Mark Lucovsky of Google came by Mini-Microsoft and bragged “I worked until 3 a.m. and guess what. I wasn’t the last one in my area of the building the leave! There was plenty of company. All these guys are proud of their work, love what they are doing, and wanted to nail their deadlines and then take a few days off for the holidays.”
Keep in mind here that Mark is an industry leader that’s paid many times my salary of less than $100,000 a year. His comment pisses me off. The implication that workers at Microsoft aren’t proud of their work or don’t work hard is just totally unfair. Come watch some videos over at http://channel9.msdn.com and tell me those folks don’t care about their work. I’ve done more than 500 interviews now and there isn’t a single non-passionate person among them. How does Mark explain that? At least in my experience. But, I don’t want to glorify late-hour work. It should be voluntary and not forced on workers by people in leadership positions (and, sorry, when a guy who makes several times what I’m making tells me I should work harder to be “cool” that pisses me off).
Keep in mind I know many coworkers who spent most of the last month overseas doing Visual Studio/SQL/Biztalk launches. I also know quite a few people who were pulling late hours recently to get Windows Vista done. And, ask anyone in the Xbox team how much rest they’ve gotten lately.
Of course, I shouldn’t throw rocks. It’s 3 a.m. here at home. But I’m not an executive who manages other people like Mark is.
But, what do you think of managers who value around-the-clock-in-the-office kind of work? Oh, and Mark, do you count your 20% time out of an ordinary 40-hour-workweek? Or out of your 80-hour superweek?
Scobleizer 
Of course if you find yourself working late so often you have to question the deadlines you are aiming for.
Sure a temporary push is all well and good if you are hammering away at one thing you just want to get done, or to meet a release date, but if you’re working late for anything over 2 weeks then there is something seriously wrong with your time estimates or the process to setup your deadline.
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Of course if you find yourself working late so often you have to question the deadlines you are aiming for.
Sure a temporary push is all well and good if you are hammering away at one thing you just want to get done, or to meet a release date, but if you’re working late for anything over 2 weeks then there is something seriously wrong with your time estimates or the process to setup your deadline.
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I found a long time ago that if I didn’t have time to relax – even if it’s just a night bumming out in front of the TV, or lurking on Channel 9 – that my work suffers. Many others have found the same – overtime breeds poor code which breeds rework. In the end you don’t get any more software out of the programmers, but you get significantly more stress, which can breed resentment.
The Extreme Programming people have enshrined the forty-hour-week as one of their core practices. You can do occasional overtime but shouldn’t do a second week of overtime in a row.
Of course everyone is different and if someone wants to work lots of overtime, you probably shouldn’t stop them if they’re still being effective, and they’re doing it because they want to, not because they feel they have something to prove. But it’s not healthy.
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I found a long time ago that if I didn’t have time to relax – even if it’s just a night bumming out in front of the TV, or lurking on Channel 9 – that my work suffers. Many others have found the same – overtime breeds poor code which breeds rework. In the end you don’t get any more software out of the programmers, but you get significantly more stress, which can breed resentment.
The Extreme Programming people have enshrined the forty-hour-week as one of their core practices. You can do occasional overtime but shouldn’t do a second week of overtime in a row.
Of course everyone is different and if someone wants to work lots of overtime, you probably shouldn’t stop them if they’re still being effective, and they’re doing it because they want to, not because they feel they have something to prove. But it’s not healthy.
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well put…it’s become a culture for tech. ppl now…as if it’s THE parameter to measure how effective u are in the workplace…
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well put…it’s become a culture for tech. ppl now…as if it’s THE parameter to measure how effective u are in the workplace…
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Actully is gets part of your passion. We always burnt the mid nite oil. Corporations are now understanding the 20/80 rule !! In fact certain areana its like 50/50 + go figure the amount of idea churn happening !!
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Actully is gets part of your passion. We always burnt the mid nite oil. Corporations are now understanding the 20/80 rule !! In fact certain areana its like 50/50 + go figure the amount of idea churn happening !!
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$100,000 (US) = £57,000 (UK) which is 3x as much as I earn. Eeek!
Average house price is £150,000 (2 bed rooms)
Got to get a job blogging for microsoft. One ticket to easy street please.
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$100,000 (US) = £57,000 (UK) which is 3x as much as I earn. Eeek!
Average house price is £150,000 (2 bed rooms)
Got to get a job blogging for microsoft. One ticket to easy street please.
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Of course, you’re taking his bravado at face value. Even if people at Google really work those hours, it could also be because of chaotic management and understaffing.
His point, though, is that Google is a young hungry company out to change the tech landscape — and they’ll have to be to become other than a single income source advertising company that reaches 90% of their customers via a competitor’s platform…
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Of course, you’re taking his bravado at face value. Even if people at Google really work those hours, it could also be because of chaotic management and understaffing.
His point, though, is that Google is a young hungry company out to change the tech landscape — and they’ll have to be to become other than a single income source advertising company that reaches 90% of their customers via a competitor’s platform…
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I’ve been in the computer business for over 30 years and have concluded that there are only three reasons to work more than 40 hours a week on a regular basis. One – you are incompetent. Two – your management is incompetent. Three – you have no ability to socialize with others. I.e. No life. The third is the worst because it means you can’t relate to customers and so your product will ultimately fail in the consumer market. Number two seems to be the most common though. Someone tell me which of these explains what is going on at Google. The answer “none” is not credible. If lots of people at Google are working more than 40 hours a week on a regular basis the stock is way overvalued.
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I’ve been in the computer business for over 30 years and have concluded that there are only three reasons to work more than 40 hours a week on a regular basis. One – you are incompetent. Two – your management is incompetent. Three – you have no ability to socialize with others. I.e. No life. The third is the worst because it means you can’t relate to customers and so your product will ultimately fail in the consumer market. Number two seems to be the most common though. Someone tell me which of these explains what is going on at Google. The answer “none” is not credible. If lots of people at Google are working more than 40 hours a week on a regular basis the stock is way overvalued.
