Reddit Co-Founder Alexis Ohanian Speaks Out Against 'Always-On' Work Culture (wsj.com) 127
At The Wall Street Journal's Future of Everything Festival on Tuesday, Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian spoke out against the toxicity of "hustle porn" and how always-on work culture creates "broken" people. An anonymous reader shares an excerpt from the report: I've spoken out quite a bit about things like 'hustle porn,' and this ceremony of showing off on social [media] about how hard you're working," said Mr. Ohanian, who previously co-founded online discussion forum Reddit. "Y'all see it on Instagram and you certainly see it in the startup community, and it becomes really toxic." Business men in his position are rarely asked about juggling the requirements of their roles outside of work, like in their family, he said, and that contributes to unrealistic expectations that a job can reflect the entirety of anyone's identity as a human being.
"All of us who decide to start a company, we're kind of broken as people," because founders are often singularly-focused on the success of their venture, said Mr. Ohanian. Even with great mentors and investors supporting their vision, entrepreneurs tend to put a great deal of pressure on themselves to work harder than anyone else to achieve success and profitability. That psychological pressure is compounded by what he and others refer to as "hustle culture." "You have this culture of posturing, and this culture that glorifies the most absurd things and ignores things like self-care, and ignores things like therapy, and ignores things like actually taking care of yourself as a physical being for the sake of work at all costs. It's a toxic problem," said Mr. Ohanian. This issue isn't limited to technology companies, he added, noting that his acquaintances in finance and other industries also promote an unhealthy attitude that encourages 12-hour work days and few breaks. "Social media has made it possible to weaponize it to the point where, if [bragging about your difficult workweek] gets hearts, you're incentivized to keep pushing" the limits.
"All of us who decide to start a company, we're kind of broken as people," because founders are often singularly-focused on the success of their venture, said Mr. Ohanian. Even with great mentors and investors supporting their vision, entrepreneurs tend to put a great deal of pressure on themselves to work harder than anyone else to achieve success and profitability. That psychological pressure is compounded by what he and others refer to as "hustle culture." "You have this culture of posturing, and this culture that glorifies the most absurd things and ignores things like self-care, and ignores things like therapy, and ignores things like actually taking care of yourself as a physical being for the sake of work at all costs. It's a toxic problem," said Mr. Ohanian. This issue isn't limited to technology companies, he added, noting that his acquaintances in finance and other industries also promote an unhealthy attitude that encourages 12-hour work days and few breaks. "Social media has made it possible to weaponize it to the point where, if [bragging about your difficult workweek] gets hearts, you're incentivized to keep pushing" the limits.
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My dad beat me once for quoting this to him. True story.
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Hopefully not just for stiffing Allan Mogensen on the attribution.
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"AWWWWW! It's not a liquid. It's a great many pieces of solid matter that form a hard floor-like surface. AWWWW!!!" [youtube.com]--Peter Griffin.
Re:obligatory quote (Score:5, Interesting)
Work Smarter, Not Harder
I once actually had this thrown at me. I wish I'd kept the email.
I once submitted a project estimate to management of "X Man-months + Y calendar months (learning curve), as the project was on a new platform for my team -- OS we had never coded for, new toolset, etc... I received that "Work Smarter" in response. Project was delivered exactly "Y" months late.
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Then I found his childhood stash of comics.
Opps. (Score:4, Insightful)
A better answer is to not use social media. However, I can see why Alexis may not be on board with that. ;)
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So your solition against traffic deaths is never leaving the basement?
Managers manage (Score:2, Interesting)
Business men in his position are rarely asked about juggling the requirements of their roles outside of work, like in their family, he said, and that contributes to unrealistic expectations that a job can reflect the entirety of anyone's identity as a human being.
By the time you're managing a company, you ought to be good enough at managing that you know how to "juggle requirements." Managing your own life is something you should be able to do before you manage other people.
"Social media has made it possible to weaponize it to the point where, if [bragging about your difficult workweek] gets hearts, you're incentivized to keep pushing"
So......peer pressure. It's something you're supposed to learn to handle in high school. Be your own person.
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So......peer pressure. It's something you're supposed to learn to handle in high school. Be your own person.
Not really. The only time they talk about avoiding peer pressure is in the "Drugs Are Bad, Mmmm'Kay" units.
There is no attempt to teach it in the general sense. Though everybody is expected to learn how to repeat the words, and that the words are Virtuous. But if you were to describe an economic scenario involving peer pressure, few would understand that "cool" or "popular" means "peer pressure."
Pretty much only the people who still dislike something after they find out it is popular would notice. And by de
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So......peer pressure. It's something you're supposed to learn to handle in high school.
Humans are social creatures. Almost no adults are immune to peer pressure. Including you.
