[johntarter]

People like Elon suggest 120 hrs or 996 for the employees that work under him implementing his ideas-- the people rolling up their sleeves and putting hammers to nails. Most of the people in an org do not need to be involved in deep level thinking.

[godelski]

  > nobody ever changed the world on 40 hours a week
  - Elon[0] 

Yet... I listed a few... He goes on to suggest 80 is good with spikes into 100. I mean Elon is notorious for putting in those long hours himself[1], but he's definitely wrong in the quote.

So... who do you think those demands are for? He seems pretty clearly to be demanding it from engineers to execs. That also matches the experience of everyone I've known to have worked at SpaceX, including both programmers and aerospace engineers. Same with Tesla.

Also, thought I'd drop a link to this 996 HN post from the other week[2].

Honestly, I'm not sure who you're referring to, because when not taken literally that would seem to cover literally every employee.

[0] https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1067173497909141504

[1] https://www.financialexpress.com/trending/my-workload-went-f...

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45149049

[TheOtherHobbes]

Elon does this because being able to order all those people around makes him feel special and important, not because it actually works.

Study after study proves that productivity drops off rapidly when people are tired and stressed - which should be common sense, but apparently it's too common for some of our notables to understand.

So instead of actual work output you get productivity theatre. Everything is dramatic and shouting happens, but - for example - Tesla still doesn't have anything resembling FSD while more modest companies are much further along.

It's juvenile machismo, not adult management.

[varjag]

Musk's use of social media and his involvement in recreational activities is way too much for 80h/week. He's clearly more of a 4 day workweek type tho shy about it.