Hitting my mid-40’s with a reasonably successful multi decade career in tech and I’ve recently realized that some gigantic percentage (plurality, maybe majority) of all the hard work has gone into competing against the people around me for opportunities. Not into actual value creation for others, not in service of others, purely focused on beating out other people for the chances.
I’m not sure how to reorient myself. It’s extremely disturbing to look back and think that all the good stuff was a side effect of spending enormous energy trying to outcompete others for opportunity. I don’t want to keep doing things this way, but I also don’t know how to change.
I've worked for two companies who went public (the dream, right?) after becoming fairly successful and then were driven into the ground and sold off in pieces due to being horribly mismanaged by dispassionate, replacement management (should've sold sooner). I look back over the ~15 years of those happenings and I'm not sure that, in the long run, any valuation happens in the corporate culture. It all seems to be a game of Monopoly, set about by players with enough money to buy their way in, or lucky enough to leverage their way in on very rare occasions.
I can't tell you what will work for you, but I've decided for me that real change happens in small sections in myself and in people. It looks small and incremental, and the world seems large but sometimes that's enough... well, it is for me and that's one of the changes I've made to me... most of the time. It doesn't seem to be working as well, lately with all of the chaos in the world. I'm working on it, though =)
competition between organism is pretty fundamental to the way life works. Convincing humans (or any other lifeform) to turn that off is going to be a tall order.
It helps to classify things as coopetition - it is a matter of coordinating the group effectively. sometimes each person goes off and tries different strategies alone, and sometimes people share info and coordinate activities. The determinative factor is the problem to be solved. Some problems are bigger or big but well understood and you can cooperate pretty easily. Some are less well understood and you need to send people off to be mad geniuses in their labs.
Human default is pretty biased towards cooperation, what with our speech and long childhoods and social organization, but of course, as the great success of science these past few hundred years shows, sometimes you need the loners pushing towards a hard to find insight.
Of course, if you don’t care about solving problems or making things more pleasant and interesting and just want to optimize the number of dollars in your banks database, then maybe you wouldn’t care about the most efficient way to solve problems. In which case, good luck, but there are reports from people that have pursued that path that it doesn’t hold a candle to contributing to a Great Common Task.
This isn't true in the industry at large. To the degree it's true among the HN demographic it's true early in careers. People don't do that forever. If you have a family, you like the stability of a place and don't want to have to spend all of your nights and weekends grinding Leetcode and networking. Once you're in a senior position, it takes time to build the connections and reputation inside a company to be effective, and constantly moving is a disadvantage. Even if you're done being promoted, many people reach a point where they're earning enough to support their lifestyle and have other priorities. I have plenty of friends at companies like Microsoft, Google, and smaller boring companies HN doesn't care about that absolutely could switch jobs for another 20-40% in comp but would have to work twice as many hours a week to do so, and that's a bad trade.
If you could redirect the competitive effort normally required for nominal advancement into participatory co-operation instead, some incredible returns are unachievable any other way.
Too bad there is not normally the structure in place to better reward co-operation rather than competition.
A lot of people who are good in a capitalistic world, you know your finance people, lawyers, software engineers (@ FAANG) are kind of like race horses, they are born with ample intellectual capacity and spend their formative years competing with their peers to try to rise to the top (starting from middle school, high school, top uni, top company, top position etc...), they rarely ask themselves if what they are doing is even worth it for humanity, themselves, or posterity, they just run as soon as they are put in a race. Taking a step back and questioning this stuff is scary, especially if you are brought up to think that if you aren't running then you are falling behind.
I've always been confused by this, as most studies show around 5~ hours a day is the maximum your brain can do work that requires deep focus (programming etc). So what are these people doing where they can work 10+ hours days? You will see seriously diminishing (and often negative) results when overworking. You'll end up waking up the next morning cleaning up and fixing bugs from your overworked brain.
I think there's a significant amount of work that only needs to get done rather than needing deep focus, and this is especially true if you have tight deadlines. I know I could pretty easily fill up 10 hours of a working day on average. I just don't want to.
that's assuming the day is entirely deep work. it's not. lots of work is shallow work. not that I support grinding down at the expense of health/happiness, but for most people there's an unlimited amount of things that can go into the TODO.