Re: Managers manage (Score:2)
The toxicity of our city (Score:2)
Stopped reading at "toxic". I don't want to get contaminated.
How is it posturing if you are actually working? (Score:2)
You have this culture of posturing, and this culture that glorifies the most absurd things and ignores things like self-care
I don't see where a culture of working hard does not also mean you can respect and support self-care. In fact it's people that work the hardest that probably also know what is needed personally to take real breaks to recharge as needed - no-one can work continuously forever, everyone needs to figure out what gives them energy and how they can make use of that.
It's also true that diffe
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A recent survey indicated that people really exaggerate their work hours in America.
Now, if you really are working a 70 week and have insufficient time for exercise then you have ZERO time for social media.
Yeah, yeah, come at me like an addict.
Which is why.... (Score:2)
Software Engineer or Rickshaw Wala (Score:5, Insightful)
The example I give to my kids is it does not matter how hard you work, it matters what you achieve. I point to a Rickshaw-wala (known as pedicab drivers in foo foo college campuses) to show a person who is obviously working much harder than me but not achieving a fraction of what I am achieving.
All we have in this life is time. Money is just a representation of stored time. You spend your time to get money and then you pay others to do your chores so you can save time. Ultimately its all about time and if you dont value your own time than you dont value yourself.
I have walked out of meetings using fake phone calls when I felt the meeting was drifting and no longer being usefull.
I will stop responding to clients who waste my time.
I will take the time to do leisure activities like playing video games.
The whole point is to work efficiently and create enough value/money so that you have free time to pursue leisure otherwise their is no point to life.
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What a pussy. I just say there is no longer any reason for me to be present and leave.
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Oh the irony of anon calling fake phone call guy a pussy. Best thing I've read all day. Thanks /.
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Yeah that only works if you are a developer working on a small piece of code easily outsourced to India. if you are working with people who you will need favors from in the future than some amount of social white lies help preserve relationships while preserving your time.
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Money is not stored time. That is fucking stupid.
Who has more free time, you, or the drunk guy on the corner?
Your screed needs a pile of caveats longer than the screed itself. Wouldn't it be simpler to use English? Money can buy goods and services, it cannot buy time.
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The drunk guy on the corner has 0 free time. Free time is not defined as when you have nothing to do its defined as time you are free to spend as you wish. For that you rbasic needs like food, shelter, clothing, health,security need to be met before you can do any leisure activity. The drunk guy is busy 24 hrs a days just staying alive in an environment where he can be mugged at any moment. He has 0 free time to do things he wants to.
BTW Just adding fucking to a sentence does not really turn it into a valid
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You're an idiot. Stop and talk to that guy. Ask him if he has free time.
Adopting an elitist definition of "leisure activity" does not actually take away a poor person's time.
That guy is on the corner because he insists on using all his time for his own purposes. He could probably get various forms of assistance, but it requires giving up his time to spend it in waiting rooms, and talking to perverted assholes behind desks who love paperwork. That's their perspective. They can't be bothered. They've given up
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There is no reason to work yourself to death for a company that doesn't give a shit.
You work 35 hours a week. Competition does 80. (Score:3, Interesting)
They will accrue more experience, and beat you every time.
But they'll burn out!
Not everyone burns out. The winners will self-select.
The only way to win is to not play. But we don't want to talk about that.
If you're here, and you're programming, you're smart enough to do something else with your life. Law, medicine, plumbing, electrical, do anything else.
Engineering and programming are terrible career choices with little or no protection in law.
Competition does 80. Has no life, misses point (Score:2)
They will accrue more experience, and beat you every time.
They will also cause more outages, screw ups and losses as opposed to someone who is well rested and cognizant.
But they'll burn out!
Then someone who has rested will come to the recuse because they will be capable of thinking of solutions a tired mind cannot. Once they burn out, they are done. Churn and burn is a saying based on observation.
Not everyone burns out. The winners will self-select.
Unless they are doing something they genuinely love to do.
The only way to win is to not play. But we don't want to talk about that.
Of course. If you know you have rights you won't be a happy slave.
If you're here, and you're programming, you're smart enough to do something else with your life. Law, medicine, plumbing, electrical, do anything else.
Engineering and programming are terrible career choices with little or no protection in law.
Law - boring. Medicine - very hard work mental breakdown mater
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Re: You work 35 hours a week. Competition does 80. (Score:3)
Nope, not me! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Nope, not me! (Score:4)
At one point, I was working for a company and they suddenly decided that each and every employee must be at their desks at 9:00AM. I had a long commute through LA traffic and would have to leave over an hour early to make sure that I got to work by 9:00AM. Needless to say, this did not apply to people who actually made this policy.
So if they expect me in at 9:00AM, I would leave at 5:00PM. On the button. My alarm would go off and I would pack up everything up and walk out. Whether I was in a conversation or not--5:00PM and I'm done.
