Elon Musk is a nice chap

[RoGeorge]

Does anybody expect mainstream media to not be censored about a political scandal regarding censorship? 

[james_s]

But the fact is that Meta/Google/Netflix and so on typically run 37 hour work weeks with a fixed salary.  And it's well evidenced that people are not generally consistently productive on 60 hour weeks (there are some exceptions but this is generally true).

So unless Musk wants to compensate these people $250k+ a year for an entry level SWE then he's gonna have to hire more people.  And make the working environment more pleasant, less Musky.

The problem is he wants the $150k a year Bay Area engineer but wants twice as much productivity from them as everyone else.  And he wants them to do that in the office rather than at home, so add 10 hours of commuting to that as well.

My observation from periods of working long hours to hit holiday deadlines is that there are rapidly diminishing returns as you exceed 40 hours a week, especially when you try to sustain that for more than a few weeks. People get tired and performance starts to fall pretty rapidly. If you spend twice as much time working you might get a 30-40% increase in work done. 2 week long caffeine fueled crunch is possible but most people can't sustain that pace for very long.

[Wallace Gasiewicz]

There are lots of old studies showing that an approx 40 hour week is probably good for production.
Productivity goes down after 40 hrs and errors go up.
Most of these studies are in production facilities. Like assembly.  I would imagine the same thing holds true for most other types of work.

[PlainName]

Why is 40 hours the magic figure? Perhaps it's because that's what we're used to, so if we always did 60 hours, say, then there would be papers discussing the lack of productivity if you do more.

I can think of many mind-numbing jobs where most of us would be prone to errors after 2 hours, and yet the real workers keep it up for far longer. And you only have to check out YouTube to see Asion street food being prepared at a stunning rate yet done without errors. I reckon they must be working more than 40 hours if you bear in mind the prep and clear down every day.

[james_s]

Why is 40 hours the magic figure? Perhaps it's because that's what we're used to, so if we always did 60 hours, say, then there would be papers discussing the lack of productivity if you do more.

Or because after thousands of years of society, once people starting looking at these things scientifically 40 hours turned out to be where productivity peaked. There are only so many hours in a day, life is too short to spend all of it at work. There's no prize at the end for having pissed away the most hours slaving away at a job.

[tom66]

Or because after thousands of years of society, once people starting looking at these things scientifically 40 hours turned out to be where productivity peaked. There are only so many hours in a day, life is too short to spend all of it at work. There's no prize at the end for having pissed away the most hours slaving away at a job.

"Nobody lie on their death bed wishing they spent more time in the office"

[PlainName]

There's no prize at the end for having pissed away the most hours slaving away at a job

The hours we work are generally not related to what we'd like to do, so that's a bit of a non sequitur.

once people starting looking at these things scientifically 40 hours turned out to be where productivity peaked

Do you know of any such studies? Another possibility is that it splits the day suspiciously evenly: one third to sleep, one third to work, one third argue on the internet. (Although most people think they spend a third working but actually it's more because of commuting.)

[tooki]

There's no prize at the end for having pissed away the most hours slaving away at a job

The hours we work are generally not related to what we'd like to do, so that's a bit of a non sequitur.

once people starting looking at these things scientifically 40 hours turned out to be where productivity peaked

Do you know of any such studies? Another possibility is that it splits the day suspiciously evenly: one third to sleep, one third to work, one third argue on the internet. (Although most people think they spend a third working but actually it's more because of commuting.)

Literally just Google “ how many hours work daily for peak productivity” and you’ll find numerous studies.

Upshot is, we can only do 5-6h of peak performance. The 6th-8th hours we aren’t nearly as productive, and once it gets to 10-11h, productivity drops off a cliff.

In other words, after 6h, the output per h drops at an increasing rate, negating some of the benefits of working longer.

It also depends on the kind of work: extremely focused work (air traffic controllers, simultaneous interpreters) can only be done for about 2h without a break before focus fails and mistakes occur. Studying is similar: you can only do 2-3h of really effective studying without a break, which is why cramming for an exam for 8h is pointless: the marginal benefit of hours 4-8 are minimal. Whereas with e.g. manual labor or retail sales, later (fatigued) hours won’t be massively worse than earlier (fresh) ones, with anything where you have to really think, long days don’t make sense. It’s consuming more of the employees’ time without improving total productivity.

[Kasper]

Working late is an exercise in diminishing returns.  The percent increase in work becomes smaller while the percent decrease in free time becomes larger. 