The problem with a lot of these posts is that there's a spectrum of people.
On one end you have the sigma grind who work all the time and on the other those who don't do anything and complain.
Both are toxic in their own ways since accomplishment is so critical to self-worth. Yet, at the same time you have to listen to your body and rest.
I find that the happiest people don't read the hustle culture and just focus on their family and are happy with what they have.
The problem is some of us can't help but work so we have to accept that grinding is better than self-loathing. For some that's a false dichotomy, for others it is truth. That's sad.
as I've gotten older, I've learned that it matters where you invest your "extra capacity". If you invest it in leisure, it's often good for a time - but depressing in the long term, if you invest it in work - you can risk burnout. I'd argue that investing it in any particular area all the time will lead to some form of burnout.
The key is to look for where you get the most return on invested energy. There are times where work is a thankless grind that doesn't care if you put in 20 hours or 80. There are times where putting in an extra 5 hours leads to a promotion/accomplishment of note. When you have 40 hours of spare capacity, binging netflix is not going to make you happy in the long term.
At the office, expecting everyone to want and be able to put in 60 hours a week is going to be a problem. I did this for my first 3 jobs, and it caused friction with those who are putting in their 30/35. Ultimately, it lead to me burning out and changing jobs rapidly for 5 years - because I wasn't getting out of my job something commensurate with the extra investment I was putting in.
> I find that the happiest people don't read the hustle culture and just focus on their family and are happy with what they have.
I think something often missed is you have to learn what makes you happy. I feel like that should be a top priority (and it may very well turn out to be work that makes you happy). If you can figure out what brings you happiness and joy in your life then you can get started maximizing it.
I'm 46 and have done enough to look back and identify the happiest moments in my life, derive a pattern, and then work to maximize the chances of more of those moments. For me, it all revolves around relationships either with my kids, wife, family, or friends. Not once do my happiest moments involve a screen or my work so I don't chase those things. I work, and work hard, to provide for myself and family but that has never brought me joy. For me, working and work success is how i pay the bills and that's it.
> They don’t say that working on a meaningful mission will make you more fulfilled in life. That doesn’t sell. The idea that you should pursue something you genuinely care about, which has nothing to do with getting up at 4 AM in the morning, going to the gym, and working until 11 PM, is not so glamorous.
I’m so freaking glad to be out of the rat race.
For the record, I spend a significant amount of time, “working.”
I use the quotes, because what I do, doesn’t really feel like “work.” It’s a joy. It’s what I always wanted to do.
I also get up at 5AM, walk three miles, and “work” until bedtime, seven days a week. No one pays me, and I’m fine with that.
There is always a “grind” phase of my “work”; particularly when I approach release (I am in that phase, now, on my main project), but you always need to do that, when you ship anything. I still get great joy from shipping, so the “grind” is worth it.
I had to be forced into this position. No one would hire me, so I had to retreat.
I appreciate the idea behind this post, and it's true that chronic overwork is debilitating - but there are a lot of different ways to get things done that don't necessarily conform to the author's ideal conclusion.
For me, the 9-5 routine every single week is a toxic grind, with weekends off and all. My preferred work routine covers about the same hourly total, but it's basically three weeks on nonstop, one week off to recuperate and relax and do other things.
This is clearly not for everyone, but I think it has some similarities to how our ancestors lived. Say you're a Polar Inuit, and the caribou are migrating. You hunt caribou around the clock, then relax, store the product, take it easy for a while. Say you're a simple farmer, and it's harvest time, or planting time - you work around the clock to bring in the harvest/plant the crop, then take it relatively easy for a while.
In the modern world, if you're working on something complicated, there's this 'loading time' factor just to get the situation into your head. If it takes a few hours to get up to speed, and you have to do that every day, it's just wasted time. Get up to speed, work straight through with it all in your head, get some food and sleep, and the next day - you're still up to speed. This is far more productive (for complex work) than the awful 9-5 routine, and weekends surrounded by crowds of people are not that great, either. Much better to have a whole week off afterwards.
