[echelon]

996 is fine if you're a founder of a company. It's not okay for ill-compensated workers that will never become billionaires.

We don't have much time on this planet. Why should he expect others to be droning slaves for him? People should enjoy what little life they have, not spend most of their time as cogs in a machine.

[afarrell]

>996 is fine if you’re a founder

Is it?

You have production access to the company’s most important relationships. If you’re falling asleep in meetings or just unable to exercise emotional intelligence, that seems pretty bad for the company.

EDIT: falling asleep in meetings is bad, not good.

[weego]

I think it's worth defining what "fine" is in this context.

It's fine in as much as it's your gig, it's on you to decide what is right or not. If you believe that working extreme hours at the cost of your own wellbeing and rational performance will end up being a benefit to you in the long run then it's "fine" for you to make that choice and you either reap the benefits of suffer the consequences and hopefully learn from it.

It's not fine to project your notion of drive and passion onto people who are employees and expect them to match your personal standards when the potential rewards are magnitudes different.

[cbsks]

It is. Because then the overtime is completely self-imposed.

[afarrell]

If a sysadmin comes to work drunk, that would also be self-imposed. Would that be acceptable for the company?

If not, why is it okay to come to work drunk-with-fatigue?

[Kirth]

I always wonder about cases where a person's work depresses them as such that they start self-medicating (for example, with alcohol). Would that still be self-imposed, or a result of the circumstances?

[acct1771]

We always have a choice.

It's just how easy the choice is that defines how good our conditions are.

[sgt101]

I'm not an investor, but if I were an investor I would want my stewards of capital to be awake and aware and full on. Airline pilots and professional drivers (truckers) have mandated rest, for a reason.

[lazyjones]

I'm an investor and former VC-backed founder and I'd like my stewards of capital, who are typically the best work force in the early days of startups, to work more than 40 hours. I'm sure that they do in the overwhelming majority of successful startups.

[stuffedBelly]

I work in finance and am sorry but you don't sound like a legit investor if you measure the effectiveness of your capital towards startups by work hours. What about their revenue models, plans for growth, talent structure and market niche? Why do you expect them to work longer hours as long as they have deliverables on time? Also, working longer hours may introduce potential compliance/HR costs (mental/physical problems due to overwork, people leaving due to work-life balance issue), which could be deadly for early startups.

> I'm sure that they do in the overwhelming majority of successful startups

You would need to back up this statement with evidence and show positive correlation between longer work hours and success of startups.

[lazyjones]

> I work in finance and am sorry but you don't sound like a legit investor

I don't care what I sound like to someone who develops software and pretends to be some sort of financial expert.

[sgt101]

Truckers are mandated (in the USA) to do 60 hours in 7 days, which is more than 40 hours. If your founder works 96 hours a week for 6mths what do you think their state of mind will be?

I worked 96 hours a week for eight weeks finishing off my dissertation. I finished it, but basically went crazy - I needed some time off, which was good because I crossed the line. Startups used to be like that I suppose, but now it takes far longer to cross the line to an exit than it used to, are you making the best use of the human capital you are deploying?

[lazyjones]

> Truckers are mandated (in the USA) to do 60 hours in 7 days, which is more than 40 hours. If your founder works 96 hours a week for 6mths what do you think their state of mind will be?

What does that have to do with anything? 60 hours is 50% more than 40 hours, it's regulation and not science and it's a totally different job with different risks.

> are you making the best use of the human capital you are deploying?

If they are working 40 hours or less, the answer is "no" with 100% certainty. Above that, it depends.

[afarrell]

To what degree?

There is a difference between regularly working 50-hour weeks and setting those up well, and always working 72-hour weeks, which doesn’t leave you time to do the life-admin, exercise, cooking, and sleep you need to keep a clear head.

[matwood]

Founders are already 'working' more than that. They are typically thinking about their company with every waking hour.

With that said, it doesn't mean they are not getting plenty of sleep. What it means is that when they are not sleeping, they are probably working. At the gym, they are probably thinking about work. At social events, they are probably thinking about work. Etc... It's just the nature of getting a company off the ground.

[celticninja]

Only because it is your choice to undertake the extra working time, not because it is expected.

[brazzy]

That doesn't change how much it messes up your performance and judgement.

[celticninja]

I'm not saying it's a good idea just that it's done through choice and not forced in them.

[BurningFrog]

> It's not okay for ill-compensated workers that will never become billionaires.

What if everyone who does it will become millionaires?

What if everyone who does it understands the tradeoffs involved and makes an informed decision that you disagree with?

[learc83]

Neither of things are true, so what's your point?

[BurningFrog]

Ali Baba is the Amazon of China. It is enormously profitable. I assume that in return for working so hard, the employees are paid quite well, or else they would find better jobs.

I guess the unsupported claim that they're "ill-compensated" out of the blue was what annoyed me.

[learc83]

It looks like the average senior software engineer salary at Alibaba is around $30k.

That's well above the average annual salary in China, but it's about average for a software developer, and no one is going going to become a millionaire working for those wages.

Also long hours are normal in China. If your choice is to work for one of 50 companies that all have insane schedules, it's hardly informed consent.

[BurningFrog]

This Fortune article speculates in much higher numbers for their stock compensation: http://fortune.com/2016/02/05/alibaba-stock-pay-disturbing/

If long hours is the industry standard, to me that is exactly informed consent. I mean, no one will be surprised by the standard workplace arrangement.

[learc83]

There's no way Alibaba is giving away 15% of their revenue in stock grants, so I'd take that with a huge grain of salt. Regardless the vast majority of their employees aren't going to become millionaires working there.

>If long hours is the industry standard, to me that is exactly informed consent. I mean, no one will be surprised by the standard workplace arrangement.

That's not what informed consent means--informed consent has to be voluntary or it's not consent. If 72 hour weeks are standard and your choice is long hours or being unemployed, it's not informed consent.

The logical conclusion to this argument is that there is literally no limit on how bad you make your working conditions so long as everyone else is doing it. A century ago it was common to pay employees in company scrip and to not pay them enough to live so that they ended up permanently indebted to the company. It was the standard work environment in many places so by your argument all the employees freely consented to it.

[stuffedBelly]

These two assumptions don't really contribute to the whole 996 discussion.

Plus for many people, at certain stage, family/relationship/life/health becomes much more important than making millions.

[m0zg]

That's like if you said "what if everyone won a lottery". You know full well this sweatshop bullshit produces very few millionaires, and millions of burn-outs.

[acct1771]

What if everyone who used chemo was cured of cancer?