[montrose]

Because I like to work.

People who don't like to work often misunderstand this when looking at the stories of successful people. They think successful people force themselves to work hard in order to be successful. In fact successful people often like their work so much that there's nothing else they'd rather do. I doubt for example that there's anything Jeff Bezos would rather do than run Amazon. I bet it seems to him the way a gigantic Lego creation seems to a 7 year old.

[ProxCoques]

Exactly. My father told me a story of when he was stuck in traffic with somebody who was then about the 10th richest person in the world. To make conversation, my father asked him what his plans for the coming year were. The guy listed all sorts of business goals. My father asked if he had anything personally that he was planning. The guy basically replied that those were his personal plans. He made no distinction between work and play.

[ulfw]

There is a HUMONGOUS difference between owner of a business and employed by a business.

Makes sense for the "10th richest person in the world" to work long hours. It's his call. He is working basically for himself.

Totally different when you're making say 50K and the "10th richest person in the world" wants YOU to work all day every day too.

[jondubois]

This hits the nail on the head. Most of the value that you're creating is captured by someone else. So why should you be expected to spend all your life to benefit someone else's interests?

It's quite strange that today slavery is a completely taboo subject (rightfully so) and yet workplace slavery is not only tolerated but encouraged. It's essentailly the same; someone else uses their coercive power over you to essentially steal a big chunk of your life. The worst part is that it's a first-in best-dressed, roll-of-the-dice kind of game.

[zaptheimpaler]

Speaking as an outsider to Western/American culture, this is one of the worst parts of America. There are millions of people peddling the bullshit dream of "success" (whatever that means) and the implied message of "work harder" in every corner of the media and workplace. Which is great if you reap 100% of the rewards, but for most its only a way to make them compliant worker-bees competing with each other for scraps that the higher-ups dose out at their leisure.

[closeparen]

Unless we’re in some kind of rent-seeking or monopolistic situation, you never get 100% of the rewards. Businesses increase their revenues by providing more value to clients.

[mdekkers]

Most of the value that you're creating is captured by someone else. So why should you be expected to spend all your life to benefit someone else's interests?

Exactly. And they push you hard to squeeze just a little bit more out of you, every day. I am currently working a contract. They offered me a full-time post, to move to one of the move expensive cities on the planet, and make half of what I do now. Naturally, I questioned the defunct logic in this particular offer, and the come back was "but you will be full-time". Suffice to say, the negotiations, such as they were, rapidly went downhill from there. My client is pretty pissed with me for not wanting to work for half of what they are paying me now. Whatever. My next contract is on the horizon, I have several lucrative offers on the table, and I am pretty sure my current client will be surprised when I hand in my notice.

Somehow, clients are taken aback when I discuss remuneration in terms of receiving a fair share of the value I create. They point at their ability to snare others for a minimum as evidence that I am not playing the game correctly.

[jondubois]

Well-paying contracts are tools that big boring corporations use to lure talent that they couldn't otherwise get... Then if you stick around long enough, you start to get comfortable in the role; that's when they offer you a full time position for half the pay - By that point your skills have become so specialised for that specific company/role that you don't really have any alternatives anymore. You're a house-broken dog; while you weren't paying attention, they hooked you up on the leash and are now sleeping in the kennel. I have big respect for software contractors who manage to keep doing contracting past their 40s.

[joaomacp]

It's not slavery, because you're not forced to do it. You signed a contract agreeing to those conditions.

[dang]

It isn't binary. I like my work, work long hours, don't own the company, and am treated well. I'm lucky, of course. But not every such situation is exploitative.

I watched a talk recently where Ivan Sutherland approvingly quotes Fred Brooks as saying "I don't plan to retire, I plan not to retire."

p.s. Please don't use allcaps for empahsis on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

[toomuchtodo]

Do you feel that because you're contributing to the health and wellbeing of a community (as HN's community steward), that provides you with purpose above and beyond the usual monetary compensation?

I think people who work 40+ hours are supportive of doing so when they're contributing to something they believe in, or they enjoy it beyond compensation.

[dang]

I think so, yes. Also, we have creative control over what we do and that makes the work much more satisfying.

The GP does have a point about how rare this is. It's just not a point that pertains to the original question.

[bluedino]

There's nothing wrong with being passionate about your job

[koonsolo]

In a sense not, but it does make it easier to exploit you.

Just look at the game dev industry. Lots of passionate people there, and lots of companies who will exploit that. In the end, those people lose their passion.

Being passionate about work can make you very happy. But always make sure you don't get exploited because of it. You will need to set your limits.

[Trundle]

Inherently? No, but it does come with potential for negative externalities.

If you consider that work passion to be a moral virtue and this comes through in your discussions with others, that contributes to pushing society towards a culture of being overworked.

If you try to overtly filter for passion within hiring at a company then that encourages bullshitting and reduces the efficiency of managing employees. You'll be trying to give "passion" benefits to a bunch of secret mercenaries.

If you're non-business inclined and passionate then this can lead to capturing far less of the value that you generate than you otherwise could. This is effectively charity to the business owning class. If you're working for $80k when a few extra conversations—or even just sentences—over the years could have put you at $150k, then that's effectively a yearly donation of $70k to the people in the world who need it the least. Even if you don't care for that money for yourself because you're too busy having fun working to spend it, then that's an awful lot of good you could have done for others that you're failing to do.

