It's almost impossible to be productive 100% of the time. Even with just 2h for lunch and all other crap, to get 9h of productive time you're taking about entering at 9AM and leaving at 8PM. No, thanks.
Being a founder isn’t about writing code all day - you don’t have to be operating at full mental capacity to be getting stuff done. You spend a ton of time talking to people, recruiting, writing emails, etc. IMO the notion that you can be more effective as a founder in < 8 hrs/day as if you work 8 hrs/day is a pleasant sounding falsehood.
I’m sure there are diminishing returns at some point, but I don’t think it’s before 8 hrs/day.
That's exactly my point; he shouldn't expect 8-9h of productive time from his workers, because there are always administrative tasks and meetings (not to mention more lowly vital necessities), and so that implies they're basically living in the company.
I believe requiring 10 hour work days are 1. unnecessary and 2. immoral.
10 hour work days IS outrageous. Maybe it's common in this industry, but that doesn't make it any less wrong.
And considering that most tech jobs are exempt, this is just a way of getting you to work more hours for the same amount of pay.
During the last century, we all agreed that a 40 hour work week was the standard. Let's keep it that way. I don't want founders and VC creeps prying the overton window in their favor.
This is key. I suspect one could start a really effective startup (while paying significantly below market for good talent) with a policy like "work six hours from 10-4 and then leave to do something that recharges you."
In practice that's what many engineers (and some non-engineers) would be doing anyway whether or not they're physically in the office.
Anyone with talent knows they can go get full pay in exchange for BSing for another couple hours a day and taking a long lunch. Easier to save that money and plan for early retirement.
We need to see a gradual reduction in expected working hours in the US. 30 is a good target.
Different people have different priorities; someone whose top priority is early retirement would take the extra BS hours, but someone who wants to have more free time now might take the company that offers shorter hours.
There's an advantage to a company offering shorter hours as long as there are fewer such jobs than there are people who want them.
I think it really depends what 'working' means. If it means to pick up the phone when it rings, a lot of founders have no problem working 23 hours per day. If it means doing high concentration, high focus work then some founders don't even find the focus to do it 2 hours every day.
I think the main problem is that founders often don't have clear rules when they are 'working'. Especially, it is very hard to quantify the 'readiness' aspect of their work.
Nevertheless, in my opinion there is nothing wrong in trying to achieve the 8 hours per day (mixed focus work) while trying to explicitly define non-working hours to get the required rest.
You're not that special folks, you have to work to get paid like everyone else.