As usual, the problem is not 996 itself but comp. You can get 996, you just have to pay for it.

The reason Europeans don't want to do 996 is because the extra effort isn't fairly compensated.

OhMeadhbh 11 hours ago | parent | next [-]

if you surround yourself with people who are only motivated by money, you will believe that everyone is only motivated by money. if you surround yourself with people who are motivated by a creative urge to build something they can be proud of, you may start to believe that this is everyone's motivation.

it is often useful to think of people as only being motivated by one thing, to see clearly how application of that thing might change their behaviour. but if you believe that is the only thing that motivates them, you will have a very simplistic (and eventually incorrect) model of how they are motivated.

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Nextgrid 11 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Maybe 15 years ago I would've agreed because there was genuine innovation in tech where you could actually be passionate and proud of building it. "I want to work here because I want this product to exist" could've been a legitimate thing to say back in the day.

Nowadays with every market being saturated and tech being a race to the bottom quality-wise, what's there to be passionate about and/or proud of? Do you think people are proud of building yet another OpenAI wrapper or advertising surface? If they actually are proud of those I would feel pretty sad for them.

Also, the majority of landlords don't take payment in "passion" or "pride" and rents have skyrocketed since the glory days of tech.

	▲	OhMeadhbh 10 hours ago \| parent [-]
		i think it's still out there, but yeah, you have to wade through an amazing amount of poop to find it. insert here the joke about someone digging through the muck in a horse stable and the punch line is "there's got to be a pony in here somewhere."

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mothballed 11 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Many people aren't motivated by money so much as wanting to spend as much time they can with their family, where they find their creative energies most rewarding.

Making the most money per hour merely allows me to spend more time with my family rather than working more for less and giving my creative energies to greater society or an employer instead of directly to my wife and children.

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cmrdporcupine 12 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Not only is it rarely compensated, it's rarely effective.

Software work is bursty and creative, not mechanical and hourly.

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Nextgrid 11 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I think the occasional burst of activity can and does work, but it’s a budget you need to spend strategically and let it recover. Constant 996 indeed won’t work.

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OhMeadhbh 11 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

you are lucky to have lived a career where that is true. it is largely true in the states and sometimes true in startups. there are corners of the world where it is less true than one would hope.

	▲	Nextgrid 11 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		> there are corners of the world where it is less true than one would hope. And it's readily visible in terms of software quality and technological capability of the company.
	▲	cmrdporcupine 11 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		and the quality of software produced that way shows

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alephnerd 10 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

That's a good callout - I have found European employers and founders to be much stingier with salaries in comparison to those I've worked with in the Bay or Israel, but I feel a lot of this is because of much more conservative investors, with boards pushing back on more "realistic" compensation.

I've been adamant about paying 75th percentile TC - I want the employees in my portfolio companies to be extremely motivated, and that requires incentivizing employees and founders correctly

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youngtaff 10 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I wouldn't work 996 because I like having weekends off and a life outside work