hours a week will get you is a broken relationship/marriage and utter social isolation with little or nothing to show for it in the end when you realize what a mistake you've made and unplug from The Matrix, probably 20 to 30 pounds heavier than when you started.

Work hard. Study a lot. But take a breather now and then. Life is short.

<comment><USER25> Hi LogisFailsMe, I ran across one of your old posts regarding curing a sinus infection. I'm trying to avoid a third surgery and hoping you will please let me know what you used for success? Thank you very much

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> I wake at 0600 and commute to work, to be in for 0700 at the latest (I cycle 6-7km.) From 0700 to 0800 I work on personal development such as reading a book or doing some online study (or sometimes I just catch up with online news as I am now.) From 0800 to 1130 I work. From 1130 to 1300 I dine and take a walk/socialise. From 1300 to 1500 I work. At 1500 I go home.

Essentially I work for 5.5 hours -- my fingers are on the keyboard, I'm in a meeting, or I'm thinking through a problem for 5.5 hours per day. We also have the concept of the eight hour day in Australia (which I believe is a matter of law, in fact): eight hours of work; eight hours of social time; eight hours for sleep.

I do this everyday. It gives me a lot of freedom to do the things I want to do when I get home at about 1530 and makes me feel great. I feel healthier for it. I can innovate when I get home and work on a project, or spend more time with my fiancé.

If I ever find my self in a position with a company that the boss(es) don't like this setup, then I simply show my self the door and find another job. Life is way too short to be putting my employer before my own life, health, wishes, and dreams.

Also, I aim to find a job in which I'm solving real social problems (even in a for-profit manner) and not just doing it for the sake of it or the wage. I think this is important too.

<comment><USER27> Could I ask where you are in your career and when you started this regimen? I would like to adopt something similar, I'm not sure if I have the willpower just yet but I'm seeing one of two options: following your approach or burning out gradually.

<comment><USER26> I'm a Senior Site Reliability Engineer in Brisbane, Australia. I started out in the UK at about 27 as a Junior SysAd. I'm 33 now.

I highly recommend you space out your working day like I have, perhaps even going as far as using a method such as [Pomodoro]([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pomodoro_Technique](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pomodoro_Technique)) to avoid burn out. Also, maybe do what I've done, but do it within a 9-5 window for now.

Just remember that burning out for your employer is just isn't worth it unless you're doing something highly social, like helping starving children, providing medical support, some sort of charity work, etc., things that are worth burning out for (in my opinion.) Burning out for your boss' idea of the perfect mobile game is a joke at your expense :-)

Apps that I use (iOS): "Timetable", to layout the week and get notifications on when to get up and move on to the next part of the day; "Today", for reminding me to do things and "checking in" when I've done it - this is for building habits; "Pommie" as a Pomodoro timer, but I don't use this much; and "Wunderlist" for todo lists I can share with my fiancé - I have a "Today" entry that has me checking this 2-3 times per day so I'm always aware of what's needed to get things done around the household.

Good luck.

<comment><USER27> Awesome, thanks!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I studied film production in grad school, and one of the reasons I didn't pursue a career in that industry is because of the rampant, pervasive abuse like that mentioned in the article. "12 on/12 off" was a movement started by an industry veteran that cried for limiting the work days to 12 hours and providing a minimum of 12 hours down time before having to be back on set. It was started after a crew member died from falling asleep at the wheel on the way home from a shoot.

I am so glad to work in a place that a). not only doesn't have insane deadlines and the corresponding pressure but, b). has a sub-discipline dedicated to project management. And that I get to push back with my favorite mantra, "poor planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part."

<comment><USER28> [http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/riverdale-star- la...](http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/riverdale-star-late-night- car-crash-working-16-hour-day-1041899)

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Tangential: I loved the "When programming is your hobby" part of this blog post. Finally someone accepting, and not dissing, people who _actually like to code_. The advice is spot-on, too: coding > 40h / week is fine, but why give up your freedom of choosing what to work on, when to work on it, and when to take time off, without any compensation?

<comment><USER30> Yeah, except what this actually means is, "You don't have any interests outside of work and you do not have kids that may take you away from work and you don't have a SO/spouse to tell you that you're being taken advantage of."

It's not really about your interests, it's about you being naive.

<comment><USER31> It's all very nice disparaging people for having found a passion, but when I read _Masters of Doom_ , I didn't pity John Carmack and John Romero and their gang for programming all week, then 'borrowing' work computers to program and play D&D all weekend. I admired them. They found a thing they loved to do with people they loved to do it with.

Other people have to do many things to be happy, but they found it all there! These were incredibly intelligent, incredibly creative people expressing their intelligence and creativity. They weren't lesser men for their passion. It elevated them.

<comment><USER32> You're right, we shouldn't disparage people for working long hours in pursuit of their passion. But we absolutely should disparage investors and founders who seek to exploit this youthful passion and energy to enrich themselves without fair compensation. The tricky part is actually defining what's fair.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> I had an interesting experience in this regard. I was hired by a company who had a small team of developers. When I first arrived it was obvious they had built a culture of "work until you drop". Not because anyone above them was pushing it (at least I don't think so), but they seemed to enjoy "being heroes".

Granted, from my perspective it appeared they needed to be heroes in the first place because they had accumulated so much technical debt they were drowning in it.

I tried silently to change their culture by coming in for 8 hours, doing my job, and leaving on time. I don't know if I was ultimately able to change their mentality, but I certainly turned some heads when they realized that when I was on a project it never sounded like my fingers stopped typing until I would leave for the day. That's the kind of efficiency you can attain when you have work life balance.

<comment><USER34> I was in that situation as well.

Being 10 years older than the rest of the crew, sadly I believe they simply perceived me as 'old'.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> To add to this, I recently got let go from my job 2 weeks ago . With that said, my boss routinely tried to guilt trip me because I didn't want to work more than 40hrs a week. I have 2 very small children and my wife is pregnant, I can't spend all my time working, nor do I have any desire to. There were a few times I put in a couple of 60hr weeks, but that was only to appease him, not because I felt it was necessary. Like I said, my boss would bully me with phrases like "When CAN YOU work after hours?" "You're a 40hr work week kind of guy" "Time to put on your big-boy pants" and other totally demeaning comments. This was for an IT managed service provider.

