
CEO of Shopify says long hours aren't necessary for success - doppp
https://www.businessinsider.sg/shopify-ceo-success-long-hours-40-hour-week-2019-12/
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merricksb
Active discussion here:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21892492](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21892492)
(489 points/217 comments)

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planetzero
You usually are forced to work long hours when:

-management mismanages your project -Sales sells customers on a new feature within a vastly reduced time frame..without consulting the development team -Management decides to change around the current goals of your project, without changing the deadline

I once was brought on to a new project as a consultant that originally had a
deadline of a year, this was reduced to 3 months after management dragged
their feet, and I was expected to get it done..with the same amount of
features in that new time frame.

I got it done in 6 weeks..but I had to work lots of extra hours to accomplish
this. Luckily, I was able to bill them as a consultant...and not as a regular
employee.

The crazy part is the company that gave me the project had a staff of salaried
developers that only work on these sorts of death march projects. They charge
a premium as a business..and probably do very well..but the stress of it has
got to be pretty bad.

He's right. You really don't need to work long hours..when you have a good
management team. But this is the exception to the rule in my experience.

~~~
winrid
> Sales sells customers on a new feature within a vastly reduced time
> frame..without consulting the development team

This was my life for years. We need this giant feature/product, because we
sold it, yesterday! We'd have jokes like "what startup are we building this
week?". I guess at least I can thank that atmosphere for being able to work
super fast.

The CEO at the time didn't really say no to any sale. But I didn't understand
why sales couldn't sync with product or engineering.

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beardedman
I worked for a company where the product manager asked me to work into the
evening to meet another deadline which he mismanaged (and which I flagged
weeks before).

He was met with a firm no (which ensued some very strange plaintive messages
from his side). I resigned about a month later.

I'm of the opinion that perpetually mismanaging deadlines, not only shows a
lack of expertise - but also a complete lack of professionalism (in regards to
the greater team).

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markorbida
Good luck convincing old school management on this. They measure productivity
by how long they see you at your desk. It's sad.

~~~
NetOpWibby
They’ll die out soon enough.