I did this in front of the CEO at one point. When she asked why I left exactly at 5:00PM, I told her about this policy that had been enacted. Needless to say, the policy changed quickly after that.
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I have this nagging voice in the back of my head that no one cares about my degrees or certs and just let's me do stuff like this because I am in my thirties.
It can creep up on you (Score:2)
You may start out wanting to work reasonable hours and being willing to trade your own success for a less stressful life . But then you are part of or leader or a team, and you realize that by not putting in maximum effort you are hurting people other than yourself. Its much worse when the project is something you believe is important, not just something your and others are doing for a paycheck.
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. But then you are part of or leader or a team, and you realize that by not putting in maximum effort you are hurting people other than yourself.
Bullshit. If you're a leader, your entire job is to enable everyone else to put in maximum effort. Part of that is planning ahead. You can't plan if you're putting in maximum effort all the time. If all you do is fire-fight, you're not laying the foundations for a successful team.
I'd be much more shit at my job and be doing a disservice to those around me if I was putting in maximum effort. Thoughtful planning and the capacity to react to emergencies massively trumps maximum effort. Being at maximum effort
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I've worked with people who grind out 50+ hrs every week, and the chaos and fires that they create around them is almost never worth it.
Not only that but those fucking clowns think they're *awesome* because they're always fixing fires and being the hero. Code arsonists?
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In theory yes. In practice sometimes you don't have the resources (eg money you need), and no way to get it. I'm in physics not industry and its extremely cost competitive - different groups competing to build instrumentation are all pushing as hard as they can. If you try to work normal hours, you won't get any work. I wish it wasn't true, but it is. I warn people before I hire them that this isn't a job you do purely for money.
I expect some parts of industry are similar.
"Hustle porn" is inherently fake. (Score:2)
No one stands up for themselves anymore (Score:1)
I refuse to work more than 40. I also refuse to be salaried, and I'm in IT now for 21 years. If I have to work an occasional 40+, I WILL get paid for the difference. I don't want comp time, I want money. People need to get better at conveying their own value. I tell employers this in the interviews: "I am trading my time and talent for money and other tangible benefits. I will give you 40 hours of decent work every week. I will not arrive late nor leave early (barring unforeseen life events). I will not sta
On the other hand.... (Score:3)
Happy employees are more productive and creative than unhappy ones
There’s a limit to how much happiness you can get while you’re at work. Big gains in happiness can only be made by spending more time away from work.
The average person is only mentally productive a few hours a day no matter how many hours are "worked".
People know how to compress their activities to fit a reduced time. Doing so increases both their energy and their interests. The payoff is direct and personal –they go home early.
A Company can’t do much to stimulate happiness and creativity, but it can do a lot to kill them. The trick for the company is to stay out of the way. When companies try to encourage creativity it’s like a bear dancing with an ant. Sooner or later the ant will realize it’s a bad idea, although the bear might not.
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It depends. At some point its certainly not worth it. There are also different time scales. Short term (couple of weeks) I think most people can put in 12 hour days but beyond that I've found that they get less efficient. Long term it has to be less - but I think more gets done in 50 hour weeks than in 40 hour ones.
I wish I knew how to reduce this problem in competitive work. .
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LOL, your Dad that had a union job at the car plant?
"SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it."
Double LOL + facepalm
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Yeah, that was back when workers unionized. Now they just politely ask their employers for permission to have a protest, like they're still in fucking college.
But then, real unionization takes hard work. And hard work is toxic apparently.
Re: So being proud of working hard is toxic now? (Score:1)
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Unions aren't as much of a thing now because every time a Republican gets elected, they destroy them because weak unions make it easier for their rich masters to hoard money and further widen the wealth gap.
Re:So being proud of working hard is toxic now? (Score:4, Insightful)
There is no "brute force" involved when an internet publisher chooses not to publish your content anymore. That is actually called Freedom. Their press, their freedom.
Get your own damn press and stop whining about it.
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No, when it is their press, it is their choice, and that is called Freedom.
It is their prerogative to decide if threats, mobs, and lies are relevant, or not. That's called ownership of their press.
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+1 if I had mod points...
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It's not the complaining that bothers be about SJWs. Complaining is what the internet was created for. It's when they start trying to silence people who don't agree with their complaints, by brute force, that I have a problem with.
Exactly this - holy cow, it's fine to disagree, debate, argue, bitch and moan, whatever - but I too am getting tired of seeing all these people that try to silence opposing opinions. The course of intelligent discussion, and intellectual growth requires being exposed to opinions one may disagree with, and challenging the opinions of others - and themselves.
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They don't, though. To find someone complaining about "political correctness", I have to either visit a conservative website or one that allows anonymous commenting. I can step outside my office and walk for a couple of minutes and see multiple signs talking about why certain phrases are "problematic" or offend some XYZ group.