The real clincher was that I was let go the day I got back from vacation. The first thing after he said "I gotta let you go" was "You didn't check in at all on your vacation".

That was incredibly disrespectful to me and shows a total lack of empathy for me and my family. I am happy to no longer work for him, although I am in a bit of a financial bind now.

<comment><USER36> Keep it professional. Next time he tries to manage you by stress, respond:"okay so let's discuss overtime pay multiplications".

He wants you to do more, he won't fire you, so he only has to see the costs properly and understand that you are more serious about the overtime than him.

I have one kid so far, and zero overtime, I can't even imagine how it will be with three.

<comment><USER37> "he won't fire you"

OP literally starts the post saying he was fired.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> One of my past employers wouldn't pay me what I felt and showed was fair market value for my skills and what I do for them. So I counter offered to work 4 days a week for the same salary.

A year of 3 day weekends did more for my life and relationships than a raise ever could have.

<comment><USER39> It's quite bizarre to me that they would accept a reduction in working hours but not an increase in salary.

<comment><USER38> It probably helped that I convinced them (then proved it) that my productivity really wouldn't fall much. I could do the same work in less time.

Unless you're making widgets on a production line, productivity doesn't linearly scale with time.

I wasn't at work on Friday, but I was still subconsciously processing what I had researched, how to solve problems, etc. It's the ultimate "sleep on it" or "get up and walk around".

<comment><USER40> Did you experiment with other days, or was it just Friday? Was this choice made by you, or what fitted the job the best?

<comment><USER38> I didn't experiment because I felt it was unfair for my availability to wander through the week. People learned I was not present on Friday.

I wanted it to abut the weekend so that I could get into my own projects (coding, building, being with family, etc.) for a longer amount of time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> So few companies realise that working 70-90 hours / week calls for introspection not celebration. Fortunately, I never had a job where I had to put unreasonable hours against my will but I have heard stories of people who went through the ordeal and they share a common element: the capacity to think better solutions dampens which effectively makes 70 hour work-week, a <40 hour one.

It's sad that only a fraction of people in managerial positions understand this dynamic. It's always people who work 'hard', who are more in the office, get admired and promoted.

<comment><USER42> Because that is not always possible. In India, in most IT firms, either budgets are fixed for a project, or there are upper slabs for hourly billing. What happens is you will eventually run into situations where you are pushing very aggressive deadlines with limited resources. The only option to do a project is to work crazy hours.

Its easy to say why don't they scale down for better work hours. If they did, they wouldn't even have those kind of projects, and by that definition you wouldn't have a job. Most companies can't do this.

Also in my early career this kind of a working environment was a boon. Sure if you are only in for a 9-5 job and money, you don't even have to sign up for something like this. But working crazy hours gives people far more disproportionately higher learning opportunities compared to peers. I have seen people volunteer and even fight with managers for these kind of projects only for the exposure. Do this enough number of years and you get very good at a lot of other things. Doing side projects, start ups and a range of other things necessary for a long haul career. Also your ability to contribute with merely participating in a project goes up way higher than your peers, and that eventually brings you more opportunities.

>>It's always people who work 'hard', who are more in the office, get admired and promoted.

Lastly, Is this really surprising to you. Look at how academic performance works, or how it is in sports, investing or for that matter in other walks of life.

Quantity of work, has a very deep effect on quality of work.

<comment><USER41> I think it's incorrect to equate working long hours with passionate pursuits like learning something or working on a side-project. Good motivation, almost always, never let's you burnout in real terms. Hell, I love creating something after work and counterintuitively, it makes me feel happier than stressful. But, I don't count this as work, it's kind of a break for me.

In most cases, the effort put is not in the right direction. Stroking the brush the same way a thousand times will never make you a better painter if it's not accompanied with a study of better techniques and introspection into your mistakes.

I can't deny that sometimes you can have enough motivation to have be 'the right kind of productive' for long hours but working on the same project necessitates a break. The break allows you to work out better approaches, which is not thought out by most managers.

I would be susceptible of any claim that working long hours enabled someone to learn more. I have often encountered them in my career, and it's never the case.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> The original job postings[1][2] were even more egregious. They originally said, "many of us routinely work 70-90 hours/week".

After a lot of criticism on a Facebook post by Andrew Ng[3] (where you can still find residual evidence of the "work 70-90 hours/week" claim), they modified it to, "many of us routinely work and study 70+ hours a week".

So to be precise, they were initially offering you a 43% to 56% pay cut.

Getting paid for 40 hours when you have worked for 70 hours is a 100 * (1.0 - 40 / 70) ≈ 43% pay cut.

Getting paid for 40 hours when you have worked for 90 hours is a 100 * (1.0 - 40 / 90) ≈ 56% pay cut.

[1]: [https://www.deeplearning.ai/machinelearningsoftwareengjobdes...](https://www.deeplearning.ai/machinelearningsoftwareengjobdescri)

[2]: [https://www.deeplearning.ai/fullstacksoftwareengineerjobdesc...](https://www.deeplearning.ai/fullstacksoftwareengineerjobdescrip)

[3]: [https://www.facebook.com/andrew.ng.96/posts/1472272026162033](https://www.facebook.com/andrew.ng.96/posts/1472272026162033)

<comment><USER44> > Getting paid for 40 hours

Do salaried jobs always specify a number of hours in their contracts? Otherwise you aren't being paid for 40 hours - you're just being paid to get the job done aren't you?

<comment><USER45> This is weird to me.

At least here in Finland when you are salaried for the standard 37.5h work week (7.5h work day with 30min lunch break) if you work more then that you log the hours as overtime and get paid for them or in some form of "flex" time that you turn into vacation days or money (there are limits to how many hours of flex you can have banked up)

I know some smaller companies/start ups work around this but they can very easily get in trouble as doing that is illegal (as in if even a single employee complains to the authorities about not being paid for overtime they are fucked)

<comment><USER44> If it's a standard number of hours what's the point in being salaried? Why don't they just pay you hourly?

<comment><USER45> Because nobody on the better paid fields would take such a contract. You could try it but you would most likely lose in the market place of jobs by all the best employees going somewhere else.

