How do you make programmers in a startup work 60–80 hours a week?
medium.com
medium.com
Make this expectation clear when hiring them.
Pay them appropriately.
Better question: Why make your programmers work 60-80 hours a week. That's way past the point where you are likely to see diminishing marginal utility for each hour of work, and probably into the range where you are, if done over more than a very short spurt, you are likely to see diminishing total utility for each hour they are demanded to work. And you are definitely going to increase burnout/turnover risk. So, why do it?
(Yes, the actual medium.com article is not at all about the question asked in the title. But, anyway...)
By paying them appropriately, I assume you mean at a market hourly rate?
That's one of the two contexts where I as a developer would be interested in working more than a 40-50 hour week.
The other context would be where I had substantial ownership and believed in the product.
I'd actually assume that above-average work hours would command a premium price above the "market hourly rate". As with most things, free time as a declining marginal utility, which means sacrificing free time has an increasing marginal disutility which must be paid for by what is offered in exchange for that sacrifice. (This idea is reflected in wage & hour rules that require non-exempt employees to be paid a premium for overtime; while programmers may generally be FLSA exempt and not subject to that requirement -- largely because they are in a class of labor with skill and responsibility that is presumed to be able to negotiate appropriate reimbursement -- the basic principle behind it still applies.)
But, yes, I mean "pay them what is appropriate in the market for the extra time".
Oh, no, wait, that's just an easier way to accomplish the same result.
As a boss nothing angers you more then paying someone 7-10k a month on top of all the taxes and costs and watching them bitch and complain about coming to the office and commit nothing until the "feel like it" under the guise of "programming happens when it happens". This is real money and it is painful to raise it and just give it away. The developer doesn't have to answer to the angry investors and have their reputation ruined forever when the company fails. They get to skate off and go work at Facebook with valuable "startup experience" under their belt.
The reality is that 99% of programmers have bad attitudes and if you find the gem that actually pulls the cart with you, hold on to that unicorn with every ounce of your being.
I'm asking because I've met very few developers who "commit nothing until they 'fell like it'". Those don't sound like professionals, they sound like children, and I agree, it would be frustrating to depend on someone like that.
As an employer I used to be upfront and tell developers there is a 90% chance you will be gone in the first week, but if you make it i'll pay you 15k a month no problems and give you anything you want.
I went from a 75% bad hire rate to a 0% bad hire rate after that. just 1 data point here.