Where this goes off the rails is when some boss says, no, you don't get that week off, I need you to work like a slave every single week. This is a problem with the hierarchical nature of most modern human societies, and typically said boss is out at 2:00 every day for that important golf game where the important deals are made and the important cocktails are drunk, can't miss that. The construction boss who shows up at the site to 'oversee' for an hour or two is the classic example of this.
In our current society, the only real option for this kind of approach appears to be self-employment, which has a whole other set of problems.
work straight through with it all in your head, get some food and sleep
doesn't work if you have family.
there are other ways to get up to speed faster.
for me it is the layout of windows on my computer. as long as everything is exactly the way i left it the day before, and there are no other concerns i need to deal with. then i can get back into it quickly. that's why i really hate turning off my computer, and i'd like the idea of computers permanently keeping state, so i don't have to worry about keeping it running.
When the message is that there should be literally no second of your day that is left un-dedicated to improvement and making money. Yes mental illness is a good word for it.
If you do that you will become insane and quite literally die. You will also fail at hustling because the vast majority of people are not in physical condition to maintain this level of output.
The way I counter the "grind culture" is to have a more mellow view on things. The "grind" doesn't matter. It's mostly performative for little actual practical value. Rather, it's the small things done consistently over a long period of time that really add up.
Working "hard" is neither a small thing, nor is it sustainable over time, so I simply don't do that. Instead, I set my goals and timelines, have my team hold me accountable, use my good working hours to hit those goals with rock-solid reliability, and not force myself to work outside those good hours. There's no need to grind or panic at all, and I have plenty of non-working hours to pursue all the non-work things that matter to me.
having goals (short term and long term), a roadmap to get there, and executing puts you so far ahead of the curve of "hustle culture". All the blog posts, all the videos, all the discussion revolve around goals and meeting them. If you can already do that then you're already there.
I am still not 100% sure if “sigma male grindset” is a joke or not. It seems like one of those things that started as parody, but sincere believers showed up and took it over.
I thought the “10x developer” was a joke about how people associate being a jerk with being productive / success / having no time to work as an appropriate human / teammate.
I was more than a little horrified when I found people were serious…
In my experience, people's motivations and preferred working styles diverge basically as far as you can imagine. I know a guy who was putting in 70 hour weeks on a not-particularly-promising project for his new unfunded startup, and not even in a recreational way - he would specifically decline to hang out or play games with us because he was working.
There are some things that are zero sum or reasonably approximated by a zero sum game, and they are increasingly the tickets to multigenerational prosperity, namely real estate, promotions, job offers, and college admission slots. If you are a start up, your market can realistically only support X companies each getting a piece of the pie.
I contend that the rat race exists not because of collective delusion but because of basic economics.
we'll have a large recession - which will knock prices back down. The Fed has prevented this from happening but have to let the air out soon - but they have to make it look like it isn't their fault. (Cue gas prices)
You think it was coincidence numerous members of the Fed Reserve resigned ~6 months ago? They need to not be associated with the policies - and the Fed Reserve,as a private entity, knows that it needs alternate reasons / methods for a recession. Blame must always be passed in government. The easiest way to go into recession naturally - is bond market routs and high gas prices.
The Fed is aware that in today's 'cancel culture' a lot of public outcry that finally realizes the Fed's activities weaken it's future if political will becomes too strong. Thus it needs something to 'point to' for those whose brains freeze up when 'numbers' are involved.
With a lot of young people opting out of having kids and trying to find their own way in life, it would make sense that the anti-work and anti-hustler culture is much more prevalent in younger people (millenials being first). Its a generational shift first of all driven by oncoming climate disaster due to over population and will be felt through wars and hungers. Why should young people contribute to such a society and create more suffering in the process.
I am not an anti-natalist, but if we start talking multi-generational that's what it comes down to
It is true over a longer horizon, you lose that job opportunity to a better employee they can maybe excel and increase the pie and make it more likely they want to hire you or someone else, but over the short run I think it can be approximated with a zero sum game, there's one job opportunity (that you covet) and your victory comes at your competitors' expense and vice versa.