8 hours work and 8 hours sleep makes it seem as though we have 8 hours free time but half of that is spent on things that are somewhat necessary: commuting, cooking/eating, waking up, getting ready for work, getting ready for bed, housework, exercising, etc.  We can call some of those things hobbies but their mandatory nature makes their classification as 'free time' debatable.

That leaves only about 4 hours for free time.  Working just 25% more, cuts our free time on work days in half and makes it impossible to do hobbies that require more than 2 hours.

[PlainName]

Literally just Google “ how many hours work daily for peak productivity” and you’ll find numerous studies.

If I came up with some definitive statement about something that you took issue with, you would ream me out for suggesting you do my research for me. He raised the studies so he should point to them if they exist. He can google if he wants.

[Zero999]

There's no prize at the end for having pissed away the most hours slaving away at a job

The hours we work are generally not related to what we'd like to do, so that's a bit of a non sequitur.

once people starting looking at these things scientifically 40 hours turned out to be where productivity peaked

Do you know of any such studies? Another possibility is that it splits the day suspiciously evenly: one third to sleep, one third to work, one third argue on the internet. (Although most people think they spend a third working but actually it's more because of commuting.)

Literally just Google “ how many hours work daily for peak productivity” and you’ll find numerous studies.

Upshot is, we can only do 5-6h of peak performance. The 6th-8th hours we aren’t nearly as productive, and once it gets to 10-11h, productivity drops off a cliff.

In other words, after 6h, the output per h drops at an increasing rate, negating some of the benefits of working longer.

It also depends on the kind of work: extremely focused work (air traffic controllers, simultaneous interpreters) can only be done for about 2h without a break before focus fails and mistakes occur. Studying is similar: you can only do 2-3h of really effective studying without a break, which is why cramming for an exam for 8h is pointless: the marginal benefit of hours 4-8 are minimal. Whereas with e.g. manual labor or retail sales, later (fatigued) hours won’t be massively worse than earlier (fresh) ones, with anything where you have to really think, long days don’t make sense. It’s consuming more of the employees’ time without improving total productivity.

I think it's reasonable of PlainName to ask about which studies you're referring to.

I haven't read any studies, but I'm willing to believe that 40 hours per day is just an average. It probably depends on many factors:

• The nature of the job:
  
  • physical excursion
  • stress
  • mental excursion
  • repetitiveness
• The commute
  
  • none: work from home
  • walking
  • cycling
  • bus
  • train
  • driving
• The person's
  
  • age
  • sex
  • health
  • their commitments outside of work
  • temperament

Note many studies are biased. If the person funding it wants people to work longer hours, or shorter hours, this might affect the results.

[RoGeorge]

The office beds story is bate.  It was not because he was planning to turn Twitter into a labor camp, so the 40 or other optimal number of hours per week debate is futile.  He put a bed there because it happened that some stayed over night anyway, sleeping on the office floor in a sleeping bag.  I've seen such a photo on social media, with a dude sleeping in a meeting room, on the floor.

It happened to me, too, here in Romania.  I've stayed over night at the office to finish whatever was to be done.  Happened only a couple of time over all the working years.  It was my choice entirely, and often been admonished next day for staying over night in the office.  I can understand why working over hours sometimes happens.  Talking about myself, I don't know why that happened at Twitter, and never worked for Twitter or for Elon Musk.

My point is, I can understand how one can choose to work over night even when asked to go home.  The dawn hours, somewhere between 4 and t am are the worst.  I would have loved to have a bad to crash on instead.

[Kasper]

I've seen a few times when Elon was asked how to be successful, his reply was along the lines of, 'it's not a guarantee but working 80 to 100 hours a week is a good start.  In 3 to 6 months, you can accomplish what would normally take 1 year.'

It is not surprising he brings beds to workplaces.

[vk6zgo]

I've seen a few times when Elon was asked how to be successful, his reply was along the lines of, 'it's not a guarantee but working 80 to 100 hours a week is a good start.  In 3 to 6 months, you can accomplish what would normally take 1 year.'

It is not surprising he brings beds to workplaces.

An even more advantageous thing is to start off wealthy!

[wraper]

I've seen a few times when Elon was asked how to be successful, his reply was along the lines of, 'it's not a guarantee but working 80 to 100 hours a week is a good start.  In 3 to 6 months, you can accomplish what would normally take 1 year.'

It is not surprising he brings beds to workplaces.

An even more advantageous thing is to start off wealthy!

He did not start wealthy. Tale about emerald mine is an utter BS.

