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I wonder how many people are on the opposite side of the equation ... I worked 130 hours a week and lost everything.

Somehow, I think the fact she is who she is leave people with the perception that working that much is what it takes.



Care to elaborate?


Survivor bias. We don't get to hear of the failures. Not in the news, at least. So, even if 130 is likely to destroy anyone, a very rare breed of people who have a crazy amount of energy may pull it off. Or maybe working 130 hours a week is too much even for them, but they survive anyway because they were such geniuses to begin with (not very rational geniuses, but still).

If we had more hard data from large, non-biased samples, then we would know for sure the various effects of working 130 hours for various people. Then, we could build advice on that. (Of course I currently have reasons to think that such a study would be a waste of time, and that we just shouldn't work that much, period.)


Sorry, I had meant I wanted the GP to elaborate on why he or she failed :)

I know all about survivorship bias so I yearn for stories of failure.


It's the survivor effect: you don't interview the people who worked 130 hours/week and never got to a viable product, or burnt out before they ever did a press release.




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