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I agree with Alfred. Very rarely are you working more than 40 hours a week because you have to. In all my jobs the people that work more than 40 hours are usually the ones that are busy talking or surfing the web during the day instead of being productive. They then have to work late to meet deadlines. There is an occasional time when something has to be done and you work late…that is part of being in IT, but it is rare. I would rather hire and work with well rounded people. They come in refreshed and ready to work…and are eager as opposed to being tired and dreading coming to work.
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I agree with Alfred. Very rarely are you working more than 40 hours a week because you have to. In all my jobs the people that work more than 40 hours are usually the ones that are busy talking or surfing the web during the day instead of being productive. They then have to work late to meet deadlines. There is an occasional time when something has to be done and you work late…that is part of being in IT, but it is rare. I would rather hire and work with well rounded people. They come in refreshed and ready to work…and are eager as opposed to being tired and dreading coming to work.
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atually they are all working on the planet celebrations via google earth :)-
I posted my thoughts here
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atually they are all working on the planet celebrations via google earth :)-
I posted my thoughts here
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Robert, I wouldn’t take Mark’s comments too seriously – or too personally either. He says, “Microsoft is just a safe place to collect a paycheck”. Well – of course it is. But what does he think Google is?! Does Mark actually believe a company with over three thousand employees is jam-packed full of entrepreneurial risk-takers? Does he think a company with three thousand employees is full of individuals that want to “make a difference”?
This is just not how the world is: entrepreneurial risk-takers don’t go to work at companies with thousands of employees! To believe that would be extraordinarily naive.
I don’t know him, but I’m sure Mark isn’t naive. So the other likely explanation is that his comments were simply aimed at recruiting. He probably just wants good people to jump ship.
And, of course employees at Microsoft and at Google are proud of their work. And, by the way, there’s nothing wrong with people wanting a secure job, either. Nothing wrong with being a risk-taker either. People are different, that’s all.
It will be interesting to see what happens at Google once the share-price growth tails off (as it *always* does). It’s trivial to maintain a happy, enthusiastic workforce when everything’s going well. The test of an organisation is how it handles the bad times.
Google’s challenge now is to transition the corporate culture into one that’s effective for the large organisation that it is. It is not easy to grow a company to the the size of Microsoft (60,000+), and be able to sustainably put billions of profit into the bank every quarter. It’s going to be a lot of fun watching Google try to grow, and trying to maintain its shareprice growth…
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Robert, I wouldn’t take Mark’s comments too seriously – or too personally either. He says, “Microsoft is just a safe place to collect a paycheck”. Well – of course it is. But what does he think Google is?! Does Mark actually believe a company with over three thousand employees is jam-packed full of entrepreneurial risk-takers? Does he think a company with three thousand employees is full of individuals that want to “make a difference”?
This is just not how the world is: entrepreneurial risk-takers don’t go to work at companies with thousands of employees! To believe that would be extraordinarily naive.
I don’t know him, but I’m sure Mark isn’t naive. So the other likely explanation is that his comments were simply aimed at recruiting. He probably just wants good people to jump ship.
And, of course employees at Microsoft and at Google are proud of their work. And, by the way, there’s nothing wrong with people wanting a secure job, either. Nothing wrong with being a risk-taker either. People are different, that’s all.
It will be interesting to see what happens at Google once the share-price growth tails off (as it *always* does). It’s trivial to maintain a happy, enthusiastic workforce when everything’s going well. The test of an organisation is how it handles the bad times.
Google’s challenge now is to transition the corporate culture into one that’s effective for the large organisation that it is. It is not easy to grow a company to the the size of Microsoft (60,000+), and be able to sustainably put billions of profit into the bank every quarter. It’s going to be a lot of fun watching Google try to grow, and trying to maintain its shareprice growth…
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Not everyone needs to work until 4am to nail a deadline…
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Not everyone needs to work until 4am to nail a deadline…
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Being dependant on people working 100 hour weeks is an unsustainable business model. I’ve been at companies where everyone did it, and I’ve watched plenty of others. It’s all well and good when everyone is passionate about what they are doing, when the stock is tripling, and when everyone is young and single. But when the company goes through hard times, the stock is flat, and people’s marriages are at risk, what then? Will they still be passionate and stick around, or do they quit once their stock vests?
I, for one, have been impressed with teh level of passion of most of the folks I’ve met since starting at MS. And it’s not because their net worth is skyrocketing. It’s because they beleive in what they are working on and that they can make a difference.
My 2c.
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Being dependant on people working 100 hour weeks is an unsustainable business model. I’ve been at companies where everyone did it, and I’ve watched plenty of others. It’s all well and good when everyone is passionate about what they are doing, when the stock is tripling, and when everyone is young and single. But when the company goes through hard times, the stock is flat, and people’s marriages are at risk, what then? Will they still be passionate and stick around, or do they quit once their stock vests?
I, for one, have been impressed with teh level of passion of most of the folks I’ve met since starting at MS. And it’s not because their net worth is skyrocketing. It’s because they beleive in what they are working on and that they can make a difference.
My 2c.
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Man, I couldn’t imagine having to work those kinds of hours. I’ve been insomniacing lately and it’s taking it’s toll on me. If I was working 16 hour days there wouldn’t be enough time to sleep. I would become the walking undead – truly useless during any time during or after the day.
I firmly believe that to be effective, you need to have as much sleep as your body needs. If you can work 16 hours and run on about 4 hours of sleep (you’ve got to eat and come down from coding too… not to mention shower and be social), then more power to you.
It’s definitely not fo rme.