[SiliconWizard]

I've seen a few times when Elon was asked how to be successful, his reply was along the lines of, 'it's not a guarantee but working 80 to 100 hours a week is a good start.  In 3 to 6 months, you can accomplish what would normally take 1 year.'

It is not surprising he brings beds to workplaces.

An even more advantageous thing is to start off wealthy!

He did not start wealthy. Tale about emerald mine is an utter BS.

Plus, starting wealthy is not a guarantee of achieving any success in business. Sure if you have lots of wealth and money working for you, you can just live a comfy life without doing anything.
But as to creating *successful* businesses, not that much. Many people having inherited have burnt large amounts of cash without achieving anything much.

[CatalinaWOW]

Regarding optimum productivity, it depends intensely on the type of job.  For mucking coal or digging ditches I would be surprised if the optimum per worker-hour is as high as 40.  But in overall facility performance it is easy to believe that the costs of operating four six hour shifts for example would exceed the benefits in productivity per person-hour.

On the other extreme the old time station engineer for broadcast TV and radio stations often weren't too busy.  They were needed intensely for hopefully short intervals when something went wrong and their knowledge and skills were needed.  I could easily believe that their productivity didn't change much with shift length until that shift length got in the area of 12 hours.

For many workers in large organizations there are only two or three really productive hours a day, usually at start or end of shift.  The rest is occupied with meetings, administrivia and grab assing.  Productivity changes with shift length depends heavily on which hours are eliminated. 

[james_s]

Upshot is, we can only do 5-6h of peak performance. The 6th-8th hours we aren’t nearly as productive, and once it gets to 10-11h, productivity drops off a cliff.

In other words, after 6h, the output per h drops at an increasing rate, negating some of the benefits of working longer.

That aligns pretty well with my typical work day. There is usually about 2 hours consumed by fluff such as meetings which are about 90% useless time to zone out for the few minutes that are relevant to me and whatever I'm doing. 5-6 hours of actual work over an 8 hour workday is probably about right.

[james_s]

He did not start wealthy. Tale about emerald mine is an utter BS.

According to Wikipedia, his dad gave him $28k to fund Zip2, not a bad chunk of change, but not what I'd call "starting off wealthy" either. It's not outside the realm of possibility for any random person with a viable business plan to obtain that sort of funding.

[james_s]

Plus, starting wealthy is not a guarantee of achieving any success in business. Sure if you have lots of wealth and money working for you, you can just live a comfy life without doing anything.
But as to creating *successful* businesses, not that much. Many people having inherited have burnt large amounts of cash without achieving anything much.

I read somewhere that it's very uncommon for family wealth to last more than 2-3 generations. Sooner or later you end up with somebody born into great wealth who develops no life skills other than pissing away large sums of money. My ex's mother for example inherited something like $2M when her dad passed away, she was nearly broke only around 3 years later. Still living in her ratty old doublewide that was not even paid off.

[SiliconWizard]

He did not start wealthy. Tale about emerald mine is an utter BS.

According to Wikipedia, his dad gave him $28k to fund Zip2, not a bad chunk of change, but not what I'd call "starting off wealthy" either. It's not outside the realm of possibility for any random person with a viable business plan to obtain that sort of funding.

Uh you bet. $28k? What do parents typically pay in the US for a 4-year degree for instance?

[james_s]

I haven't read any studies, but I'm willing to believe that 40 hours per day is just an average. It probably depends on many factors:

Of course it's going to be an average, some people struggle to be productive for 1 hour and dislike working at all, others are workaholics that can pull long hours indefinitely, they have no life or interest outside of work.

[james_s]

Uh you bet. $28k? What do parents typically pay in the US for a 4-year degree for instance?

Parents wealthy enough to afford it do. My parents couldn't afford to pay for my college, I was completely on my own there. I think even fewer are fortunate enough to have parents that would give them that much to try to start a business. Generally speaking college is a better investment, most startups fail. Most college degrees at least buy you something.

[wraper]

He did not start wealthy. Tale about emerald mine is an utter BS.

According to Wikipedia, his dad gave him $28k to fund Zip2, not a bad chunk of change, but not what I'd call "starting off wealthy" either. It's not outside the realm of possibility for any random person with a viable business plan to obtain that sort of funding.

It was among later funding round of $200K when business was already going.

[tom66]

Uh you bet. $28k? What do parents typically pay in the US for a 4-year degree for instance?

Not to mention he went to a private high school in ZA and would have needed funding to obtain a visa and live in the US.  There is doubt over his educational history though - he claims to have a BA in Physics, but allegedly he never completed the course and the university (UPenn) has no record of his degree(s).