As to why having a contract that pays you for the standard work week always I think people just like the security of getting roughly the same amount of money each month (or biweekly or however often you get paid). Especially once you have some money so you have mortgages, loans and credit cards to manage on top of your monthly bills.

Also the hours beyond the normal work week are overtime and come with multipliers for your effective hourly rate so companies try to do their best to arrange things so that minimal amount of overtime is actually done.

<comment><USER46> So the point of salaries is to not have to pay overtime? No wonder everyone is becoming a contractor.

<comment><USER47> The point of salaries _was_ to pay employees by the week instead of by the hour. My first job had a weekly timecard that consisted of a checkbox: "Did you work this week?"

Now, every job I have requires me to account for all my hours, so it seems like the only reason I am not a wage employee is to avoid paying me 150% base rate for hours worked beyond the first 40 in a calendar week.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> Oh I think they're on point (with what they want) with that ad

They want the technical wizard with no social life that will give some years for the company while being paid ~50% less. They call it "strong work ethic" I call accepting such position "being naive"

Thanks but no thanks

</comment><comment><USER49> I work at a startup now in a leadership role. I am not a founder and I get paid less than I could make elsewhere while doing more work. However, working in a large company is not an alternative for me. Whenever I do I lose my motivation and phone it in, which damages my mental health because I feel like I can and should be doing more to keep my brain active. There is more time for R&R but something deep inside me is unfulfilled and I break down. I need the action and adventure of a risky bet. If I'm not fighting for my life then there's no fun in it. I'm going to spend a third of my life working regardless, so I want it to be exciting and interesting enough to keep me motivated.

I'm getting to the point in this company where the risk is almost gone and all that remains is work, and the closer we get to that point the less interested I am in the business. I'm sure it will feel nice when we're consistently profitable and can hire more, delegate, etc., but it loses something at that point too. I won't be as hands-on, will have to work harder to whip the team into moving in the right direction, we'll be moving slower even if we're accumulating capital... Not my cup of tea. I find myself exploring side contracts, ideas for my own businesses, grad school, thoughts of alternative lifestyles that might make my wife and I happier... Fewer hours worked is part of that, I'd LOVE to have more time to learn and play, but it's hard to get there without putting in the effort upfront. The main thing that keeps me where I am is that I've spent years shaping my role into one where I can learn exactly what I want to learn, and I'm on the precipice of being able to finally do that. That's not something one gives up easily.

</comment><comment><USER50> The article doesn't claim this is endemic to only startups, and in my experience work life balance among small, medium, and large companies is equally threatened.

Even the term "work-life" balance seems to assume an artificial divide between the two. When work is a facet of a rich life, those extra long hours, the grueling commute, the vacillations of the newest management fad are just not worth it. Not to mention that those with families are severely disadvantaged in a workplace that values hours at the office rather than productive hours.

I am curious to find out how this becomes a culture and whether this is reversible? Does this toxic overstepping begin at companies who once valued a predictable balance between work and life or was there a mistake made in company culture from the beginning? Can a company effectively counter this tendency? However you might answer these questions, it seems clear that throwing new studies out showing that overwork is counter-productive is not changing this trend. It goes back to the age-old idea, knowledge doesn't make you good, just more knowledgable.

<comment><USER51> I wonder about this a lot.

I can be highly productive in certain scenarios, and in others I can really drag on where others would be much faster than me. It's stuff like, I'm really good at code that involves math, I'm not so good at operations. Completely different, unrelated subject areas, but one is viewed as "harder" than the other, so if I can do one, I'm expected to be able to do the other. I often end up get a reputation for being a high-performer, because the stuff I'm good at often gets done during the initial proof-of-concept, and then start getting the screws tightened down on me from management in a really angry way as it appears I start slacking off when we hit the later-stages of a project that involve deployment management and other things that I'm just not very good at.

And it's other stupid shit, like, "if he's a whiz at JavaScript, he must be great at CSS and terrible at embedded systems." No, in this example, I'm the opposite.

Of course, it never occurs to them that maybe expecting everyone to do everything is not the right way to do things. I think, in sum total, I'm probably more skilled in a broader area of subjects than most people, but I'm not anywhere near skilled enough across every necessary subject for a full project to be able to pull one off on my own.

I don't want to focus on just one thing. I do think I provide a unique value by being very versatile. It _should_ be used as a way to smooth over bumps in the project schedule while management rebalances staff or highers more people. I don't mind jumping from 3D graphics into web and database development, or whatever. I've always believed that all work is worth doing and none "beneath" me.

But too often, once I reveal I'm more capable than the original position to which I was hired, I'm expected to do everything, all at the same time. And that's when things get out of hand. It has at least always _appeared_ like the people who keep their heads down and their mouths shut during meetings and don't volunteer anything beyond their job description have a much better time of their jobs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> This job seems to be located in Singapore (can be easily found by googling the quote). On a related note, I recently saw a question on The Workplace SE mentioning it's common for most devs in Sri Lanka to work 12+ hours[1].

In both cases, companies seem to intentionally exploit this by explicitly filtering out candidates not willing to go such lenghts. Pretty pathetic.

[1]: [https://workplace.stackexchange.com/questions/97039/how- to-a...](https://workplace.stackexchange.com/questions/97039/how-to-answer- when-asked-are-you-able-to-work-long-hours-in-a-job-interview)

<comment><USER53> I think it's in Palo Alto.

[https://www.deeplearning.ai/machinelearningsoftwareengjobdes...](https://www.deeplearning.ai/machinelearningsoftwareengjobdescri)

<comment><USER52> This is funny - the same wording can be found here: [http://startupjobs.asia/job/33056-backend-developer-fast- gro...](http://startupjobs.asia/job/33056-backend-developer-fast-growing- startup-lomotif-singapore)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> Not that I would strive for it myself, but I think at least it was honest that the job posting was upfront about the requirements instead of being silent about it and then peer-pressuring the employee into 70 hour work weeks anyway because everyone there does it.

Who knows, maybe being upfront about it causes the applicants for the job to self-select for those who are confident that they can productively work 70 hours? Maybe the research only applies to normal people like us and the mythical super engineer they are looking for can do it (pure speculation, I don't know the research - I guess even super programmers have biological limits).

Then again, it's probably right to be wary of such job postings so that they don't create a general atmosphere in the industry that such working hours are necessary, whether you want it or not.

