> The top reasons I see people say that productivity doesn't matter (or is actually bad) fall into one of three buckets: 1. Working on the right thing is more important than working quickly 2. Speed at X doesn't matter because you don't spend much time doing X 3. Thinking about productivity is bad and you should "live life"
Here's his argument for your last point:
> The last major argument I see against working on velocity assigns negative moral weight to the idea of thinking about productivity and working on velocity at all. This kind of comment often assigns positive moral weight to various kinds of leisure, such as spending time with friends and family. I find this argument to be backwards. If someone thinks it's important to spend time with friends and family, an easy way to do that is to be more productive at work and spend less time working.
Personally, I deliberately avoid working long hours and I suspect I don't work more than the median person at my company, which is a company where I think work-life balance is pretty good overall. A lot of my productivity gains have gone to leisure and not work. Furthermore, deliberately working on velocity has allowed me to get promoted relatively quickly4, which means that I make more money than I would've made if I didn't get promoted, which gives me more freedom to spend time on things that I value.