2am-4am is definitely the most productive time for me and I regularly stay up that late, deep in the programming zone.
Of course, I shouldn't really have expected the WSJ to highlight night owls. We've turned sleep schedules into a morality play, where waking up at 4am is somehow impressive and virtuous while waking up at 10/11am is slothful (even if you spent all night getting lots of work done).
From pg himself:
"I used to program from dinner till about 3 am every day, because at night no one could interrupt me. Then I'd sleep till about 11 am, and come in and work until dinner on what I called 'business stuff.'"
It was fantastic for when I had solitary work to get done. Not so great for social life. I could go out, but that would be like taking half a day off.
This is nothing new, it makes perfect sense if you consider that sunlight was once the main form of illumination.
In the modern sense it still makes some sense as many businesses keep hours similar to 9AM-5PM. Any time regularly spent asleep in that window is wasteful if you rely on anyone or anything on that schedule (or they rely on you).
You need to live something of an "outsider" lifestyle to make this work, and that still isn't practical for a lot of people. I did it for quite a few years and found I was also rushing if I need to run an errand like going to a bank in person.
- early risers have a consistent additional couple of hours every day.
- night owls make each day last as long as it needs to.