<comment><USER55> I think you are right. Andrew Ng is an academic and I have no doubt he works 80+ hours per week. Working really long hours is common in that world. I average about 60-90 hours per week. I know my colleagues in AI research are working just as hard and so are many of their PhD students.

The biggest problems I have are meetings. I can do research and code for 12-15 hours straight on weekends, but 8-9 hours on meeting days are utterly exhausting. Got to figure out a better way.

Kids would be the real obstacle to my current output.

</comment></comment><comment><USER56> In Spain this is quite normal ( they don't say it in the job offer, but is expected that you work more than 40 hours/week ). When you ask to get paid for those extra hours they usually laugh at you.

People outside Spain usually make jokes about Spanish "siesta", but in fact we are exploited in the same way this article describes.

( making jokes of course is ok, what is not ok is the exploitation )

<comment><USER57> There's life outside "consultancy companies" (which in Spain are basically just intermediaries that resell your work for a higher price without any added value).

</comment></comment><comment><USER58> I'm glad to see more awareness of corporate exploits on tech workers, and the push back against it.

In my experience, people involved in the IT/CS are very passionate about their work but often less outspoken than people in other industries, like finance and business. To see people taking advantage of these qualities for their gain is very frustrating and I hope it doesn't work out in the long run for this company and others like it.

</comment><comment><USER59> Not sure if it was something that I was linked to here on HN, but I read an article recently that showed the average worker is productive for 3 hours per day - and one of the most popular non-working activities is searching for another job.

I'm a firm believer that success is defined by balance. Balance in all aspects of life - balance between family and self, balance between pursuits in which you are driven and those which you enjoy, balance between being social and productive. I regret to say that I have only achieved this on rare occasions. I am a work-a-holic, and frankly I think that's a bad role model for my children to see.

Well rested, happy people with healthy social lives can accomplish twice the work in half the time as a constantly stressed work-a-holic. When crunch time comes, they can spend the extra hours and put in that extra effort. Somebody who is already run down when crunch time comes not only has less to give, they have other priorities fighting for that time - because those other priorities are ALWAYS fighting for that time and losing.

</comment><comment><USER60> Founders with a major stake in a company can work as much as they like; if they expect regular folks to sacrifice their lives so that they can profit from it immensely, they can take a hike.

</comment><comment><USER61> What many here dont seem to understand is that you work commensurate with where you want to be. I work longish hours become I'm in finance and want to move up the organization or find a higher spot inn another. I want to know more about all facets of the firm and one day be a principal in a prop trading firm.

I don't put in 80+ hour weeks because I want to stay where I'm at in my career. I become involved in more and take on more reliability because I want more responsibility I the future. I work twice or more what I'm paid to work because I want to earn at least twice as much in the future.

Worrying about how many hours you are putting in against your current paycheck isn't very forward looking for your career.

<comment><USER9> Pro tip for getting ahead: learn the difference between 'commiserate' and 'commensurate'. Otherwise you will be unintentionally funny.

<comment><USER62> Perhaps it's the sleep deprivation showing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER63> The reality is in a startup, you're giving up income for equity. Equity rarely realizes to any value unless there is a remarkable alignment of opportunity, timing, skill, delivering a solution, and finding a market.

I have oscillated both ways on the spectrum of less compensation and more time/happiness, and maximizing income at the expense of other areas of life.

"Things never get easier, you just get better."

There is always a focus on what value someone is paid, instead of the value they add and create.

Having a value adding focused mentality (making sure you add value, and knowing how, and having agreement on it), there is less of an issue with facing pay cuts, when you are returning several multiples of your compensation, whatever it might be. Being essential without being irreplaceable is a valuable lesson to learn.

If you want to limit it to 40 hours a week, it has to be that much more organized, focussed, effective to have meaningful impact.

There's also 3 number to think about. What you absolutely need, what you should be getting, and what you want. Aligning your life with where you are at on those 3 fronts will help lower the dissonance a lot more and comparing yourself to the perceived location of others.

The other thing that changes in your 20's is you. You become more well rounded from experience and discover, magically, that you might be good at a few things and like spending your time on other things too.

One reality is the newer you are to working, the more hours you have to work to compare to someone who has 5, 10, or 20 years of development experience to compare. It's less about becoming a 10x developer, and more about learning how to structure and focus your time for maximum benefit both to the employer and yourself on mutual goals.

There's a reason why inexperienced talent is cheaper, and it's an incredible opportunity to soak up more things than you think you can handle. Learning to drink from a firehose isn't for everyone, but it is an invaluable experience to learn how you want your work/life harmony to be.

</comment><comment><USER64> I wonder which one of this the author is referring to:

[https://www.deeplearning.ai/fullstacksoftwareengineerjobdesc...](https://www.deeplearning.ai/fullstacksoftwareengineerjobdescrip) [http://startupjobs.asia/job/33056-backend-developer-fast- gro...](http://startupjobs.asia/job/33056-backend-developer-fast-growing- startup-lomotif-singapore) [https://www.deeplearning.ai/machinelearningsoftwareengjobdes...](https://www.deeplearning.ai/machinelearningsoftwareengjobdescri)

</comment><comment><USER65> I always see posts like this, talking about the negativity of long working hours, but I do get curious the percentage of jobs in each of the categories. Categories like:

\- Forcing only 40 hour work weeks \- Not forcing, but expecting 40 hour work weeks \- Not forcing, but expecting overtime work weeks \- Forcing (or talking positively about) over 40 hour work weeks

All the blog posts and comments talk about how necessary those standard weeks are (I absolutely agree), but knowing the commonality of both would be great to see.

In my case, I'd guess forcing of 40 hour work weeks is more common than we think.

<comment><USER66> In government consulting at large companies it's very common for people to work ~40-44 hours a week including lunch. I often see people work less than 40 hours if you exclude lunch breaks.

It's not uncommon for people to have literally nothing to do for long stretches while say waiting for clearance paperwork / between contracts / etc.

Sure, you get paid less but cost of living is also less and frankly your often working on things more important than selling Ad's.

</comment></comment><comment><USER67> This was presumably written by someone who's never worked at a successful startup and had equity worth something, let alone seen the tax difference between salary and equity (capgains in the US). Don't take an offer that you can't afford to live on -- but salary ain't the point of startup compensation.

