I honestly do not think it is about working crazy hours. perhaps my example can be misunderstood in a sense that if you give someone 7-figure bonus they will inevitably work 20hrs/day if necessary to get there which of course would not mean that they estimated correctly but were off by 12hrs/day :)

as things stand what is my incentive to provide an accurate estimate? if no one can question my estimate and hold me to it (well perhaps they can question it but we as industry have successfully been able to convince everyone that these are just estimates, nothing else...) what is my incentive to be accurate? If like one of the commenters above can say "it'll be 2 to 3 weeks" there is an INSANE difference between 2 and 3 weeks, 33% difference. it's like coming to buy a house and agent says "this house is $200k or $300k but you sign here on the bunch of dotted lines and we'll tell you all about it eventually before you have to cut a check." It is good to be in this industry (and especially if you WFH) - say 2 to 3 weeks, finish in 2 and get a week of working on your wellness (or another job :) )

> it's like coming to buy a house and agent says "this house is $200k or $300k but you sign here on the bunch of dotted lines and we'll tell you all about it eventually before you have to cut a check.

Not really with price, but when I've had my house built, the date was overshoot by about 30% too, because of various reasons, like having to stop for winter because some supplies were late by a week several times or my builders had to help teams at other places from time to time (because other teams were late too), not doing anything at my house sometimes for days. So even when building homes (something they do again and again) you can't really put exact estimates.