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Man, I couldn’t imagine having to work those kinds of hours. I’ve been insomniacing lately and it’s taking it’s toll on me. If I was working 16 hour days there wouldn’t be enough time to sleep. I would become the walking undead – truly useless during any time during or after the day.
I firmly believe that to be effective, you need to have as much sleep as your body needs. If you can work 16 hours and run on about 4 hours of sleep (you’ve got to eat and come down from coding too… not to mention shower and be social), then more power to you.
It’s definitely not fo rme.
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So if Google folks worked until 6 a.m., would they be able to work on the seemingly unsolvable problem (see below) of providing readers of Mr. Lucovsky’s and Mini-Microsoft’s Blogger weblogs with a way to view the next or previous 10 blog posts on a new page?
🙂
IMHO, folks might be a tad more critical of blatant shortcomings in Google’s software (e.g., no readily visible delete option in Gmail!) if they actually had to pay for it…
_______________
Blogger Support to me
More options Aug 12
Hi ___,
We do not currently offer the feature you are requesting. I apologize for the inconvenience.
Please see our Blogger Help article for details for how to list your 10 previous posts on your sidebar:
http://help.blogger.com/bin/answer.py?answer=733
Sincerely,
Stephanie
Blogger Support
Original Message Follows:
————————
From: ______________
Subject: Re: [#261387] Next 10, Previous 10 Posts?
Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2005 09:58:48 -0500
– Hide quoted text –
Haven’t been able to find anything on what seems to be a simple problem:
How do I provide a way for blog readers to view the next or previous 10 posts on a new page, i.e., browse back and forth a page of posts at a time?
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So if Google folks worked until 6 a.m., would they be able to work on the seemingly unsolvable problem (see below) of providing readers of Mr. Lucovsky’s and Mini-Microsoft’s Blogger weblogs with a way to view the next or previous 10 blog posts on a new page?
🙂
IMHO, folks might be a tad more critical of blatant shortcomings in Google’s software (e.g., no readily visible delete option in Gmail!) if they actually had to pay for it…
_______________
Blogger Support to me
More options Aug 12
Hi ___,
We do not currently offer the feature you are requesting. I apologize for the inconvenience.
Please see our Blogger Help article for details for how to list your 10 previous posts on your sidebar:
http://help.blogger.com/bin/answer.py?answer=733
Sincerely,
Stephanie
Blogger Support
Original Message Follows:
————————
From: ______________
Subject: Re: [#261387] Next 10, Previous 10 Posts?
Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2005 09:58:48 -0500
– Hide quoted text –
Haven’t been able to find anything on what seems to be a simple problem:
How do I provide a way for blog readers to view the next or previous 10 posts on a new page, i.e., browse back and forth a page of posts at a time?
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Preach it Scoble!!! I totally agree with you entirely and I am glad the comments here have called Marc out on this sort of ridiculous practice.
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Preach it Scoble!!! I totally agree with you entirely and I am glad the comments here have called Marc out on this sort of ridiculous practice.
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As a Google fan, I find Mark’s bragging about working until 3am alarming. Let’s hope that 1) he’s a bachelor and 2) this is not his “passive aggressive” way to push those who work under him to work longer hours.
Passion is one thing, but staying in the office until 3am is out of touch. Sad to say, people who think like Mark are aplenty in all industries. I worked in the movie business and would be the first one to admit that I had “once” (not any more) thought working insanely long hours was equivalent to being productive.
Another serious issue is that many department heads do this to “set an example” for their subordinates; translation — these managers are simply being “benign slave-drivers”. You could bet that Mark’s subordinates who are willing to slave away for long hours get preferential treatment come bonus-doling-out time.
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As a Google fan, I find Mark’s bragging about working until 3am alarming. Let’s hope that 1) he’s a bachelor and 2) this is not his “passive aggressive” way to push those who work under him to work longer hours.
Passion is one thing, but staying in the office until 3am is out of touch. Sad to say, people who think like Mark are aplenty in all industries. I worked in the movie business and would be the first one to admit that I had “once” (not any more) thought working insanely long hours was equivalent to being productive.
Another serious issue is that many department heads do this to “set an example” for their subordinates; translation — these managers are simply being “benign slave-drivers”. You could bet that Mark’s subordinates who are willing to slave away for long hours get preferential treatment come bonus-doling-out time.
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Robert,
I didn’t take his comment to imply that Microsoft employees aren’t proud of or don’t care about their work.
Read the rest of his comment – it’s about the differences in work/life balance (which contributes to differences in overall energy) he’s seen at Google vs. Microsoft having worked at both places.
I’ve written a little about this on my blog too:
http://adamjh.blogspot.com/2005/12/work-hard-play-hard-at-google.html
http://adamjh.blogspot.com/2005/11/work-hard-play-hard-vs-work-life.html
From what I remember, when you returned from your visit to Google, the energy level and dedication of their employees struck you enough to send out a kick-in-the-butt email telling us Microsofties about it.
Also, I think it’s silly to suggest that if you were making more money you would be more inclined to work harder/longer. First, $100,000 is quite a chunk of change. There are tons of people out there that work twice as hard/long as any of us and make little or nothing compared to it. Second, I think you’ll find that as time goes on, people in comfy jobs making 6 figures tend to work less than eager kids rushing through the starting gates out of college who are used to staying up all night coding and can’t wait to do the same with bright, smart people at their new jobs.
It’s about lifestyle, workstyle, corporate culture – not money. Why do contributors to opensource projects work so hard? Money?
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Robert,
I didn’t take his comment to imply that Microsoft employees aren’t proud of or don’t care about their work.
Read the rest of his comment – it’s about the differences in work/life balance (which contributes to differences in overall energy) he’s seen at Google vs. Microsoft having worked at both places.
