I have worked for Bay Area companies which follow the Silicon Valley gospel a couple of times, and I have a fundamental disagreement with the idea that finding solace in work is inherently good.
My experience with this culture is that it is more cult than religion. You are expected to live for the work, give your all for the work, and love the work above all things. If you value anything above work—for example, time with your children—then you are not worthy of the work. In fact, you have no worth at all. Your free time should be spent studying for the work. You should sleep at the office with your coworkers over the weekend in “voluntary” hackathons to make the work closer to completion.
Most importantly, if you suggest that the work should maybe not be the only thing in your life, you are not worthy of the work and you should feel shame. If you don’t, your code family will help you to feel it.
Obviously I had some bad experiences, but I know that I’m not alone. I wonder honestly if anyone interviewing Silicon Valley tech people would have a chance at an honest, healthy assessment of work/life balance.
Finding value in what you do is fine, it’s healthy, it’s important; I just don’t think the Silicon Valley culture is one anyone should be emulating. It’s ok to go to work because it’s a means to an end.
I have no doubt this exists, because I've seen it with my own two eyes. However, as someone who's also built a career doing none of this, I also realize how much of this is due to the participant's willing participation in the system, despite very little negatives should they decide not to.
You’re downplaying the enormous social pressures that are used to make these things happen. I describe it as a cult because that’s what it effectively is; the tech leaders bring in young, impressionable people and throw money at them, and provide an environment that seems welcoming and safe. Then they start manipulating them.
“Don’t you want us to succeed?”
“What do you mean you’re working too hard? Steve is really counting on you to get this done, and Carol has been working late nights for a month. You don’t want to let them down do you?”
“We need this new technology to succeed, you’re so smart that I’m sure you can figure it out over the weekend.”
It’s all bullshit, but there is a method to all of it. I fell victim to it and so did many others that I know. Honestly, if it wasn’t for my family I would probably still be suckered in, but when I no longer had time to be a father anymore it gave me a reality check.
Sure... I've been the subject of this for sure. However here are two options
(1) Leave the company. There are plenty of companies that don't do this. Just keep changing jobs till you find one
(2) Make sure you defensively program to keep yourself out of emergencies. That means doing your work on time, and if you're not consistently capable of that, then waiting before taking on more work.
I'm not saying be a social pariah. Just introspect once in a while and adjust from there.
I’ve spent a lot of time in the opposite work culture: Sweden. It has its pros and cons, but to be honest I’d move to Silicon Valley in a heartbeat if it wasn’t for the bureaucracy involved.
> It’s ok to go to work because it’s a means to an end.
Sure, that should be okay. But if someone wants to spend their free time studying, should that not be allowed? Should they be passed up for promotion because of it? Should your “code family” help you feel shame for it?
It’s not easy to strike a good balance between those who do seek self-realization in work and those who see it as a means to an end. Instead of having these two groups fight it out in every workplace I think society should provide opportunities for both. (But you can’t complain if those that prioritize work over everything else have more interesting and rewarding careers.)
If you make the same argument for people spending time in the office, you might see the problem.
It's a race to the bottom. Sure that one guy with no friends or family has nowhere else to go, so he doesn't care, but if he gets rewarded for it, everyone else gets dragged in and we've decided that long hours aren't productive anyway, and certainly don't replace the time spent with friends and family.
Taking risks is another, more extreme, example. What if someone has terminal cancer or just doesn't care if he lives? There's probably many jobs they can do faster since they're not trying particular hard to stay alive.
It's maybe harder to see the problem when someone is super keen on their work, but I think we'd all be better off if they channelled that energy into something else of equal mental stimulation separate from their work.
Of course people shouldn’t be paid more just because they spend more time in the office. But if they also get more done, and learn more, then what’s wrong with that leading to better pay and more opportunities?
If you value other things over work but are incapable of making that choice if others are rewarded for hard work, then that’s your problem. Seek therapy or something.
We can't even reward people correctly for effort in the real world, that's why you need to spend time marketing your success on top of the actual effort of doing them, and why people are so wedded to hours spent on task rather than any real life metric of success.
Please dont mess up the lives of people who live in the real world for something that barely works in theory.
Despite how normalized and even lauded it is, I would argue that even then it isn't good. Some amount of people will always be subject to all-consuming passion for a specific subject or goal, but these generally come at a high personal and social cost for the individual and those closest to them. Pursuing them in the face of these costs is at least a bit of a personal weakness, and should be considered a mild-moderate social transgression, along the lines of heavy drinking or poor anger control, perhaps.
"A company" is probably the wrong venue to pursue it, when it must be pursued. I think we have a lot of people like this right now because we encourage, praise and reward this behavior. But I don't think we should generally want people to burn their lives into pursuits in this way, and so should consider it at least uncouth, if not exactly morally wrong.
People have been discovering solace in work for a long time now; it can’t be just a Silicon Valley thing. Specifically I am thinking of some of the examples found in Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s works.
We need a new New Atheism to push against the religion of work, then. Preferably one that doesn't decide to branch into social gospel sans gospel as too many of the original New Atheists did because they couldn't figure out how to make their lives meaningful without a Cause.
It's not just "Gen Z" that is doing it. Look up "lying flat." It's not limited to China.
From the wiki:
Tang ping (Chinese: 躺平; pinyin: tǎng píng; lit. 'lying flat') is a lifestyle and social protest movement in China beginning in April 2021. It is a rejection of societal pressures to overwork, such as in the 996 working hour system, which is often regarded as a rat race with ever diminishing returns. Those who participate in tang ping instead choose to "lie down flat and get over the beatings" via a low-desire, more indifferent attitude towards life.
Absolutely. When was the last time you were worried about your kid getting gunned down at school, going bankrupt from medical expenses, or unable to find housing due to housing costs increasing faster than wages.
Looking at a sole metric instead of quality of life holistically leads to suboptimal optimization. Total comp in the US is only good for two things: living okay in a dystopian hellscape or aggregating wealth as part of an exit strategy.
As a former big tech engineering leader, I found it very useful to state 'I believe' as a way to channel and promote the 'why'. Learned from Simon Sinek.
My experience with this culture is that it is more cult than religion. You are expected to live for the work, give your all for the work, and love the work above all things. If you value anything above work—for example, time with your children—then you are not worthy of the work. In fact, you have no worth at all. Your free time should be spent studying for the work. You should sleep at the office with your coworkers over the weekend in “voluntary” hackathons to make the work closer to completion.
Most importantly, if you suggest that the work should maybe not be the only thing in your life, you are not worthy of the work and you should feel shame. If you don’t, your code family will help you to feel it.
Obviously I had some bad experiences, but I know that I’m not alone. I wonder honestly if anyone interviewing Silicon Valley tech people would have a chance at an honest, healthy assessment of work/life balance.
Finding value in what you do is fine, it’s healthy, it’s important; I just don’t think the Silicon Valley culture is one anyone should be emulating. It’s ok to go to work because it’s a means to an end.