[dakiol]

> Komoot, to them, was more than a job; it was a mission and purpose. Many had accepted below-average salaries and uprooted their lives to commit to the outdoor lifestyle and the dream job. Suddenly, they were left scrambling for new work and visa sponsors with just a few months’ pay as severance. The six bosses, meanwhile, pocketed an estimated 20 to 30 million euros each.

That’s why, and call me unethical, I never do more than necessary at work. Never help outside of business hours, never engage with rich bosses. Switch every 2-3 years to new places. Maximise my income (in real money, not imaginary stocks) while trying to work the minimum.

For dreams and craft, I have my side projects.

[bjackman]

I'm gonna copy paste a comment I wrote yesterday that I think fits perfectly here:

As an engineer if you are gonna be a rank and file employee you need to do it for your own reasons. I think the main good reasons to do it are:

1. It's relatively chill and you value the stability. You deliver competence from 9-5 then go home to your family or some other thing that's more important to you than work.

2. You really enjoy the pure engineering side and find meaning in the technical artifact you're creating. Probably it's open source and has some value/community outside of your employer.

3. You're gaining valuable experience that you can later leverage into something else. Probably you're in the first 5 years of your career.

If the main thing driving you is growing a business, and you don't directly own (not options or RSUs or whatever, actual real equity) a significant slice of it, you are very likely misdirecting your energy.

---

It sounds like the staff here thought they were in case 2, but they were not. I think that the article explains the reason why nicely: the thing they were building was not part of the commons.

[A_Duck]

This is a shame though. We should work towards a world where most people can find meaning in what they do.

For now it can work better to be a contractor and have your 'meaning' be a positive reputation in your industry.

More like being a medieval blacksmith. You don't mind what you're making, but you're known in your village by the quality of your work.

[bjackman]

You can be in case 1 and find meaning in what you do. That's where the blacksmith is.

There's absolutely nothing wrong with doing a good job for 40 hours a week in return for a salary. Being a competent professional who does quality work is rewarding!

I just think if you're doing work of that nature (which _most of us are_, BTW) you need to recognise it for what it is. Don't burn yourself out trying to squeeze every drop of initiative/creativity/productivity out of yourself. Definitely don't answer emails at the weekend. Don't tolerate under-payment. Don't accept non-legally-binding promises from the boss.

Just deliver the best work you can in the time you get paid for, then stop.

[pydry]

At the same time we can maaaaaaaybe start pushing back on all of the "capitalism is not the problem" and "capitalism is the least worst of all available options" memes?

Or is it too soon already?

[hansvm]

The problem with capitalism is that something like it (concentrated power begetting additional power at the expense of most of the populace) is nearly guaranteed to crop up in a society which doesn't burn resources actively fighting against it. When fishing for alternatives then, you have to consider:

1. What fraction of our resources do we want to burn while eliminating which of the worst parts of capitalistic tendencies?

2. How do we preserve diffuse power distributions in the face of actors who will actively work against that goal?

Not to trivialize it too much, (1) is just a policy decision. Being completely hands-off is probably sub-optimal. Burning 100% of resources fighting fraud and other abuses isn't ideal either. It's a reasonable framing though for comparing strategies. There's no free lunch, so if somebody sells you a governmental structure which eliminates the worst parts of capitalism without _some_ cost, it's likely snake oil.

Point (2) is the harder one. The majority of people wouldn't mind a little extra power and a few extra resources. If that's possible, it's also (usually) possible to create sub-populations which together have much more power than other groups and thus subvert the goals of your anti-capitalist strategy. How do you create a system that's robust against most individual participants (potentially inadvertently) working against it?

So, sure, let's do away with capitalism. What do you replace it with that's both better and won't revert back?

[appreciatorBus]

Yes this is the key point imo - power begets power in any system.