As for 40 hour workweeks, most startup jobs have 20+ hours of overhead: commuting, breaks, meals, random email, "status update" meetings, etc. If you're working 40 hours, you're getting 15 hours of real work done ( [https://www.inc.com/melanie-curtin/in-an-8-hour-day-the- aver...](https://www.inc.com/melanie-curtin/in-an-8-hour-day-the-average- worker-is-productive-for-this-many-hours.html) ). Even "real work" includes repetitive tasks and not focused learning. At hour 40, the boring stuff is done and you're working towards Malcolm Gladwell's 10,000 hours of focused learning.

tl;dr: if you're motivated by 9-to-5 and 10% raises -- then a startup isn't for you. No need to crap on the rest of us who love it.

<comment><USER68> Except the odds are that the salary is the only thing you'll actually see as compensation.

<comment><USER67> Obviously YMMV. My hit rate is about one in two, with wildly varying numerators.

Even excluding googlers and facebookers, I have dozens of friends who've made millions apiece. Bay area mortgages paid off, kids off to college debt free, parents healthcare paid for, etc.

<comment><USER68> Dozens, out of several million who live in the Valley. That's still pretty poor odds.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER69> I like to call it the difference between efficiency and productivity.

When you're efficient, you get more things done. Normally that comes from working more, either by doing more hours or cutting out distractions. So you might get more done in a week.

Being efficient does not mean you are productive. Productivity I think of as getting more value out of less effort. It comes from good prioritization, working on what matters most, focusing on the important.

Depending on the work, you'll need to be more productive or more efficient. In programming, equal effort tasks have very different outputs. So much that no amount of efficiency can catch up to good productivity. Choosing priorities is critical. Being productive is harder, because its a skill, you have to develop an intuition, measure, reason about the opportunities, predict which tasks are worth a lot and which are useless.

Efficiency vs Productivity is one of the bigger difference between a junior and a senior developer. Its the difference between good management and bad.

One of the issues is management schools do teach a lot about techniques to make people more efficient. And certain jobs benefit, like maybe a call center, a truck driver, etc. Not programming though.

</comment><comment><USER70> Smart trick, you will notice that people will be more rested, better motivated and thus almost as productive as in 70+ hours! But they will earn a lot less!

</comment><comment><USER71> > But a manager that is pushing you to work 70 hours a week isn't a manager > who plans ahead for unexpected work. No, this is a manager who solves > problem by telling you to work harder and longer.

This seems like a little bit of a leap to me. Is it obvious that these two aspects of a manager are inherently related? In my experience, I have also seen that solving a problem by throwing longer hours at it is a net-negative in productivity. You may hit a tight deadline or put out a fire, but it tends to be followed by a period of lower productivity from exhaustion. Overall, your team has picked up increased volatility with a lower average output. You'd be better off if you could predict and catch the problem early.

I could imagine a team, though, that is accustomed to putting in 70 hours a week, and a manager that carefully manages the process to make sure that those 70 hours are as predictable as possible. The post would imply that all managers who ignore one aspect of a healthy team or project (sane work hours) would be ignoring all aspects. I don't know if that's a fair leap, but maybe in practice it is true.

</comment><comment><USER72> I used to be incredibly efficient in the beginning of my first job, i could easily do 8 hour days of fairly solid coding.

Then came the investment and the big client and the 'big time' and i spent 6mo doing 12-14 hour days and managed to do less work per day. And i never recovered in that job.

It took changing jobs twice to get my swing back (didnt help that job 2 was the total opposite, lazy uninspired team)

</comment><comment><USER73> I work as a software developer. Instead of working more hours I found another approach quite useful for productivity which is almost quite the opposite. The idea is that every day you have to call it a day at a certain hour. Let's say your bus leaves at 5:30pm and if you're late, the next bus is only at 6:30pm. So you'd better get all your work done by 5:30pm to catch the first bus. Amazingly, this is quite a productivity boost for me. I don't want to waste any time at work, because if I do, I'll either have to stay late, or not get things done. It also allows me to prioritize tasks better. For example, at 5:00pm I'll try to wrap up my current tasks and I don't start any new tasks that can take more than 10 minute to complete. Another positive aspect of this approach is that each day I go home with a clear picture of what I have accomplished that day. And that feeling of accomplishment makes me want to come to work the next day.

</comment><comment><USER74> A lot of wanting in the comments in this thread. People really want to believe that one's productivity drops off a cliff after 40 hrs. Whenever I read these types of threads, which so often bubble up to the top of HN, I wonder why people are so energized in trying to convince _others_ that they ought to work less (actually, I don't).

<comment><USER42> Its for one simple reason. If there is a sizable(but not majority) chunk of people who work above average hours, they will very likely produce above average quantity and quality of work. By that very virtue they will be more competitive, better and well ranked above the remaining majority. And it will eventually lead to having an effect on things like compensation and long term career viability. If you as a young person want to work less, your older self will want to work lesser, and it keeps getting harder to catch up, to a point you will eventually have to give up.

This will eventually create a lot of long term problems for non-participants in this crazy work hours work life. There fore they ask for some sanity as a overall work culture.

This is nothing new to software. My dad was a bus driver at a factory, he used to tell me that people who picked up over time work were routinely hated, by the remainder who didn't want to or couldn't.

Nobody likes to watch themselves being at an disadvantage due to their own actions.

</comment></comment><comment><USER75> Unpopular opinion: Working longer hours could be fun and exactly what some people are signing up for.

Some people might want more than a job. They want a lifestyle. A new family, a tech monastery if you will. They want to immerse themselves in work. Even with sleep, there's plenty of time for family, just not hobbies.

Of course, if you're looking for just a way to pay the bills, it's not a very good one.

Most of the companies that work extra long hours don't really accomplish anything though, and the extra time is used for busywork that doesn't change the bottom line. If your metric is hours worked and not work done, you tend to do a lot more light tasks that you can do for long hours, instead of the short, intense, really important ones.

