An odd trend I’m noticing: A lot more startups (esp AI startups) bragging about how much they work: in terms of well past midnight, 6-7 days per week, 12+ hour days etc. What is the end game here? Good job grinding. But it’s v hard to innovate + ship quality sleep deprived… - ThreadSky

gergely.pragmaticengineer.com • 75 days ago

An odd trend I’m noticing:

A lot more startups (esp AI startups) bragging about how much they work: in terms of well past midnight, 6-7 days per week, 12+ hour days etc.

What is the end game here?

Good job grinding. But it’s v hard to innovate + ship quality sleep deprived…

Comments

newnomad.bsky.social•75 days ago

This is so true! I've been splitting the day into blocks of intense work split with rest and walks, so the day is long - 4am - 10pm but with little breaks throughout.

jamie.ideasasylum.com•75 days ago

Consider who the audience is and their current mindset: https://www.forbes.com/sites/josipamajic/2024/11/27/the-great-tech-wake-up-call-vcs-discover-billions-in-inefficient-engineering-teams/

jeanmeijer.com•75 days ago

I thought Devin was supposed to do everything now...

tomvanantwerp.com•75 days ago

Because you can't build a cult if your recruits have boundaries. Seriously.

A guy committed to work life balance is also a guy who won't be sucked into a reality distortion field.

If you aim to become a legend, you want unwavering devotion to the execution of your vision. This filters doubters.

amencarini.bsky.social•75 days ago

The only thing I can think of is that advertising their embracing of the 996 model is a way of filtering applications upstream: I wouldn’t function in that environment, I won’t bother sending my CV to begin with

lwoleksii.bsky.social•75 days ago

And even more than for applicants, I'm sure it's a message for investors: "we are being as effective as possible, you get max results for each invested dollar as we are pushing people to their limits"

danjac.bsky.social•75 days ago

Every generation of startups will refuse to learn the lessons of those before them.

julesignaciocanlas.bsky.social•75 days ago

It's so obnoxious. Watch them implode by asking them where is the work 😂

martinfowler.com•74 days ago

Back in the 90's I saw teams in SV proud of working until late at night. And then work until early afternoon the next day finding and fixing the bugs they had added.
A similar observation led Kent to put "Sustainable Pace" in XP's practices.

westleyjam.bsky.social•74 days ago

I once told a dev to go home, as he looked knackered, and make sure he had a good sleep.
Came in the next morning, he has worked past midnight and slept on the floor.
We checked out his code, and reverted the entire previous days work as it was riddled with bugs.
He was genuinely upset. So was I.

westleyjam.bsky.social•74 days ago

I don't know why he ignored me asking him to protect himself and wondered whether we had fostered that culture or it was a hangover from a previous workplace.

alexsuzuki.com•75 days ago

Huh, I thought all that code suddenly writes itself now…

sirhamy.bsky.social•75 days ago

This seems like a red flag.

This incentives busy-ness but busy != productive.

* Prioritization is often more impactful than doing "more"
* 12 hour days doesn't seem sustainable over several months

This seems like recipe for performative productivity vs actual impact.

But I guess time will tell

maxlynch.com•75 days ago

Just stupid signaling between hyper achievers

naugtur.pl•75 days ago

Will AI industry try to apply the gaming industry's grinding playbook and leverage people's passion to get them to do extra hours?

andrewbart.bsky.social•75 days ago

Hard not to see Elon’s influence in some of this. Not only do many founders admire him, but after a bunch of VCs loudly endorsed his “hardcore” approach at Twitter, I think some founders are reflecting this back to VCs to look like they “get it.”

mronline.bsky.social•75 days ago

Yep, that’s the way I see it. I think that more and more tech companies are going to start looking like Epic Games in the 2000s: https://youtu.be/AXO1mpgc-is?si=ojboGSR8Zwyqro77

aaronrietschlin.bsky.social•75 days ago

I agree with this take. I honestly don't get it because from my perspective Twitter became much worse he took over.

francofernando.com•74 days ago

There's been this kind of behavior by startups for a long time, but now a lot of them are admitting it.

filrakow.ski•74 days ago

So we're back to hustle culture? I thought it started to improve recently.

As someone who did a lot of hustling for my own startup (quite successful one) I can say it wasn't worth it. It's a debt you'll have to pay back in the least convenient time.

paulmaxwellwalters.bsky.social•75 days ago

Not to mention all the other overworking can lead to I.e. health problems due to stress and not having time to exercise or see the doctor, marriages and relationships breaking down, parents not seeing their kids, depression...

plungedtoilet.bsky.social•75 days ago

I eventually want to promote "innovation weeks" within the company for which I work, because my long hours are usually due to me being interrupted by meetings or things catching on fire. In order to get on a roll, I need to be able to have nothing else creeping up in my mind...

plungedtoilet.bsky.social•75 days ago

So, this ends up meaning I get most of my work done during the night or weekends, because I can really think about some problems and solve them at my own pace.

plungedtoilet.bsky.social•75 days ago

I think it would be interesting to have a week where you can have someone cover for your other responsibilities, and choose to either work on current projects or on new projects at your own discretion.

pert.bsky.social•75 days ago

How can you sell a productivity tool if you don't use it to be more productive yourself? 🤣

travisstreet.com•75 days ago

I've got Max 4 hours of deep work in me everyday. Anything beyond that isn't worth doing.

kiran6d.bsky.social•75 days ago

Same. If I can do 4 hours deep work, that’s a good day

alexsuzuki.com•75 days ago

Yeah, same. I count 4 hrs of deep work as a win.

peterullrich.com•75 days ago

Same

vandivere.net•75 days ago

Yeah, this goes back to at LEAST the 90s (I've done the one hour of sleep on a conference table thing, back when I was younger and bendier). It's a combination of a bunch of things, I think: a sense of urgency to get first mover advantage or just to survive until the next round of funding,

vandivere.net•75 days ago

youthful enthusiasm and self-identification with the success of the startup, and a sort of machismo.

