Marissa Mayer: "I don't believe in burnout"

Back in the 90s, at Naughty Dog, we worked 100 hour weeks. After three years, people started to go crazy. By the end of Crash Bandicoot 2, one of the artists went completely ape about something random on a level we were working on and threw a chair at me. It was at that moment that I realized that our limits were biological and not simply a matter of will.

We pulled all-nighters in which only a handful of us were doing more than one trivial task per hour. 100 hour weeks were sustainable if you didn't mind the occasional psychotic outburst. All-nighters were uniformly unproductive.

I do not believe that working 130 hours is physically possible for more than a single week. This sounds like "no, really, I deserve to have hundreds of millions of dollars," because "I just worked so hard." I don't believe it. I also think it's a horrible model for entrepreneurs.

If you want to produce great work, get enough rest, exercise, and perspective. If early Google employees really did what Marissa says, they should be thankful that they were lucky enough to overcome it, not credit their success to it.

We all know early Google employees made an absolute crapload of money. But not because of 130-hour weeks. Because they had the guts to work on a search engine when, in Marissa's words, "There were already twelve search engines and it was unclear why the world needed another one."

I remember everyone thinking that. Kudos to Larry, Sergey, Marissa, et al for improving search just because, and later ending up with the most lucrative business model in the history of the world. But shame on Marissa for perpetuating the myth that working stupid hours and abusing yourself (and others) is the path to success. It isn't.

"It was 130 hour weeks. People say, 'there's only 168 hours in a week, how can you do it?' Well, if you're strategic about when you shower and sleeping under your desk, it can be done."

Why would you give this much of your life to a company that will replace you in a heart beat? Not to mention all of the negative health benefits that comes along with these kinds of habits. Your life just isn't worth increasing the company's net worth by a few more dollars.

I would be resentful about working over 40 hours and not owning a majority share in the company. Is she going to fix that for me too?

I've known people like her. Work addicts. It's as much of an addiction as anything else and shouldn't be considered "normal".

(1) I don't believe in burnout either but a 130 hour work week is 18 hours of work a day. That leaves only 6 hours for food, drink, cleaning, sleeping and socialising. It is possible if you enjoy your work, don't require much sleep, are able to mix socialising with work, and pay for somebody else to do your cleaning. For the vast majority of individuals it is unrealistic, depression inducing and unlikely to make their bosses or themselves richer.

(2) If you're trying to become more productive this is an extremely stupid idea. Using more of your time is at most a linear improvement in work output; if you wish to do more work you should spend time reading about and practicing methods of doing more in an hour. Technology and knowledge have the capacity to be multipliers, so: learn how to scale repetitive tasks, learn quicker ways of programming, learn better ways of analysing problems, learn how to automate as much as you can. An extra couple of hours spent practicing these things will give far superior gains in work output.

(3) We should optimize for happiness. Don't spend all of your time working unless you enjoy working.

I quite happily work 60-80 hour work weeks and will push myself a little further if there is a deadline. This number includes lunch times, a very short commute and non-fiction books and articles to help keep my mind sharp. I have time to go out with friends to eat or have a drink and also can get my affairs in order. This, so far, has given me the greatest enjoyment out of life but I wouldn't push it on others:

Find your own work-life balance.

Wow, after all the sexism talk I've been seeing lately. The conclusion here really sticks it in.

'Asked if she was the only the only woman in her Stanford computer science courses, she said that she didn't remember.

"Asking the question, I worry, sometimes can handicap progress," she said. "I lived in a bubble. I was really good at chemistry and biology [growing up]. No one ever said, 'Wow, you're really good at this for a girl."

"If I felt more self-conscious about being a woman it would have stifled me more," she added.'

Informative nonetheless.

I can't sustain anything over 40h for more than a month, in fact I think I would be almost as productive if I worked 30h instead of 40h, maybe I'm just not insane enough.