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996

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1001 points genericlemon24 | 4 comments | 06 Sep 25 13:20 UTC | HN request time: 0.819s | source
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Aurornis ◴[06 Sep 25 14:29 UTC] No.45149578[source]▶
When founders put 996 in their job descriptions or Tweet about their 996 culture it’s a helpful signal to avoid that company.

The only time I’d actually consider crazy schedules was if I was the founder with a huge equity stake and a once in a lifetime opportunity that would benefit from a short period of 996.

For average employees? Absolutely not. If someone wants extraordinary hours they need to be providing extraordinary compensation. Pay me a couple million per year and I’ll do it for a while (though not appropriate for everyone). Pay me the same as the other job opportunities? Absolutely no way I’m going to 996.

In my experience, the 996 teams aren’t actually cranking out more work. They’re just working odd hours, doing a little work on the weekends to say they worked the weekend, and they spend a lot of time relaxing at the office because they’re always there.

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robterrell ◴[06 Sep 25 15:10 UTC] No.45149967[source]▶
If you're smart enough to get hired for one of these roles, and you're willing to work 996, be just a little bit smarter and found your own startup and take all the upside.
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throwawaymaths ◴[06 Sep 25 17:02 UTC] No.45150956[source]▶
> just a little bit smarter and found your own startup

does that work? how do you convince investors to give you money if you don't have a network/didn't go to stanford?

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petralithic ◴[06 Sep 25 17:27 UTC] No.45151194[source]▶
Not all startups are venture-backed.
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1. godelski ◴[07 Sep 25 05:05 UTC] No.45155551[source]▶
I don't think you answered the question. I'm pretty sure everyone knows this. But I think most people also know that it can be very difficult to pitch investors and that this is exponentially more difficult when you don't have the backing of some ostentatious pedigree.
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2. petralithic ◴[07 Sep 25 16:24 UTC] No.45159590[source]▶
> this is exponentially more difficult when you don't have the backing of some ostentatious pedigree.

This has not been the case these days, to be honest. While a pedigree helps, the playing field for investment has been much more level than, say, a few decades ago. Harder, sure, but exponentially more so, definitely not.

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3. throwawaymaths ◴[07 Sep 25 23:06 UTC] No.45163032[source]▶
Its not so much that.

Without pedigree, you get a pitch if you have something real and are lucky

With pedigree, you can pitch science fiction and get funded.

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4. godelski ◴[08 Sep 25 03:43 UTC] No.45164461{3}[source]▶
Yeah, this is the big problem I see. There's some startups I see that in their pitches have some big red flag like needing to violate the laws of physics. Yet, I see these funded.

It is extremely rare that I've seen such grotesque errors and this not have founding members from the MIT/Standford-esque crowd. A notable example is Rabbit R1, who clearly pitched science fiction, but then again Jesse Lyu has connections to Y-Combinator. On a side note, I lost a lot of respect for several researchers when I saw them promoting or talking about how impressive the R1 was after the announcement. I don't expect the public to be able to tell what's Sci-Fi (though there were clear signs of demo faking), but researchers (being one myself) should have clearly known such claims required orders of magnitude more advanced tech than what was currently available.