</comment><comment><USER76> I think this must be the posting:

[http://startupjobs.asia/job/33056-backend-developer-fast- gro...](http://startupjobs.asia/job/33056-backend-developer-fast-growing- startup-lomotif-singapore)

</comment><comment><USER77> I see it the other way around: Any programming (or similar) job that doesn't compensate you as if you were working 70 hours a week is taking money away from you. These are not the 1900s and you are not assembling widgets in a factory. Your work goes with you wherever you are, quite literately in the form of your smartphone, and more insidiously by not getting off your mind. Maybe it's just me and I lack the skill to forget work at 5 p.m. sharp, but my suspicious is that half our industry comes up with solutions to work-related problem while they are at home, on holiday, etc.

</comment><comment><USER78> I don't disagree with the authors point that expecting massive hours without corresponding extra compensation is wrong.

But I can't believe the blanket assertions I've seen that working 40 hours a week is the proven output maximization limit. If I work 40 hours from monday to friday, and I have nothing to do on Saturday, and a strong desire to implement a an important customer request, how is working 4 or 5 hours on my day off going to result in negative output?

<comment><USER58> There's a difference between doing it occasionally when you desire to, and being expected to do it every week against your will.

</comment></comment><comment><USER79> Interestingly enough I've been asked a few times to start coming in on weekends. I've also heard the phrase thrown around: "We'll have to start putting in extra hours during nights/weekends".

I don't think these sort of things _work_ for companies, but to appease a manager they likely have to be done at some point. Long-term I don't think this is a viable solution, but sadly it will keep happening for the time being :/

</comment><comment><USER80> This article argues that "every hour you work over 40 hours a week is making you less effective and productive over both the short and the long haul"

[http://www.salon.com/2012/03/14/bring_back_the_40_hour_work_...](http://www.salon.com/2012/03/14/bring_back_the_40_hour_work_week/)

</comment><comment><USER81> Forgetting the article a second; I'd happily work for 40% less than the going rate as long as I can work remote full time...

<comment><USER82> You can! And usually with only a slight pay cut. There are a lot more remote- ok and remote-only companies now.

<comment><USER21> The pay cut from my experience can be pretty dramatic. Whenever I have replied to a remote job ad and asked about salary it would often mean 40%+ pay cut for me.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER83> "many of us routinely work and study 70+ hours a week."

The use of "study" suggests to me that the job posting is not as slavish as it sounds. "Late into the evening" could mean 6pm.

I recently read an MIT career guide that recommended aiming for a 60 hour week - 40 hours for your current employer, and 20 hours for your career.

</comment><comment><USER84> The headline and thesis is completely bogus, because the author has no idea how much Ng's company pays or how much an applicant is earning elsewhere.

<comment><USER85> The job posting is here: [http://startupjobs.asia/job/33056-backend-developer- fast-gro...](http://startupjobs.asia/job/33056-backend-developer-fast-growing- startup-lomotif-singapore)

And the salary looks pathetic (in USD)

</comment></comment><comment><USER86> The most successful people I know work much more than 40 hours each week.

<comment><USER87> Professionally successful, or successful as people?

<comment><USER86> As people.

Granted, none of those people are grinding away working for The Man. Instead, they are running their own organizations.

Is that not your experience?

<comment><USER88> Working for yourself versus working for "The Man" makes a huge difference because you know every second of that 60 hour week you're putting in is to your direct benefit.

Talk to someone who owns their own business working 60 hours and then someone who's being forced to work 60 hours for their company and you'll be talking to two people with vastly different outlooks.

<comment><USER86> Well, you either are The Man, or you work for The Man. The choice is yours to make.

I agree with you, but the point stands. They're able to be productive and happy while working more than 40 hours per week.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER89> An important cautionary tale indeed: don't be a sucker. #protip

</comment><comment><USER90> Cool post!

What happens when every company is doing this ritual?

I'm starting to notice a very bad trend. Just like how LA has record numbers of homeless people, it also has a high vacancy rate.

Similarly, despite plenty of "open positions", candidates are being denied left right and center, even as they do their best to signal that they will do anything for the job.

<comment><USER91> > What happens when every company is doing this ritual?

Just look at Japan to see what a 12+ hour / day work culture looks like. Their population and their economy are both slowly going down the shitter thanks to it, depression is widespread, etc.

<comment><USER16> Not sure if economic problems really come from long work days. Otherwise it'd be easy to boost the economy by forcing people to work less.

I totally agree with the health problems it causes though.

<comment><USER92> >Otherwise it'd be easy to boost the economy by forcing people to work less.

Well have we tried it?

<comment><USER93> Henry Ford did, to great success.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER84> Articles like this show why the economic growth of the 21st Century will be in East Asia. This generation's educated Westerners are too comfortable and complacent.

<comment><USER68> Part of the huge problem is people thinking that wanting to have a life outside of working to make someone else rich is "complacency."</comment></comment>


How We Gathered Our First 1k Beta Users for Basket - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@ranitsanyal/how-we-gathered-our-first-1k-beta-users-for-basket-b01a61ddcc90?source=latest

<comment><USER2> Thanks for the article! It does provide important guidelines for newcomers to the startup land.</comment>


Response to "Maglev and the naiivety of the Rails community" from Patrick Collison - <AUTHOR> http://collison.ie/blog/2008/06/maglev-and-language-implementation

<comment><USER2> This sure has a lot of upmods for zero comments. Nothing against pc, but is this really that spectacular of a blog post? It's like the 10th MagLev response on the front page lately, and doesn't add too much to the discussion other than a quick comparison to Common LISP.

<comment><USER3> The hype build-up continues. Note how a friend of MagLev devs points out that it's "up to 60x", which technically could mean _anything_ including "60x for one specific case and 1x for the rest of them". With claims that are this wishy-washy, the only sensible option is to wait for the benchmarks of the public release. Anything else merely fuels the hype machine.

(edit) Hmm, interesting .. getting down-modded. I guess independent benchmarking is no longer a preferred way of confirming rather bold vendor claims.

<comment><USER4> You should be skeptical of vendor benchmarks. But being ignorant of how far VM technologies have come and how far Ruby has left to go is not excusable. (Or more importantly, not being self-aware enough to figure out what you don't know, then having the bad luck to get posted on social news.)