I’ve written a little about this on my blog too:
http://adamjh.blogspot.com/2005/12/work-hard-play-hard-at-google.html
http://adamjh.blogspot.com/2005/11/work-hard-play-hard-vs-work-life.html
From what I remember, when you returned from your visit to Google, the energy level and dedication of their employees struck you enough to send out a kick-in-the-butt email telling us Microsofties about it.
Also, I think it’s silly to suggest that if you were making more money you would be more inclined to work harder/longer. First, $100,000 is quite a chunk of change. There are tons of people out there that work twice as hard/long as any of us and make little or nothing compared to it. Second, I think you’ll find that as time goes on, people in comfy jobs making 6 figures tend to work less than eager kids rushing through the starting gates out of college who are used to staying up all night coding and can’t wait to do the same with bright, smart people at their new jobs.
It’s about lifestyle, workstyle, corporate culture – not money. Why do contributors to opensource projects work so hard? Money?
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Maybe this is why Mark L hasn’t updated his blog since May – too much work. Seriously, life is short, enjoy it. I just got back from my lunch walk.
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Maybe this is why Mark L hasn’t updated his blog since May – too much work. Seriously, life is short, enjoy it. I just got back from my lunch walk.
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yes, life is short and we should enjoy it. Sometimes, for some people, that means working longer hours instead of shorter hours, but that’s up to the individual.
I think that’s where MarkL’s argument breaks down for me — how does he know what would make my life more fun or rewarding? That’s up to me! And I still can’t get it right half the time. 🙂
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yes, life is short and we should enjoy it. Sometimes, for some people, that means working longer hours instead of shorter hours, but that’s up to the individual.
I think that’s where MarkL’s argument breaks down for me — how does he know what would make my life more fun or rewarding? That’s up to me! And I still can’t get it right half the time. 🙂
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Notice that MarkL is absent from any discussion here as well. He’ll lurk on Mini’s site, but doesn’t update his own blog or engage in discussion. Weak if you ask me.
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Notice that MarkL is absent from any discussion here as well. He’ll lurk on Mini’s site, but doesn’t update his own blog or engage in discussion. Weak if you ask me.
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The only company you should give more than the minimum 40 hours a week is the one you own.
Otherwise you’re a chump and a tool. This includes Google, M$, and anyone else. This is not to say you shouldn’t strive to do great work, just to say that you’re not going to be commensurately rewarded for any work over the 40 hours. So don’t do it.
If your company needs to get more done, they need to hire more people.
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The only company you should give more than the minimum 40 hours a week is the one you own.
Otherwise you’re a chump and a tool. This includes Google, M$, and anyone else. This is not to say you shouldn’t strive to do great work, just to say that you’re not going to be commensurately rewarded for any work over the 40 hours. So don’t do it.
If your company needs to get more done, they need to hire more people.
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Wireless World: Premature predictions?
Predictions that the maker of BlackBerry wireless e-mail technology was about to collapse due to protracted and bitter patent litigation were premature, experts are now telling United Press International’s Wireless World.
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office this week rejected patent claims by NTP, the developer that has been suing Research in Motion, the owner of BlackBerry. The surprise move comes after lengthy litigation, which RIM was losing, and which led many to say that RIM might be shuttered, and even caused the U.S. government to develop contingency plans in the event that the wireless service went dark. By Gene Koprowski
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Wireless World: Premature predictions?
Predictions that the maker of BlackBerry wireless e-mail technology was about to collapse due to protracted and bitter patent litigation were premature, experts are now telling United Press International’s Wireless World.
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office this week rejected patent claims by NTP, the developer that has been suing Research in Motion, the owner of BlackBerry. The surprise move comes after lengthy litigation, which RIM was losing, and which led many to say that RIM might be shuttered, and even caused the U.S. government to develop contingency plans in the event that the wireless service went dark. By Gene Koprowski
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What’s Wrong With Management Practices in Silicon Valley?
http://sloanreview.mit.edu/smr/issue/2001/spring/10/
“More fundamentally, there is a confused notion that being productive is the same thing as working long hours. It isn’t. As Jim Goodnight, the wise co-founder and CEO of SAS Institute, has said, “If you’ve put in a full day, by 6 o’clock, you shouldn’t have anything left, so go home.” Amazingly for the software industry, SAS thrives on a 35-hour work week. Long hours also are partly responsible for the defect-filled products we have come to expect and accept. People who work when they are exhausted make mistakes. And as the quality movement taught us, it is more expensive to find and correct errors than it is to prevent them.”
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What’s Wrong With Management Practices in Silicon Valley?
http://sloanreview.mit.edu/smr/issue/2001/spring/10/
“More fundamentally, there is a confused notion that being productive is the same thing as working long hours. It isn’t. As Jim Goodnight, the wise co-founder and CEO of SAS Institute, has said, “If you’ve put in a full day, by 6 o’clock, you shouldn’t have anything left, so go home.” Amazingly for the software industry, SAS thrives on a 35-hour work week. Long hours also are partly responsible for the defect-filled products we have come to expect and accept. People who work when they are exhausted make mistakes. And as the quality movement taught us, it is more expensive to find and correct errors than it is to prevent them.”
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Alfred: Your three reasons why people work more than 40 hours a week is a bit limiting. What about a fourth? People are so passionate and enthralled about what they’re doing that that is what they want to continue doing?
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Alfred: Your three reasons why people work more than 40 hours a week is a bit limiting. What about a fourth? People are so passionate and enthralled about what they’re doing that that is what they want to continue doing?
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“The candle that burns twice as bright burns half as long.” – Tyrell, BladeRunner
Overwork only means incompetence, slave labor or a lack of social skills. Workaholics can become burnt-out stressed obsessives, and more is not always better. That geeks use such as a loyality badge, only proves all above points.
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“The candle that burns twice as bright burns half as long.” – Tyrell, BladeRunner
Overwork only means incompetence, slave labor or a lack of social skills. Workaholics can become burnt-out stressed obsessives, and more is not always better. That geeks use such as a loyality badge, only proves all above points.
