[QuantumChaos]

I'm not describing encouraging people to work long hours for the sake of it, but rather people working longer hours in order to get more done. It seems like you don't believe it is possible for a company to reward people based on their actual results, ("it's rather hard to quantify productivity in a programming setting") but that is what Google does. No one really notices how much time you spend in the office.

So I would accept your points (1) and (2) to the extent that they apply in a particular setting. But these arguments don't apply to Google. If a person at Google chose to work longer hours, and ended up being less productive, that would really only harm themselves.

[insuffi]

1) No such thing as long hours for the sake of it. It's always to get more "done". And like I mentioned in my parent post, there's no such thing after a certain number of hours. 2)I don't believe it's possible for a company to do that, or at least not to the extent that you're saying. 3)Based on some of the interviews people have had here with Google, it seems that Google could use some more "reward based on performance" in their culture.(or a lot)

p.s. Keep in mind that my competition point still stands. Longer and longer hours are of no good. It's a slippery slope. And yes, I think such competition is poisonous and detrimental, even if some more work gets done. Working more hours just pulls everyone down,* in regards to your free market comment. It's price competition.

*even if it's not projection, but actual performance. Soon enough, everyone is working more and more to catch up to you, and everyone's miserable. That's not sustainable practice.

[orangecat]

Soon enough, everyone is working more and more to catch up to you, and everyone's miserable.

That's an argument against high performance regardless of hours. But I doubt many Googlers are miserable because they have to "compete" with Jeff Dean.

[insuffi]

I guess it is. It sounds wrong to me as well, but there's only so much performance you can fit into certain hours. Thus, more hours are bound to become the norm, in my opinion.

[nostrademons]

That assumes productivity remains constant, which has historically been a poor assumption, both in the economy at large and with individual people. When you do something a lot and have a modicum of intelligence (and most Googlers do), you figure out new, more efficient ways of doing things. That lets you accomplish more while working shorter hours.

The unfortunate thing is that if you're really good at making things more efficient, people want you to do it all the time, but if you're paid for results (Googlers are) and decent at setting boundaries (by and large Googlers aren't, but this is an individual-responsibility thing), you can work out compromises that give you both professional advancement and time for a life.