In any case, most of the time it matters more to programmer's egos now than anything else. CPython is already fast enough for low-level bitwise operations on large amounts of data, provided you are clever with optimizing and you're willing to implement key routines in C. Just look at Mercurial! It's in the same league as Git for speed, and Git is written entirely in C by one of the best C hackers around.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I find the transparent persistence and caching much more interesting. I wonder if you can transparently persist closures and continuations. If so you can do some really neat things.

<comment><USER6> I find it much more interesting as well. And yes, you can - I showed persisting a closure at the demo, and Gemstone persists continuations as a matter of course in their Seaside port.

<comment><USER5> That's awesome. I'll definitely give it a try then.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'm just not interested in closed source low-level infrastructure (like programming languages) if I can possibly help it. Look at how much trouble that caused with Java... no thanks.

<comment><USER4> The situation with Java is very different. The language itself is not owned by a corporation. There is no need for a "clean room reimplementation," as was necessary for Java.

Also, Avi's trick with Gemstone/S can also be replicated with any other commercial Smalltalk. It can also be replicated with the now Open Source Strongtalk VM, which is a Smalltalk VM as fast as the the commercial ones.

And when YARV is ready to put under apps like Rails the Ruby community will have another VM as fast as the commercial Smalltalk JITs.</comment></comment>


Google Exec's Internal Email On Its Data Leak Policy Has Rattled Employees - <AUTHOR> https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/carolineodonovan/google-execs-internal-email-on-data-leak-policy-rattles <comment><USER2> This seems like a common policy, and any connection to employee advocacy, or anything else going on at Google seem like speculation.

</comment><comment><USER3> > Walker sent an update Tuesday in the company's daily newsletter, clarifying > that employees were typically only terminated when intentional violations > resulted in [..] risks to user privacy

Brilliant framing - that privacy is only compromised if entities _other_ than those authorized by Google get the data. That one might not trust Google itself is never considered.

<comment><USER4> How did you read it that way? I don't see how the sentence implies Google employees getting user data would not be considered a privacy risk.

<comment><USER3> That's not how I meant it. I edited the post, hopefully the meaning is clearer now.

<comment><USER4> You still seem to be saying the same thing? You're worked up that the sentence is saying that unauthorized employees getting user data is not something they would consider a leak, and I'm trying to figure out how that sentence implied that conclusion, because I don't see how it implies that.

<comment><USER3> I re-phrased it yet again. I did assume that they counted unauthorized internal access as a leak as well. Their PR cleverly draws focus away from whether Google should have that data in the first place. That, somehow, if a multinational corporation knows everything about me, my privacy is not compromised, so long as a dreaded _unauthorized employee_ doesn't get the data.

Unauthorized by Google, not by the person being spied upon...

<comment><USER4> Oh THAT's what you mean? That you don't want Google to have your data? The sentence is talking about the conditions under which employees are fired. Why would Google fire its employees as a result of you not wanting Google to have your data? Heck, the entire article is about access to unauthorized internal documents. How is your point even relevant to the whole topic at all?

<comment><USER3> My point is a comment on Google's carefully crafted PR.

Edit: That it might be off-topic when viewed narrowly in the context of firing employees, does not mean that the frame of debate should be left unexamined. When _every other action_ of Google increases 'risk to privacy', it's difficult for me to swallow their phrasing.

<comment><USER4> What? Their response is carefully crafted PR because they didn't say something totally unreasonable about a completely irrelevant issue to the topic under discussion?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> So instituting a policy reminiscent of HIPAA policies in order to plug a leaky system they fostered in the first place.

It's a fortune 50. They make money on ads. All the rest is smoke and mirrors to distract and entice young prospects to the firm.

</comment><comment><USER6> this is why we can't have nice things</comment>


Ask HN: Low-level programming besides C and Rust - <AUTHOR> I've been thinking about porting / rewriting a Minix-like operating system to a new CPU.
I've been programming in C (and to a lesser extent C++) for a long time, so there's always that.
I've looked briefly at Rust here and there.  I have previously tried to wrap my brain around Haskell, with limited success, and never really got comfortable with it.  It seems like really grokking Rust will be a similar effort.
Is there anything else in the low-level embedded space that might be suitable?
I'm mostly concerned about simplicity and safety.  I'm willing to trade some verbosity for tight and efficient generated code.
Edit: I also also add I'm thinking I should stay away from garbage-collected languages, since this is intended for low level operating system development.  I don't know if adding in real-time requirements is a good idea, but I wouldn't want to close off that possibility either. <comment><USER2> How about:

[https://dlang.org](https://dlang.org)

or

[https://nim-lang.org](https://nim-lang.org)

<comment><AUTHOR> I had previously looked at D a while back, before I was thinking about this project. It did seem an improvement upon C, but not enough of one to make it worth the switch. Also, for this project, I'm looking for something without garbage collection.

I hadn't really looked closely at Nim before, but it is garbage-collected too, so I don't think that's going to work.

<comment><USER3> You can use Nim without a garbage collector. I've seen it running on plenty of micro-controllers in this way.

<comment><AUTHOR> > _You can use Nim without a garbage collector. I 've seen it running on > plenty of micro-controllers in this way._

That's interesting.

Nim compiles to C, so it doesn't look like it would require much in the way of porting. I'll take a closer look at that too.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Ada?

<comment><AUTHOR> Probably not Ada itself, but I'll a little more closely into SPARK, which is based on a subset of Ada and is intended for high assurance applications.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SPARK_(programming_language)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SPARK_\(programming_language\))</comment></comment>


Android Fork Brings Froyo To 12 Smartphones - <AUTHOR> http://linux.slashdot.org/story/10/09/01/0343231/Android-Fork-Brings-Froyo-To-12-Smartphones

<comment><USER2> For what I understand it's all about an update to Cyanogen's Android 2.2 ROM.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but all the devices listed are already supporting Android Froyo officially or unofficially by some time. I've been using my HTC Desire with the HTC update to Froyo for a month now, it's not like it couldn't run it before today.

<comment><USER3> Well, AFAIK Cyanogenmod is the only way to run Froyo on the G1.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I updated my Incredible to Cyanogen 6 and am fairly impressed. I'm not a Sense-hater, but there were a couple annoyances that got to me, and the mostly-vanilla UI feels like how the phone was meant to be. The performance is hard to beat, too.

<comment><USER5> The lock screen of Vanilla Android is the only think keeping me with SenseUI. I wish I could get the SenseUI lock screen on CM6. (Can I?)