This may be less clear in tech and for us cause the boom times have been very good, but imagine a scenario like the big company in your small town is hiring, and that's your path to potentially a steady income. You don't know when they are hiring again, and your town's opportunities are limited.
In any case the idea that there aren't zero sum competitions in life (another example is competing for a certain romantic partner, something I didn't even mention which i realize is implicitly perhaps behind a lot of this among young people) is a myth that a lot of people push because they simply don't like competition and competing I think. Not only are there zero sum or approximately zero sum games in life, they are among the most impactful ones.
Also greed. For more and more people, "enough" is never enough. This is reflected in the increasing sense of FOMO in some circles and appeals to greed like the "have fun staying poor" meme in crypto.
It's telling that conservative groups that rail against the sins of lust, gluttony, sloth, and envy usually leave out pride, greed, and wrath.
Nobody is actually promoting to work from when you wake till late at night to make a dollar. Even if you go fully into hustle culture the goal isn't to drink on a yacht - it's to accomplish important self goals like writing a screen play or publishing a book.
The point of work is to contribute to society. Sustaining your own life is a side-effect, though it is an important one, as it allows you to contribute more to society. Overworking can negatively impact how much you can contribute, so in that sense it should be avoided.
I wager the vast majority of people take the polar opposite view: the point of work is to do what's necessary to survive, ideally to thrive. Contributing to society is nice if it can be managed, but it definitely comes further down the list of "things I need to do" for most folks.
A lot of people are working lots of hours but their output doesn't match their effort. They "work" 12 hour days and only provide some fraction of that in real value due to distraction and procrastination and whatever else they sink their time into. But chaining yourself to a desk for 12 hours and complaining is a lot easier than developing the discipline and focus to put in a solid day's effort.
There are plenty of jobs that don't need to exist at all. No amount of discipline and focus will turn a bullshit job[1] into one that contributes something meaningful. Perhaps we need to normalize working less so the burden/gift of "real" jobs can be split more evenly.
Bullshit Jobs exist because we've set up society so that people need to work in order to "earn" their life. If everyone's needs were suddenly met, and work was optional, these jobs would vanish overnight.
The world has far, far, FAR more productive capacity than actual problems needing to be solved, but since everyone has to do something to make money, we dig holes for someone to fill them in, create checkboxes so someone can check them.
"We should do away with the absolutely specious notion that everybody has to earn a living. It is a fact today that one in ten thousand of us can make a technological breakthrough capable of supporting all the rest. The youth of today are absolutely right in recognizing this nonsense of earning a living. We keep inventing jobs because of this false idea that everybody has to be employed at some kind of drudgery because, according to Malthusian Darwinian theory he must justify his right to exist. So we have inspectors of inspectors and people making instruments for inspectors to inspect inspectors. The true business of people should be to go back to school and think about whatever it was they were thinking about before somebody came along and told them they had to earn a living." -- Buckminster Fuller
The author does explicitly mention "getting up at 4 AM in the morning, going to the gym, and working until 11 PM" so I think he might be on the same page as you.
This is disappointing to see on the front page as it's the 600,000th article since 2007 about why family and health are better life priorities than work.
As usual the author, who invariably lives in the white collar tech-bubble, and therefore is bombarded with "hustle culture" stuff in their LinkedIn etc...sets up a strawman and then attempts to dismantle it:
>This is a universal longing in a capitalist world — getting ahead of others is the holy grail of life. Why else would you be living if not to have more material things than others?
I'm pretty well read in philosophy and economics and I have never once ever heard a serious and well considered argument that material wealth accumulation is a normative goal for any system.
Someone please point me to a large subset of people or even one serious philosopher who would make this claim.
Further, even the hustle culture people (of whom I'm no fan) don't even make this claim.
Of course every single author of one of these pieces inevitably gives the literal exact same advice on what SHOULD be considered the priorities and wouldn't you know it looks eerily similar to what people self-report as where they find meaning.
Yawn. As a community lets promote better stories to the top.
Did you ever try Clubhouse? It was just endless channels of “get rich with this one simple trick” type stuff. Not a lot of nuance, just cynically preying on people with the “you know you are better than others, pay me to help you reach your potential” types of scams.