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As hotbutton issues in the workplace go, this one has always been among the hottest. I have worked my share of 90-hour weeks, and my share of 40-hour weeks. I’ve seen people waste half of a 40-hour week, and I’ve seen people put in 80 or more productive hours in a 90-hour week. Sweeping generalizations like those in many of the comments here are not helpful, but in my experience, Mark’s comments point to trouble. If being at work at 3:00 AM has become a badge of honor, the corporate culture in his part of Google could very well be unsustainable.
Proud of your work? Great. Love what you’re doing? Great. Equating any of that with being at work at 3:00 AM? Misguided, in my opinion. Even really, really smart young motivated energetic 99th percentile people make costly mistakes at the end of an 18-hour day. And the phrase “wanted to nail their deadlines and then take a few days off…” does indeed lead to the question of management brought up in earlier comments — who planned the project that lead to a large number of smart highly-motivated people working these hours? Sure it’s a rush to work on a great project with a great team under tight deadlines. But it doesn’t take many months of “finals week” schedules to turn motivation into frustration and burn-out.
Love what you do, AND take care of yourself and your team. And to all those teams I’ve kept up until 3AM — oh, give me a break. You loved it.
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As hotbutton issues in the workplace go, this one has always been among the hottest. I have worked my share of 90-hour weeks, and my share of 40-hour weeks. I’ve seen people waste half of a 40-hour week, and I’ve seen people put in 80 or more productive hours in a 90-hour week. Sweeping generalizations like those in many of the comments here are not helpful, but in my experience, Mark’s comments point to trouble. If being at work at 3:00 AM has become a badge of honor, the corporate culture in his part of Google could very well be unsustainable.
Proud of your work? Great. Love what you’re doing? Great. Equating any of that with being at work at 3:00 AM? Misguided, in my opinion. Even really, really smart young motivated energetic 99th percentile people make costly mistakes at the end of an 18-hour day. And the phrase “wanted to nail their deadlines and then take a few days off…” does indeed lead to the question of management brought up in earlier comments — who planned the project that lead to a large number of smart highly-motivated people working these hours? Sure it’s a rush to work on a great project with a great team under tight deadlines. But it doesn’t take many months of “finals week” schedules to turn motivation into frustration and burn-out.
Love what you do, AND take care of yourself and your team. And to all those teams I’ve kept up until 3AM — oh, give me a break. You loved it.
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If you’re working until 3am to make sure you nail your deadlines then you obviously need help in the project management department. I used to think working extremely long hours to meet or beat a deadline was an accomplishment. Now I look at it as a failure on my planning abilities. I guess the older I get the more I appreciate time away from work with my family. Working 12+ hours a day is certainly not “cool”. I say Mark needs some perspective…get a life.
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If you’re working until 3am to make sure you nail your deadlines then you obviously need help in the project management department. I used to think working extremely long hours to meet or beat a deadline was an accomplishment. Now I look at it as a failure on my planning abilities. I guess the older I get the more I appreciate time away from work with my family. Working 12+ hours a day is certainly not “cool”. I say Mark needs some perspective…get a life.
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Ted Smith : if you are interested in RIM then follow Berlin hacks. My Direct plug is here
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Ted Smith : if you are interested in RIM then follow Berlin hacks. My Direct plug is here
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I don’t see what the big deal is about the comments. I regularly work 12-14 hour days when I’m in an environment that I’m passionate about (currently working towards creating a better work environment at my new job).
There’s little that I have less tolerance for than someone who’s just showing up to collect a paycheck and isn’t excited about the work their doing. There’s a lot of interesting work to be done out there on the web these days, and if you’re not excited about it, well, go do something you enjoy. The world is rich with opportunity (at least in richer Western countries), and if I didn’t love working on the web, you can sure as shit be sure that I’d be doing whatever it was that I was passionate about.
To say that my long hours on the job is somehow due to a shortcoming with myself is an insult.
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I don’t see what the big deal is about the comments. I regularly work 12-14 hour days when I’m in an environment that I’m passionate about (currently working towards creating a better work environment at my new job).
There’s little that I have less tolerance for than someone who’s just showing up to collect a paycheck and isn’t excited about the work their doing. There’s a lot of interesting work to be done out there on the web these days, and if you’re not excited about it, well, go do something you enjoy. The world is rich with opportunity (at least in richer Western countries), and if I didn’t love working on the web, you can sure as shit be sure that I’d be doing whatever it was that I was passionate about.
To say that my long hours on the job is somehow due to a shortcoming with myself is an insult.
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I think the latest I’ve stayed in the 6 months I’ve been at MS was midnight or 1AM. I’ve probably done that a dozen times or so. Hard to keep track.
I remember the first time was when I was trying to trackdown a problem with our new installer technology back in the summer. I was pouring over registry diffs and walking dependencies for hours because I knew there was something to figure out and I didn’t want to go home without solving it.
Another time I stayed very late doing a “free time” project which was trying to figure out a way to implement functionality that the shell team told use was impossible (just like Outlook told us with our Outlook integration). I’m a test dev but this was functionality that everyone wanted but no one had the time to figure out how to do – so I put my mind to getting it done and so I did – and it involved a couple late nights.
A couple weeks ago I stayed late with a dev from our team tracking down a problem I’d found and making sure we had the right fix.
One thing I love about my team is that people have a lot of freedom in *how* they do their work. One person on my team gets his best work done at home. He comes to work like the rest of us for meetings and does most of his bug fixing there. But when there’s a major new feature to implement, he’ll disappear for a day or two then come back with the whole thing done on his laptop.
Personally, I do my best development work in a dark, quiet office with no distractions. But that’s just me.
I can’t speak for all teams at Microsoft, or the team that Mark previously worked on. But don’t dare tell me that my team lacks passion about our work.