<comment><USER4> You probably can add it. I know people removed the default lock screen from Sense via package and file removals. Incidentally, the Sense lock screen was one of the reasons I wanted to get away from it, the down-up motion kept unlocking my phone in its sleeve (not an issue with left-right on the default). The ability to silence the phone from the lock screen is another feature I like about the default lock.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> My HTC Incredible just prompted me to update to Froyo this morning...

<comment><USER7> Is it staged? Mine hasn't been. Actually how would I know?

<comment><USER8> Yes it is staged.

If you don't want to wait: [http://www.droid-life.com/2010/08/31/manual- update-droid-inc...](http://www.droid-life.com/2010/08/31/manual-update-droid- incredible-to-android-2-2/)

I did this yesterday morning. No problems.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> My droid is saying it wants to update, even though I updated to Froyo manually a couple of weeks ago. Is there a way to shut it up, or should I just let it go ahead and do it?

<comment><USER10> No, Android knows when it needs to update and when it doesn't. Verizon had two OTAs. The first contained Froyo. The second contains the Flash "accelerator" and enables you to actually download it from the Market. Do the update, you really do need it.

<comment><USER9> Huh, I already have flash, too. But oh, well, here goes... worse case I'll reinstall.

<comment><USER11> Please let us know if your phone survives ;-)

<comment><USER9> Well, I'm back at the homescreen without obvious problems.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Will Symantec's CEO repeat his success with our economy? - <AUTHOR> http://venturebeat.com/2009/01/29/will-symantecs-ceo-repeat-his-success-with-our-economy/ <comment><USER2> I know more than a few former Symantec employees who would describe his management style as anything but successful.

Basically somewhere around 2003 Symantec stopped actively developing it's core product line, they cut the number of developers and they made it impossible for the Platinum Support teams to access engineers directly. That and the moves they pulled as far as the consumer division support (800 people were told that they could apply for their current job at less than half the salary through Stream).

I realize that this is what Wall Street rewards, but it is not a good or sustainable way to run a company or a country.</comment>


Elon Musk's 'Pedo Guy' Trial Shows the Depth, Danger of His Own Mythos - <AUTHOR> https://observer.com/2019/12/elon-musk-pedo-guy-trial-mythos-depth-danger/ <comment><USER2> I agree that no one should be so quick to call others nasty untrue names, but the story is a bit more complicated than it may appear at first glance. I summarized a Verge article in another thread as such:

\- Thai soccer team gets stranded in a cave

\- British expat and diving expert helps with the rescue effort

\- Musk also tries to help, dedicating a small team from SpaceX to design a submarine to rescue the kids, with preliminary approval of his efforts by the Thai government

\- The kids happen to be rescued before Musk's submarine could be put to use

\- The British expat got on CNN, implied that Musk was just in it for the publicity, and said that Musk can "stick his sub where it hurts."

\- Musk had a Google alert on his name and was quickly notified of this. He was frustrated because he saw it as an attack on his reputation. He redirected time and resources to a good cause for free but someone was implying he did it for glory.

\- Musk Googled the man's location and saw that he lived in an area of Thailand with a lot of trafficking victims, which in his view in that emotionally charged moment gave him ammunition to tweet a response. Allegedly, he didn't know that it was the same person that helped with the rescue.

\- He got on Twitter shortly thereafter, defended his submarine, and called the British expat a "pedo guy" (Musk claimed that this was slang-like and he didn't actually mean that the expat was an actual pedo guy)

\- The expat sent Musk a letter asking him to retract his comments publicly. Musk saw it as a financial shakedown and refused. Later, in court, the expat was offended with Musk's reading of the letter as a shakedown.

\- Someone employed by Musk's family office hired an investigator who claimed that he can discover whether there is some truth to the "pedo guy" claim. He also said that he already had some intel. Any confirmatory evidence could be used as defense in a potential defamation suit, though it would be retroactive in this case. The investigator turned out to be a con man and turned up nothing of substance.

\- The expat filed a defamation suit which has gone to court. A judge and jury (of around 40 people, no less) are assessing the facts of the case, and Musk had to testify in court for several hours.

<comment><USER3> >but the story is a bit more complicated than it may appear

How so? That list you wrote isn't complicated. It's a pretty simple timeline. 5 of the 11 items are basically "Musk does something petty, rash and/or impulsive."

<comment><USER2> Perhaps nuanced is a better word. It's easy to read the various headlines and conclude: "Musk called a hero a pedo because the kids were saved before Musk's crazy vanity project could do anything."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> It's always interesting to watch high profile people "stick to their guns" in situations like this when even the most basic amount of common sense would tell them to do otherwise. Such a shame too. Musk could be doing so much good by focusing his time and money elsewhere. Instead, he wants to spend all this energy terrorizing "little people" like Unsworth.

</comment><comment><USER5> The background on the "private investigator" that was organised last minute is also an interesting read.

[https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2019/10/report- musks-500...](https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2019/10/report- musks-50000-pedo-guy-investigator-is-a-convicted-felon/)

</comment><comment><USER6> This is very strange. I'm viewing the article on Chrome iOS and after a few seconds it keeps redirecting me to a spam site. I don't ever recall seeing such aggressive browser redirects on iPhone and certainly never from a mainstream site. Am I the only one experiencing this?

<comment><USER7> I've had that happen before when visiting some music news sites in iOS safari. Seemed like some sort of malevolent cookie, as it started when I would go to a particular site and persisted until I cleared browser data.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> sounds like a case of too much ego and too much pride.

<comment><USER9> It's kinda sad that he's acting so childish.

Some guy ruined my PR stunt by rescuing some kids without building a submarine. Guess I better call that guy a pedo.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> It seems funny that he's trying to argue about the word "pedo" when he double/tripled down on his accusations by hiring investigators.

Elon Musk is a brilliant, broken and fragile man. While I hold a great respect his professional accomplishments, I have little love for the man behind them. His success in the technical world is harshly contrasted with his failings in the humane one.

He might as well start making an arc reactor and a metal suit.

<comment><USER11> Who is worthy of love?

<comment><USER10> Those who love, wholly.

<comment><USER12> That's a tall order.</comment></comment></comment></comment>