However diffuse power distributions aren’t a panacea either imo. As an example, I hold no particular power over the other tenants in my building, and they hold none over me, the building owner has significant power over all of us. It’s easy to imagine a future with no landlord, and the power over the plot of land being diffused among the current tenants. But then I would have some degree of power over my neighbours, and they over me, and all sorts of abuses and nastiness are possible there.

An uncomfortable possibility we should take seriously is that there might not be a perfect distribution of power in human societies. That whether power is concentrated or diffuse, it will be used for good and for ill.

I am not claiming that I know the answer, or that today is just the best that we can do, but I am pretty sceptical that we can wave away these fundamentals, or that we can design or plan societies like this.

[pydry]

This isnt really about using "resources" to fight fraud. None of this was illegal and it was all very profitable - it was encouraged.

This is about us consenting to capital being put at the very heart of society's locus of control, which is what drove this kind of parasitism to be encouraged rather than discouraged.

It is a unique feature of western (especially American) society - something which actually isnt represented in other power centers.

China has "private equity" for instance, but it's not really private - it operates like all financial institutions as an arm of the state (not run by capital) and has no real incentive to destroy healthy and valuable companies for profit.

[appreciatorBus]

All of the same human dynamics will be present under socialism or communism or whatever you prefer.

Under capitalism, a boss might try to persuade you to work hard harder than you might otherwise for dubious or illusionary future reward.

Under some form of collectivism, there will still be pressure to attend some sort of goal, even if it is non-financial in nature. That pressure will ultimately come in the form of a leader of some form, and one of the tools they will have to achieve that (possibly collective) goal will be to persuade you to work longer and harder than you might otherwise for some dubious or illusionary future reward. Perhaps this future reward won’t be in money, but that won’t change the underlying dynamic.

[pydry]

You could equally argue that there is no point making murder illegal because "all the same dynamics leading to murder" will still happen. They will. Society exists to either curtail or encourage our instincts for a collective purpose.

This is not about that.

This about an institution being rewarded and operating entirely within the law which takes a valuable asset, systematically disenfranchises the people who made it valuable before parasitically sucking it dry for material gain.

That is a pretty unique capitalist dynamic, actually.

[theamk]

It's not like there are good options out there. USSR showed what state-controlled socialism looks like, and the picture is not pretty. A most damning example is that it was impossible to leave USSR during the most of its existence, and people had to do crazy things like jump off cruise ship and swim many miles [0] just to get out of country.

If I have a choice between being jailed in the country and having VCs drive some companies into the ground, I'd choose the latter every time.

[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_Kurilov

[dragonwriter]

> It's not like there are good options out there

Yes, there are.

> USSR showed what state-controlled socialism looks like, and the picture is not pretty. A

The USSR and other Leninist-derived regimes showed what one narrow set of models of authoritarian state “socialism” looks like, sure, and its not pretty just like the pure private capitalism that was generally abandoned netween the early and mid 20th century for the modern mixed economy was not.

OTOH, Leninism and its authoritarian state capitalism (that is, featuring a narrow elite that control society via control of the non-financial means of production, just as the private capitalist class does in private capitalism) is not the only option to to the presently dominant mixed economy that reduces or eliminates the private capitalist elements.

Democratic market-oriented socialisms where the private firms still exist but the non-financial means of production are controlled (either entirely in pure forms, or simply more than in the status quo systems in forms which are still mixed economies but with a different mix) by those working in the firms employing them are possible. In fact, variations along this dimension already exist among modern mixed economies, and the ones further along it are not the limit of how far that can go.

[closewith]

There are many better options right now then US-style kleptocapitalism. Just look at the HDI index.

[MrGilbert]

How about good ol' morals? We don't need to get rid of capitalism, but how about getting the proportionality back on track? Does a single person need to make billions and billions of money? Should I, as a CEO, earn millions of dollars while my workforce can barely survive with one job?

I don’t think so. This is what needs to be fixed on a global scale.