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I think the latest I’ve stayed in the 6 months I’ve been at MS was midnight or 1AM. I’ve probably done that a dozen times or so. Hard to keep track.
I remember the first time was when I was trying to trackdown a problem with our new installer technology back in the summer. I was pouring over registry diffs and walking dependencies for hours because I knew there was something to figure out and I didn’t want to go home without solving it.
Another time I stayed very late doing a “free time” project which was trying to figure out a way to implement functionality that the shell team told use was impossible (just like Outlook told us with our Outlook integration). I’m a test dev but this was functionality that everyone wanted but no one had the time to figure out how to do – so I put my mind to getting it done and so I did – and it involved a couple late nights.
A couple weeks ago I stayed late with a dev from our team tracking down a problem I’d found and making sure we had the right fix.
One thing I love about my team is that people have a lot of freedom in *how* they do their work. One person on my team gets his best work done at home. He comes to work like the rest of us for meetings and does most of his bug fixing there. But when there’s a major new feature to implement, he’ll disappear for a day or two then come back with the whole thing done on his laptop.
Personally, I do my best development work in a dark, quiet office with no distractions. But that’s just me.
I can’t speak for all teams at Microsoft, or the team that Mark previously worked on. But don’t dare tell me that my team lacks passion about our work.
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I was thinking. If all those hard working people at Google were using Visual Studio and building for the .NET platform they could probably get more done in a lot less time.
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I was thinking. If all those hard working people at Google were using Visual Studio and building for the .NET platform they could probably get more done in a lot less time.
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Amen, Robert and Alfred!!! Alfred, I especially appreciated your comments here:
> I’ve been in the computer business for over 30 years
> and have concluded that there are only three reasons
> to work more than 40 hours a week on a regular basis.
> One – you are incompetent. Two – your management is
> incompetent. Three – you have no ability to socialize
> with others. I.e. No life.
I think the key here is also “on a regular basis.” I have proudly put in some >40 hour weeks with several companies and don’t regret that overtime a bit. But that intensified schedule was the *exception* rather than the rule.
Sadly, the “I work more hours than you do!” seems to still remain a (shockingly stupid) badge of honor for many geeks, especially American geeks. My European friends — with lower obesity rates, longer lifespans, and so on in the aggregate — think this syndrome is nuts, and rightly so.
In fact, in a recent Microsoft interview, one of the managers bragged about how he had not eaten lunch away from his desk more than two days in the last year due to the “stresses” and “fast pace” of his environment.
Frankly, I pity those who lack the communications skills or life passion to articulate their commitment to their careers in ways that don’t involve “quantity.”
More does not equal better. It’s great, some would say even essential to feel passionate about one’s work, but as the modified saying goes, how many folks would really like on their epitaph:
“He coded some really cool geek things”
rather than…
“He spent a lot of quality time with friends, family, and loved ones.”
At least I know where I stand.
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Amen, Robert and Alfred!!! Alfred, I especially appreciated your comments here:
> I’ve been in the computer business for over 30 years
> and have concluded that there are only three reasons
> to work more than 40 hours a week on a regular basis.
> One – you are incompetent. Two – your management is
> incompetent. Three – you have no ability to socialize
> with others. I.e. No life.
I think the key here is also “on a regular basis.” I have proudly put in some >40 hour weeks with several companies and don’t regret that overtime a bit. But that intensified schedule was the *exception* rather than the rule.
Sadly, the “I work more hours than you do!” seems to still remain a (shockingly stupid) badge of honor for many geeks, especially American geeks. My European friends — with lower obesity rates, longer lifespans, and so on in the aggregate — think this syndrome is nuts, and rightly so.
In fact, in a recent Microsoft interview, one of the managers bragged about how he had not eaten lunch away from his desk more than two days in the last year due to the “stresses” and “fast pace” of his environment.
Frankly, I pity those who lack the communications skills or life passion to articulate their commitment to their careers in ways that don’t involve “quantity.”
More does not equal better. It’s great, some would say even essential to feel passionate about one’s work, but as the modified saying goes, how many folks would really like on their epitaph:
“He coded some really cool geek things”
rather than…
“He spent a lot of quality time with friends, family, and loved ones.”
At least I know where I stand.
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I’ve worked at MS and seen how it works. MarkL is very, very on target with all of his comments. It is about passion (not about hours) and it lacking in many places in MS. If you’ve joined recently, then you may not see the difference form how it used to be. Even some people who have been there a while don’t seem to notice it much or aren’t quite sure what change (akin to raising the temperature slowly to boil a frog).
Also, I’ve seen people aren’t that passionate about their at MS. The ind of passion where you get lost in your work and lose track of time. There is a traffic jam leaving ms at about 5PM-6PM. It is pretty rare when people work hard there, and when I haven’t seen it, much of it was due to obscene management pressure to make up for horrible schedule/feature management. It was truly pathetic to hear “we value your work/life balance” in on breath and then “we need to get more done than before” in the next breath.
People don’t feel as passionate in such an environment and even worse as Mark also points out, they aren’t given much of the reward for their hard efforts.
Anyway, there are many problems at MS beyond those pointed out by Mark here:
http://minimsft.blogspot.com/2005/12/comment-report-markl-nee-of-microsoft.html#c113546497291031756
But from my experience, people who are able to enact change aren’t willing to do so. It was very discouraging and depressing. It is why I left MS after many years.
For further reading about the topics mentioned in MarkL’s comment see
http://adamjh.blogspot.com/2005/12/work-hard-play-hard-at-google.html
and
http://www.glaak.com/Default.aspx?b=c8067f94-00c9-4f51-a5bc-0c712de22cd8
It isn’t just Mark noticing this, but he is the most visible and the one being picked on for standing up to point out bad issues.