It's an inevitable part of late-stage capitalism, no? Union busting, off-shoring, and imported labor are all needed to prop up the system. Pair this with ever-increasing costs of living and you get a collapsing society. But hey, at least you get cheap goods right?
Well, maybe I should have re-phrased it to "Capitalism with maximizing shareholder value characteristics". Toss human nature on top of that, and you're biased towards "late stage capitalism".
I disagree. My context - I am an ardent, to the core capitalist - but a humane capitalist.
I believe in continued failure until success. Letting failure die.
Capitalism in it's current form has it's incentives mis-aligned. When aligned correctly, and not solely chasing the highest returns or Internal Rate of Return - capitalism can be the most potent force I feel on Earth.
Why? Because it aligns humans incentives (do better, provide more for self & family) with growth.
Yes, I agree. My criticism is of the current form of capitalism that is so entrenched that we won't ever seem to escape without some kind of forced reset.
Totally agree - lawmakers (who are currently attorneys) should be replaced with engineers & company leads need CEO & CFO priority re-alignment, although that is asking a whole lot.
It's like article author has never watched a nature documentary where gorillas kill other gorillas for territory (or most other species similar).
Humans are bell curve like all other species. Nature rewards either strength, physical advantage, or mental advantage.... and there is constant competition. That's just the way it works in human nature.... humans are wired that way.
You either participate, don't, or find a different way. Griping about it accomplishes little. The gorilla that is sad he's not a silver back gets his skull crushed.
Just because it happens in nature, doesn't mean it's good. I don't really understand the "gets his skull crushed" part. Is that supposed to mean something like "If you continue to feel bad in a way that interrupts 'the grind' you will be crushed so stop feeling bad"? That mindset doesn't sound like something that most people can or should participate in. It sounds toxic.
Grinding hard is being sold to people as some kind of normal that everyone should participate in. And people buy into it, myself included. Maybe I'm not a so-called Silverback and I think this article (short essay?) is trying to validate that it's OK.
In the end, I do agree with "either participate, don't, or find a different way" but I think it might be a tad dismissive to call this "griping" unworthwhile. In order to push back against the culture of grinding, we gotta start somewhere, even if it's by "griping".
Humans are biased biologically towards cooperation. E.g. language skills and social organization into small groups, extended childhood, ability to empathize with outhers emotional states.
Humans who are not part of a group do not live long or well. Competition is just an artificially set up arrangement to find good solutions where the answer isn’t that obvious, like the allocation of goods and services in a multi-producer, multi-consumer money based economy. Free markets can work quite well when they avoid concentration of power in large corporations that start to violate the axioms of a free market, or when the corporations can overwhelm the government and stop regulation. But the sense of competition of all against all they seem to inspire is not accurate.
i don't know why you were downvoted. I mentioned basically the same in another comment, you can't just turn off competition between humans. Competition is a fundamental component of all known life. You can opt out but then complaining that the rest of humanity has not chose to opt out isn't really fair.
Because without cooperation you don’t get the internet, you don’t get compilers, you don’t get HTML on top of C. And humans are strongly biased towards cooperation. Saying everything eats each other is flat wrong about people. Better to understand cooperation and competition as two ends on a continuum of “how to allocate people to solve problems”.
I think the argument is that "grinders" are doing themselves a disservice? I.e. a competitive strategy would be to make your competitors burn out and cheer the chrunch culture while you yourself slack off.
I don't disagree that 'it' isn't a zero-sum game. I'm a proponent of 'humane capitalism' (term I made up) ..... which dials back the sociopathic nature of capitalism to be a society multiplier, rather than resource hoarder.
An example - although people disagree with Musks's methods, an alternate version of Tesla/SpaceX that treats employees more well rounded like, would be a great model. Advancing society, and helping those involved in creating it.
I’m not sure how to reorient myself. It’s extremely disturbing to look back and think that all the good stuff was a side effect of spending enormous energy trying to outcompete others for opportunity. I don’t want to keep doing things this way, but I also don’t know how to change.