[BobaFloutist]

It depends. Is your theory of change to push a welfare state, gradually increase the welfare, raise taxes to redistribute wealth, achieve UBI, fully fund public healthcare, housing, food, water?

Or is it that any day now workers are going to reach unanimous consensus and go on a national strike, siezing power from the owners of capital? Or maybe a violent revolution in which the bourgeoisie and class traitors get guillotineed alongside the capitalist oppressors?

[terminalbraid]

What's your reasoning equating "a medieval blacksmith" serving a village directly with their own work and "a rank and file employee" which is how the post you're commenting on was intentionally framed?

[A_Duck]

I'm contrasting rather than equating them.

The medieval blacksmith / freelancer may be in a better position to feel meaning in their work, compared with an employee, because of the system of incentives around them.

[pjc50]

I'm reminded of the Vshojo collapse just recently, where a whole load of people were convinced that not getting paid on time was a temporary necessity for growing the business.

Which promptly imploded, taking stolen charity donations with it.

[valicord]

4. Golden handcuffs

[leokennis]

Or the combination of 1 and 4. If a company is willing to pay you a lot of money for “9 to 5”, there’s all the reasons in the world to just take it.

[lycopodiopsida]

There is nothing unethical about: you are doing the only sane thing in this system and economics. Morons, who work themselves to death believing bosses shit-talk about “our mission” and “we are in this together” will learn it the hard way.

[michaelt]

In principle, we can imagine jobs that contribute positively to the world.

When a builder builds a house, or a doctor mends a broken arm, the community has one more home and one less broken arm - and the community is left richer even after the builder and doctor have been paid.

That house will be keeping a family warm and dry 20, 40, 100 years into the future, and the patient will be using that arm for the rest of their life.

I can see how a person with a job like that could take pride in the fact they've contributed to their community, in addition to the fact they've gotten paid.

Of course, a lot of jobs aren't that way, but have tricksy bosses who will try to convince you they are. Which is what it sounds like happened in Komoot's case.

[const_cast]

The unfortunate reality is that a lot of jobs don't exist to enrich the community, they exist for the exact opposite purpose. They exist to make the world a worse place. They exist to make people sicker, or cause more children to die, or maybe even to accelerate acts of war.

You don't need to do good things to make money. You can do bad things and make lots of money, and actually, that's typically a little easier. You can even create your own unique evils and then sell solutions to them.

[kelvinjps10]

In the workers side they could be doing good but on the corporations side not, like insurance companies charging way more for the broken arm than it should be and the house prices being way more higher than they should

[goopypoop]

plus the sepsis and subsidence

[benterix]

Try saying that on LinkedIn and watch the reactions. There is a huge difference between what you can feel and do, and what you can say.

[MarceColl]

I saw a post recently on linkedin. A founder was saying "If you had one year to live, would you still choose to work at this company? That is the bar to join <crappy nonsensical startup>". It was so incredibly sad.

[lycopodiopsida]

Since slavery is forbidden, morons are the next best thing, I guess.

[oc1]

Boy, please share. I need something depressing to laugh about

[MarceColl]

Managed to find it again, there you go: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/arnau-ayerbe_met-brian-chesky...

[oc1]

Way more depressing than i thought. If that's what these YC folks are even in public, i want my time back wasted listening to their messages.

[aleph_minus_one]

Interesting:

"How fast do you want to learn?": in my experience many companies in my opinion don't want employees that learn fast, because otherwise these employees would immediately see and call out a lot of bullshit.

"Would you feel ownership on day one?": in my experience many software companies don't want employees to really feel ownership about their code, since "ownership" means that the respective employee will be willing to fight hard that his vision of this "owned" code is retained and this code won't be "tainted" by "unworthy" ideas of other colleagues.

[benterix]

Wow, this is low even by LinkedIn standards.

[prmoustache]

Why would you say anything on Linkedin in the first place? There is absolutely no reason to engage there unless you are PR for a company or self proclaimed career ̶c̶o̶a̶c̶h̶ liar.