You probably see a lot more of the former on Slashdot because people can't be forthright about their beliefs offline without retaliation, and because a lot of Slashdot submissions are
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You bet it is toxic.
The human nervous system needs rest.
Young-uns can get by with less of it than over-40s. But people who consistently overwork themselves start to suffer serious stress-related illness, including depression which can be fatal.
Furthermore, people who publicly strut about how hard they work wind up creating an expectation that everyone should do that, which gives employers precedent to pressure their no-overtime-receiving employees for ever more hours.
Since your bad habits make things harde
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I might see your point if he were just talking about older workers neglecting their families to slave away in thankless corporate jobs and not getting any real benefit for their hard work. But he specifically references young people at start-ups as well. Yeah, when you're starting a new company and trying to achieve something, you're SUPPOSED to work hard. That is something to be proud of, not ashamed of.
Should Olympians be ashamed of working hard to get to the Olympics too? Should they not be proud of thei
Proud of 996? (Score:5, Insightful)
Working 12 hour days is horrible. Most of our ancestors risked their lives for the 40 hour work week. We're slipping back to labor rights in the 1890s.
Look, your dad probably worked a 9-5 (that is, a 40 hour work week). The idea he would give up some of his precious leisure time would probably repulse him.
996 955 (Score:4, Interesting)
Its been proven many times that people are not efficient beyond 40 hrs.
One of the companies I worked at had a toxic work culture. This is how it worked.
I was in at 830 , worked till 1230 took a 1 hr lunch and then worked 130 to 530 and left.
I got dirty looks so I decided for a few months to play along and do what everyone did.
So here is how it went.
900 AM People drift in. Spend 30 minutes in the break room cribbing about how tired they are since they went home from office at Midnight the previous day
930-1100 AM People work somehow. Still yawning. Most time spent fixing last nights bugs.
1100-1130 Am people take a cigarette/tea break and spend it cribbing about the workload
1130-100 People Work
1-2/230 People take long lunch break. They need to go do some chores as they had no time last evening to go to the phone shop or anything else
230-400 People work
4-430 People take a tea break and start talking about how we are still behind schedule and will probably need to stay late
430-530 People work
530-630 People stop people who are leaving on time to ask them clarifications/doubts as they will need that info as they are working late tonight. the plae is too noisy to get any actual work done
630-800 People work
800-830 Discussion on what to order for Dinner , from which restaurant and order dinner
830-900 People work
900- Dinner gets delivered. People take a break . Eat. Call home
1030-1130 People work. By this time they are making stupid mistakes which they will be fixing 930-1100 next day.
Also busy sending out emails on how they are blocked on things they need from the guys who left at 530 and they cant finish their tasks for the day.
1130- Leave for home.
1200- Get home and crash (The commute was actually efficient at this hour so did save 30 minutes as a 530 commute was 1 hr)
Total hrs spent in Office = 15 hrs
Total effective Work time = 6-7 hrs
Could have easily done the same with 830-1230+ 1330-1730 with 2 15 minute cigarette/coffee breaks.
And have seen their family in the evening but most of these people had arranged marriages and hated spending time at home.
Home did not have AC, the food sucked and they might actually be asked by their wives to tutor their kids on math.
No 9AM-12AM worked much better for them as they could just tell their wives I am working so hard, dont ask me to do anything at home.
(The bachelors may have had to cook instead of ordering food on the office dime.)
Needless to say I went back to my 830-1730 schedule and left as soon as I found a better position.
And oh they also had a culture of coming in on Saturday. I did that few times and that time was actually efficient as the office was quiet but it was not needed if you got enough quite time during the week. Sometimes I would come in 8 AM during the week to get quiet time till 9.
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I''m not 100% sure. I think 9-5 was mostly because of the multiple shifts timing (three 8 hour shifts beat two 9 hour shifts, even if an hour is missing from each one.) Also, paid lunch is a requirement in some states under some situations. For instance, in California if you have to remain on-site during lunch, it's paid.
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There is nothing wrong with having a work/life balance. But there is also nothing wrong with being proud of working hard. The two are not (usually) mutually exclusive.
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Shit, maybe. I can't even tell the parody stories from the real ones anymore. Sometimes I wonder if most SJW's aren't just trolling us, as if a significant proportion of the SJW movement were made up of deep-cover 4-Channers just seeing how far they can push the silliness without being found out, for the lolz.
Maybe you're too damaged to see it? (Score:1)
Try reading it again. The essay is about being broken as a human being, not about success in business.
Reality Cheque (Score:3)
We practice 9/9/6 and we're pretty successful here.
Yes, slavery was a very successful tactic for slave owners. However feel free to convert your obsequiousness into a memory of success because you lack the spine to assert your rights under Chinese law.
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