What's more with this one is that it also hurts your colleagues by acting as a salary anchor which again, results in a greater share of the value being generated going to the owning class.

[sidlls]

Wanting to work all the time and being passionate aren't the same thing.

[gaius]

True, but that’s what people mean in an interview when they ask if you are passionate about I dunno, doing payrolls in COBOL or something

[montrose]

The difference is the type of work you do and how you feel about it, not whether you're employer or employee. There are businesses it's a grim schlep to run, and jobs that are very interesting.

[drukenemo]

Perfectly agreed.

[irundebian]

That's sad.

[dang]

Could you please not post unsubstantive comments here?

[irundebian]

It's not unsubstantive in my opinion. It's just an expression of my opinion, which is questioning the thought of making no difference of personal and business goals combined with an emotional component (sadness).

[dang]

This reply is already more substantive than a mere "That's sad", which may or may not have any thought behind it. If you fleshed it out a bit more into a thoughtful point, you'd have a good HN comment.

Merely stating an opinion doesn't count as substantive. There needs to be something to interest the reader.

[irundebian]

You're right. I'm sorry.

[javajosh]

I don't believe in overwork, nor do I believe it is sad. There's a big difference working 70-hour weeks achieving the goals you've set for yourself, and working that much to avoid getting fired.

[vixen99]

That's patronizing. How about 'I would find that sad if I was in his position'.

[closed]

When I see you use "That's patronizing", I feel conflicted because it seems to be in the same evaluative style as "That's sad". I am not sure if it's constructive to use a style being criticized against a person.

(this is me practicing nonviolent communication or something :)

[irundebian]

The solution is not to feel offended when you're being criticized. As long it doesn't get abusive.

[closed]

That's fair--it sounds like you're saying a person receiving criticism should be resilient to that criticism to some extent. I'm interested in hearing what you think the solution (if any) is for the person giving the criticism.

(to be clear, I don't feel offended by the parent comment)

[deadbeef404]

Why?

[sgt101]

Because there are vast range of experiences beyond the world of work which can fill and enrich a human life. To be not engaged in the rest of the world is to live a half life. No one died regretting time no spent at work or money unmade

[thenomad]

"No one died regretting time no spent at work"

Citation needed.

Here's one example of a situation where I could very easily see someone regretting not spending more time at work.

As a professional creative, I'm betting there are a fair number of authors, film directors, screenwriters and so on who died regretting they didn't finish their latest work, or didn't spend more time on the thing they really wanted to make. That's work.

[currymj]

you're lucky to have a life where you get to do that. but do you have subordinates?

people with a lot of autonomy are harmed less by long hours and stress. i mean quite literally, if everybody is working 70-100 hours under intense pressure, the boss will experience fewer mental and physical health problems.

keep this in mind if there are people lower on the pyramid than you. what you yourself are willing to do might be quite harmful to them, not to mention the reward they get might be far less.

[blackbagboys]

Of course, the problem is that people in this position tend to assign high moral virtue to what is essentially their hobby, and then tend to make the jump to thinking that people who are not willing to work 70 hours a week are somehow unworthy of rich, comfortable lives.

Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk can work all the 70 hour weeks they want. The problem is when they begin to force their subordinates (or indirect support personnel like the poor accounting schmuck in the article) to do the same.

[rayiner]

The article isn’t talking about Jeff Bezos, but the associate at the law/consulting/banking firm staying up all night papering up the Whole Foods merger.

[twelve40]

The question in the title is purely rhetorical, the FA itself is making a deeper point that if you yourself choose to go nuts, it's a bit unwise to expect everyone else around/underneath you to do the same.

[NiklasMort]

Same, people always ask me why I do this to myself but I don't see it just as a job, more like part of my life and I kind of enjoy it and can't do without, albeit I must admit I am a workaholic and not everything out of this is positive.

[FlyingSideKick]

“Insecure overachievers are exceptionally capable and fiercely ambitious, yet driven by a profound sense of their own inadequacy. This typically stems from childhood, and may result from various factors, such as experience of financial or physical deprivation, or a belief that their parents’ love was contingent upon their behaving and performing well.”

For those whom look for meaning or self-worth in work your efforts are seriously misguided. It’s very easy to make oneself busy so that you never have unscheduled quiet time to examine your inner demons. The perpetuation of the overworking culture is hurting us as a country at large. Do you really want to live in a country where people have no hobbies and have little free time to play and simply be?

I run a successful business and we work 4 nine hour days, Friday’s are almost always off and we start everyone with 25 days vacation. You can do that at your org too! Try it for a year and you’ll find that your turnover will drop, people will be more engaged with their work, more creative ideas will emerge from your work force ,morale will improve and people will be knocking down your door to work for you. Give your employees and yourself plenty of time for a life outside of work and you’ll reap the benefits.

[verylittlemeat]

So just because Jeff Bezos has worked tirelessly at Amazon for over two decades that means he's trying to show mommy and daddy he's a big boy? That seems like some next level armchair psychoanalyzing.

For some people "work" is the culmination and intersection of a number of hobbies they have thought about for decades. Some people are lucky enough to have the line between work and play to be so blurred that they get paid ridiculous money to have fun.

[87ert3746]

Bezos is also known for his appreciation of sleep