[baq]

If you are in a game of smoke and mirrors, you play the game according to the rules.

I don’t post on LinkedIn. Got better games to play.

[lycopodiopsida]

Well, if your boss doesn’t say what they think, you shouldn’t either. And why would even consider posting something to linkedin, in the first place?

[Simon_O_Rourke]

> There is a huge difference between what you can feel and do, and what you can say.

Agree 100% - if I were to bring my authentic self to work I'd be fired in about a minute flat.

[bremon]

As a warning: every time I’ve pushed hard, then had to rein it in and do less, I’ve gotten fired.

There’s nothing you can do that makes you irreplaceable, even if you’re the only one in the world that can do it.

It’s fine if you want to stay in your happy place as the only one that can do X and then keep selling them on the value you provide and how you’re doing big things. But, nothing lasts.

Don’t burn out, but sitting on your ass is a bad strategy.

[baq]

Don’t do that then. Work on 90% with bursts of 130%. Don’t work on 120% all the time because it’ll be assumed you’ve gotten lazy when you just need to slow down.

[Sammi]

Those percentages are all too high for a normal salery.

[hdjdi]

The definition of “100%” varies.

In U.S. even though a full-time job is “40 hours”, many in non-government jobs put in more. The “120%” spoken of would be 48, so let’s say roughly 2 extra hours a day, so 7:30-18:30 with an hour lunch. Tech startups in my experience are usually 44-46 hours for low-mid IC dev or more if higher or any lead/manager responsibilities. Some dev/IT managers may be on-call most of the week. But some people literally are working 40 hours/week.

Other countries “100%” hours/week are roughly: Europe 35-40, Eastern Europe ~40, India 45-55, China 45-50, Africa 40-50.

And similar applies for dev/IT startups and management.

Some work > 100 hours week on average, but I think that’s difficult to do in dev/IT for more than a month at a time without burnout, even if you just keep hitting a button over and over.

[Sammi]

If a country expects 40+ hours on average then they should also expect an inverted demographic pyramid within a generation or two. Many such cases. It's a great way to commit national seppuku.

[ponector]

The goal is to not push hard from start, to set up moderate expectations.

The recipe of success is also to do a little bit more (15%) than your colleagues, be reliable and punctual.

[Simon_O_Rourke]

> That’s why, and call me unethical, I never do more than necessary at work. Never help outside of business hours, never engage with rich bosses. Switch every 2-3 years to new places. Maximise my income (in real money, not imaginary stocks) while trying to work the minimum.

That's not unethical at all, in fact I think that's a highly intelligent strategy to look out for the little guy (namely you) in the bear pit of tech capitalism. Anyone buying into the "we're more than a company, we're family" schtick is just another sucker to be worked remorselessly to line the pockets of the VPs and C-suite.

My previous employers included me in their Director/VP meetings, and the family schtick evaporates pretty quickly when they start talking cuts. One VP in a meeting, quite literally, proposed laying off an entire team of veteran engineers (most with young kids) and the very next thing that came out of this doucebag's mouth was "are we ordering in some lunch?". They do not care a whit about you and once you realise that then you should just look to yourself first and foremost and forget accepting below-average salaries just for some "mission".

They will happily kick you to the curb for any of the following reasons, which I have personally witnessed in the past few years,

- Their pal is looking for a job that's currently occupied by someone else. So they fire and hire.

- They want to deflect blame for their own failures, so they fire a bunch of folks who had nothing to do with the failures.

- They want to appear 'ruthless' to the CEO, so fire people to enhance their own image.

- They do a clear out of their previous incumbents staff once they replace someone and bring in their own crew.

[mellosouls]

This approach doesn't work ethically if you are working for (say) public service organisations.

There's also the argument an abundance of cynicism - as well as being occasionally aimed at a misjudged target (eg you work for bosses who do try to do the right thing) - is corrupting to the self and wider society.