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I’ve worked at MS and seen how it works. MarkL is very, very on target with all of his comments. It is about passion (not about hours) and it lacking in many places in MS. If you’ve joined recently, then you may not see the difference form how it used to be. Even some people who have been there a while don’t seem to notice it much or aren’t quite sure what change (akin to raising the temperature slowly to boil a frog).
Also, I’ve seen people aren’t that passionate about their at MS. The ind of passion where you get lost in your work and lose track of time. There is a traffic jam leaving ms at about 5PM-6PM. It is pretty rare when people work hard there, and when I haven’t seen it, much of it was due to obscene management pressure to make up for horrible schedule/feature management. It was truly pathetic to hear “we value your work/life balance” in on breath and then “we need to get more done than before” in the next breath.
People don’t feel as passionate in such an environment and even worse as Mark also points out, they aren’t given much of the reward for their hard efforts.
Anyway, there are many problems at MS beyond those pointed out by Mark here:
http://minimsft.blogspot.com/2005/12/comment-report-markl-nee-of-microsoft.html#c113546497291031756
But from my experience, people who are able to enact change aren’t willing to do so. It was very discouraging and depressing. It is why I left MS after many years.
For further reading about the topics mentioned in MarkL’s comment see
http://adamjh.blogspot.com/2005/12/work-hard-play-hard-at-google.html
and
http://www.glaak.com/Default.aspx?b=c8067f94-00c9-4f51-a5bc-0c712de22cd8
It isn’t just Mark noticing this, but he is the most visible and the one being picked on for standing up to point out bad issues.
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>I was thinking. If all those hard working people at Google were using Visual
>Studio and building for the .NET platform they could probably get more done
>in a lot less time.
What? Visual Studio and .NET automatically makes you more productive? Give me a break, there are plenty of development tools and environments out there that are just as (or more) productive than Visual Studio.
Google and Yahoo! are doing just fine with *nix boxes and open source web servers, application servers, languages etc. If they thought that VS would make them that much more productive, then they’d use them. But they don’t so they don’t use them.
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>I was thinking. If all those hard working people at Google were using Visual
>Studio and building for the .NET platform they could probably get more done
>in a lot less time.
What? Visual Studio and .NET automatically makes you more productive? Give me a break, there are plenty of development tools and environments out there that are just as (or more) productive than Visual Studio.
Google and Yahoo! are doing just fine with *nix boxes and open source web servers, application servers, languages etc. If they thought that VS would make them that much more productive, then they’d use them. But they don’t so they don’t use them.
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MarkL was working on his 20% time till 3 am 🙂
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MarkL was working on his 20% time till 3 am 🙂
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It’s said that Google is letting someone who doesn’t understand the basics of managing developers. My comments here.
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It’s said that Google is letting someone who doesn’t understand the basics of managing developers. My comments here.
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Having worked at MSFT for 12 years and now having worked with Googlers for the last few years, I find striking parallels. In the spirit of the New Year’s, I have suggested some New Year’s Resolutions that apply some of the lessons I learned along the way — http://marketvelocity.blogspot.com/2005/12/new-years-resolutions-for-googlers.html
Two of them i’ve excerpted below that are particularly relevant…
4. Work late only if that’s your “in the zone” time. I had an earlier post sharing my Uncle Bill’s words of wisdom upon his retirement as a Consumer Packages Good exec. #6 on his list was “It is not important that you come in early and work late. The important thing is WHY?” Mark Lucovsky is an ex-Microsoftie now at Google that seems to think that working at 3 or 4am is some measure of success/passion. I disagree. Whether you are a developer, athlete or business person, there are times when you are “in the zone”. When you look back at the past year, there are usually 3-5 things you did exceptionally well when you were “in the zone” and those were the things that really made a difference. For me, those usually take place between 5 and 8am. I’m sure 3 or 4am is that time for others but I doubt that’s the case for most people. Don’t get caught up in the machismo of showing how late you can work. It’s results at whatever time that matter.
5. Learn to throw a change-up and knuckleball. In baseball, many young pitchers get into the major leagues with a killer fastball. Likewise, younger tech workers often try a similar approach where they just “throw” with as much energy as possible. Unfortunately, like in baseball, they will usually flame-out or burnout. Learning some finesse is the key to a long, successful career in baseball or tech. I saw lots of carnage at Microsoft where some of these former “fastballers” ran out of gas and became virtually worthless to their team and to society.
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Having worked at MSFT for 12 years and now having worked with Googlers for the last few years, I find striking parallels. In the spirit of the New Year’s, I have suggested some New Year’s Resolutions that apply some of the lessons I learned along the way — http://marketvelocity.blogspot.com/2005/12/new-years-resolutions-for-googlers.html
Two of them i’ve excerpted below that are particularly relevant…
4. Work late only if that’s your “in the zone” time. I had an earlier post sharing my Uncle Bill’s words of wisdom upon his retirement as a Consumer Packages Good exec. #6 on his list was “It is not important that you come in early and work late. The important thing is WHY?” Mark Lucovsky is an ex-Microsoftie now at Google that seems to think that working at 3 or 4am is some measure of success/passion. I disagree. Whether you are a developer, athlete or business person, there are times when you are “in the zone”. When you look back at the past year, there are usually 3-5 things you did exceptionally well when you were “in the zone” and those were the things that really made a difference. For me, those usually take place between 5 and 8am. I’m sure 3 or 4am is that time for others but I doubt that’s the case for most people. Don’t get caught up in the machismo of showing how late you can work. It’s results at whatever time that matter.
5. Learn to throw a change-up and knuckleball. In baseball, many young pitchers get into the major leagues with a killer fastball. Likewise, younger tech workers often try a similar approach where they just “throw” with as much energy as possible. Unfortunately, like in baseball, they will usually flame-out or burnout. Learning some finesse is the key to a long, successful career in baseball or tech. I saw lots of carnage at Microsoft where some of these former “fastballers” ran out of gas and became virtually worthless to their team and to society.