There's an entire subreddit devoted to these peoples' posts on LinkedIn...

katrinbretscher.bsky.social•74 days ago

If your AI's so great, why do humans have to do so much work? 😜

Why: because stupid fucking idiots at the top of companies (Elon et al.) have this narrative about "lazy engineers", so the startuppers want to make an impression with the big guys. Like kindergarten kids trying to impress the bully ⤵️

katrinbretscher.bsky.social•74 days ago

by going on a dare that lands them in hospital. On TikTok, you'd call it the "hardcore engineering challenge" and there would be articles warning parents to check what their kids are seeing on Social Media.

filipecifali.bsky.social•75 days ago

"Look at how much we overwork!"
"They don't even pay us extra!!"
"Our business is built with blood and sweat, specially blood!!!"
"(angry noises)!!!!"

uncommonengineer.com•75 days ago

weird, I thought the AI startups would be "look how much work I didn't have to do as a result of using AI"...? are we still in the hustle culture era?

jrosaproenca.bsky.social•75 days ago

What makes you say it's a "new" trend?
I've always had the impression that's common in startup culture...

kylehugh.es•75 days ago

I think, owing to the winner-take-all nature of the industry, there is a feeling that this is final opportunity for disruption in the software market. Whomever establishes themselves in AI will achieve permanent escape velocity and own a substantial-or-entire piece of the future of computing.

markos.dev•75 days ago

Feels like a lot of people are underestimating the benefit of last mover advantage

nonconvergent.bsky.social•75 days ago

Yeah, it's not like there's a patentable secret sauce to llms. You can burn your entire runway to the ground and then someone else can come in and just "yes, and..."

chat-jvt.bsky.social•75 days ago

Not just AI startups. Alas, not the flex they think it is.

sedovsek.galjot.si•75 days ago

I sense that too, but it might just be the NVDA book still lodged in my head.

Plus, I think I overheard Seth Godin saying on Lenny's Podcast this morning that he spent 22 days in a row in the office.

Crazy, but nothing good ever comes easy?

lisa-kc.bsky.social•75 days ago

I think if you're working silly hours like that, you can be drawn towards things that justify those hours. Shouting about it in public is one way of justifying the choice you're making - there's plenty of hustle culture folks on the internet that'll give you credit

basilevs83.bsky.social•75 days ago

Well, they can relax already, the ship has sailed.

gergely.pragmaticengineer.com•75 days ago

Speaking for myself: yes, when I’m locked on a problem I’ll work more *to get it done.*

But when I regularly pull late nights, my work (+mood, judgement) gets worse, not better.

Best work is (and has been) usually after taking enough rest and being full of energy+motivation.

chrisflemming.com•75 days ago

100%. I can only do extremely basic tasks well when sleep-deprived. It’s terrible for your health as well.

zoranplesko.bsky.social•75 days ago

I’ve been a contractor in US based teams. After 2 months, they were just going back and forth with very little progress while the european side showed constant progress.
I’d say that a recipe for success would probably be US enterpreneurial freedom combined with EU based work-life balance.

principalengineer.com•75 days ago

I had a stretch at 24 when I worked 41 days in a row, a lot of 12+ hour days.

As the stretch lengthened, mistakes compounded and tunnel vision got narrower.

Not something I’d recommend if innovation OR quality are concerns (also got badly burnt out).

gergely.pragmaticengineer.com•75 days ago

Lots of interesting takes in the replies. This one got me thinking as I can emphasize with it (and the general feeling that many/most AI startups likely have, esp seeing how important the first-mover advantage is…)

https://bsky.app/profile/kylehugh.es/post/3ldl4dgk76c2r

ninoles.bsky.social•75 days ago

Still wondering how much that is true. Yes, there are a few cases that seem to be the case, but how many early products haven't made it, just to be outpaced by a late competitor?

1/..

ninoles.bsky.social•75 days ago

I think the right idea and the right execution is more important than being the first, or more exactly, without those, being the first doesn't matter.

2/2

gergely.pragmaticengineer.com•75 days ago

Being outpaced by a competitor is possible when that competitor has distribution

Between 2 startups with 0 distribution each, needing to rely on (organic) press: the first-mover gets free distribution (news/ppl talking) momentum+customers

Late mover unable to get distribution usually!

ninoles.bsky.social•75 days ago

I agree on the advantages. I disagree that first means you will dominate the industry in the future. Being first means you have much to learn, hustling means you are more likely to make fundamental mistakes in your product. It will be a big handicap for future dominance.

1/..

ninoles.bsky.social•75 days ago

My point basically is that the dominant players in our industry were rarely pioneers. We think they were but only by hindsight, because the real pioneers have been forgotten.

2/2

bidetofevil.wtf•75 days ago

First mover advantage is overrated when you can't lock ppl in. If this is what's fueling unsustainable hours, they're in for a harsh lesson.

gergely.pragmaticengineer.com•75 days ago

Not necessarily overrated when

1. It's the pre-requisite to raise more funding

2. More funding allows to compete on price, marketing etc

(... until the bubble bursts ofc!)

bidetofevil.wtf•75 days ago

Fair. Getting in before the bubble bursts is a strong reason to get to a big raise ASAP 😅

gergely.pragmaticengineer.com•75 days ago

And a secondary, while at it :)

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