[astrobe_]

> This approach doesn't work ethically if you are working for (say) public service organisations.

This remark is specially apt with regard to the leitmotiv of TFA; one sees, indeed, an entirely different picture when the goal of an organization is something else than growing and making profits.

[carlosjobim]

Of course the argument works for everybody who works in public service. You do the duties you are paid for. If you think that's not enough you are welcome to volunteer for free.

[gus_massa]

I agree. Or if the task is so important they should get a bigger salary.

[NoGravitas]

Somewhat disagree. If a public service organization is demanding more than that approach, it either needs to hire more people, or manage projects more effectively. I'll take a lower salary for public service, but it doesn't help anyone for me to burn out.

[javcasas]

> it was a mission and purpose

Is this "we are a family here" for the people that don't fall anymore for the "family" con?

[izacus]

This is the approach that most workers took in our eastern European countries during socialist era.

It was shitty. Pretty much all services were terrible since people just did the minumum.

I've noticed US going down this path for a few years now and I can't figure out why in the frigging world would you cheer on towards such horrible society.

All the best places I've lived at were great because people cared about the jobs and other work they did.

[twixfel]

There’s nothing wrong with caring about your job and what you do. Just don’t buy into any of the horse shit about missions and so on. The bosses are ruthlessly capitalist so it’s immoral to expect the workers to be any less self interested.

[izacus]

At the end of the day your own life will be miserable if everyone is self interested because of those "bosses".

[twixfel]

Just with work. Loads of things to do outside of work. I volunteer for example. Feels good.

[010101010101]

I like to remind those I mentor that The Company’s sole goal for their employment is to extract more value from them than they are paid - not because The Company is evil, but because that’s just what’s required in a capitalist endeavor. But, what it does mean, is that you shouldn’t feel like you owe any company anything - the goal of any for-profit corporation is to extract more value from you than they give back to you, period.

[tdiff]

> For dreams and craft, I have my side projects.

In very infrequent cases can you achieve any noticeable (for society) results without being part of a large org.

[Xylakant]

That depends on what you consider noticeable. A lot of things are noticeable (and noticed) on the local level. The folks that organise reading sessions with the kids a my sons school. The people managing the local hockey club. People doing local education in IT. Organizing the neighborhood meetup. The people that do hack and tell. Blog about what they’re doing by as fun projects.

They may not be known beyond their local communities, but they have impact on society. Most of them are contend with that. If you’re looking to change the world, then that’s likely not good enough, but then again, if you’re looking to do that it’s unlikely that you will achieve that as a rank and file employee in a corporation.

[tdiff]

I agree, but I also see how even a regular employee in, say, space travel corp (or in pharma and so on) can consider their work to be more impactful than running a local community (even in reallity their impact is minimal).

[benhurmarcel]

There’s some maturity in being happy doing things that are not significant for society.

[atoav]

Bosses always want workers who treat their job and the company like family, but when it comes to them treating their workers like family somehow it is all about the numbers and they barely even treat them like people (if the law permits it).

It may seem over the top, but my feeling is we as a society need to stop accepting, excusing or even applauding behavior like this for our own good. This should be a stain on their names for the rest of their lives and the rest of society might consider treating them as outcasts.

I know this is an extremely unpopular position to take on a platform where half of the people dream of creating a company, pretending it is the mission of their lives, just to sell it to the highest bidder and live a life in luxury after. Everybody has to watch out for themselves they would say. If your goal is to leave the planet worse off than before that is the sure way to do it. This is a model for a society of sociopaths who kill everything good and it is time we start putting up some resistance.

[zzzeek]

Yup, when headhunters reach out with all these idiotic startups that I know full well are just playing the game of "see if you can bullshit long enough for someone to buy your useless company" I don't even laugh anymore, just shake my head. If you have real life obligations and can't afford to hop jobs every year, never work for a startup.