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Hi Robert, I work at a petrochemical company in South Africa. When one of the long-time executives of the company retired, he was asked which one thing he would do different, if he could have his career at the company over. He answered that he wouldn’t work such long hours, and wouldn’t expect his fellow employees to do that either.
Two other comments: I remember coming across this article in Fortune magazine: Get a life. Also, check out the November 2005 article in National Geographic on longevity, and how one of the common things among different groups of people living to over 100 years old, are that they put family first!
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Hi Robert, I work at a petrochemical company in South Africa. When one of the long-time executives of the company retired, he was asked which one thing he would do different, if he could have his career at the company over. He answered that he wouldn’t work such long hours, and wouldn’t expect his fellow employees to do that either.
Two other comments: I remember coming across this article in Fortune magazine: Get a life. Also, check out the November 2005 article in National Geographic on longevity, and how one of the common things among different groups of people living to over 100 years old, are that they put family first!
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Firstly those hours are very anti-XP. Overtime breeds poor code which breeds rework. I’d also question their project and resource managment…
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Firstly those hours are very anti-XP. Overtime breeds poor code which breeds rework. I’d also question their project and resource managment…
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Scoble, seeing the company taken over by non-engineering marketeers and sales drones was one key reason I left Microsoft after five years.
Unfortunately you’ve done little to improve that impression. The catty sniping you did at Mark Lucovsky on mini-msft’s blog showed you unwilling to address the issues raised, and evade them with an ad-hominem attack.
My goodness–WHAT HAS HAPPENED TO MICROSOFT??
When I started I came on the tail-end of a passionate engineering culture; albeit, one with too little discipline–but nonetheless, turning out some excellent ideas and products that had people so excited they were willing to line up for a midnight sale of Windows 95!
Where is that now?
Scoble have you noticed that there seems in *inverse* relationship between your, and others’, frenetically rabid cheerleading and the level of excitement in that oh-so-important demographic that successful companies refer to as “customers”?
From a strategic engineering standpoint, I was increasingly disgusted with the hobbling of every other product to promulgate the “Protect Windows At Any Cost” strategy. Can you imagine if .NET were sold on every platform, for a reasonable price?
Oh I have an even better idea–how about the executives engaged Sun and Java constructively, instead of playing the “Whose Gonads are Greater” game? Perhaps the immense effort of developing .NET could have worked in synergy with the overall Java concept? I’m sure McNealy could have gotten over his pissiness had BillSteve pitched it rationally and as partners, not bickering feudal lords.
As it turned out, that particular feud cost the company dearly in both lost effort, a payout to Sun, and threw gasoline on the DOJ case by incenting Sun to participate with vitriol.
Now Microsoft is beefing up the dev- and architect-evangelist teams, populated at the top with mostly non-technical flacks. Those who have technical talent–friends of mine who still work at Microsoft–are kept away from the frontlines of technology so much that their useful shelf-life is about two years.
After that, they have ZERO credibility in front of real software developers.
How many years have you been away from the frontline?
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Scoble, seeing the company taken over by non-engineering marketeers and sales drones was one key reason I left Microsoft after five years.
Unfortunately you’ve done little to improve that impression. The catty sniping you did at Mark Lucovsky on mini-msft’s blog showed you unwilling to address the issues raised, and evade them with an ad-hominem attack.
My goodness–WHAT HAS HAPPENED TO MICROSOFT??
When I started I came on the tail-end of a passionate engineering culture; albeit, one with too little discipline–but nonetheless, turning out some excellent ideas and products that had people so excited they were willing to line up for a midnight sale of Windows 95!
Where is that now?
Scoble have you noticed that there seems in *inverse* relationship between your, and others’, frenetically rabid cheerleading and the level of excitement in that oh-so-important demographic that successful companies refer to as “customers”?
From a strategic engineering standpoint, I was increasingly disgusted with the hobbling of every other product to promulgate the “Protect Windows At Any Cost” strategy. Can you imagine if .NET were sold on every platform, for a reasonable price?
Oh I have an even better idea–how about the executives engaged Sun and Java constructively, instead of playing the “Whose Gonads are Greater” game? Perhaps the immense effort of developing .NET could have worked in synergy with the overall Java concept? I’m sure McNealy could have gotten over his pissiness had BillSteve pitched it rationally and as partners, not bickering feudal lords.
As it turned out, that particular feud cost the company dearly in both lost effort, a payout to Sun, and threw gasoline on the DOJ case by incenting Sun to participate with vitriol.
Now Microsoft is beefing up the dev- and architect-evangelist teams, populated at the top with mostly non-technical flacks. Those who have technical talent–friends of mine who still work at Microsoft–are kept away from the frontlines of technology so much that their useful shelf-life is about two years.
After that, they have ZERO credibility in front of real software developers.
How many years have you been away from the frontline?
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Just a small correction Scoble – MarkL was never an exceutive at Microsoft. It’s false to claim so. He was a leader with high profile, but that’s not the same thing.
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Just a small correction Scoble – MarkL was never an exceutive at Microsoft. It’s false to claim so. He was a leader with high profile, but that’s not the same thing.
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Despite Scoble’s sniping of MarkL over at MiniMSFT, and despite the cries of defenders here, Microsoft is still the “coming soon” company while Google is the “now” company.
Anyone care to address why that is? Scoble? Does filming super-exciting PR videos do anything to address the issue?
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Despite Scoble’s sniping of MarkL over at MiniMSFT, and despite the cries of defenders here, Microsoft is still the “coming soon” company while Google is the “now” company.
Anyone care to address why that is? Scoble? Does filming super-exciting PR videos do anything to address the issue?
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Preston: I think you mean the “now (beta)” company. 🙂
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Preston: I think you mean the “now (beta)” company. 🙂
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