> disintegration of innately self-evident core values like "working hard to make a good thing good is good"
Working hard is necessary to make something good, of course. Working "hardcore", where 100-hour weeks are _required_, and only "exceptional" performance is acceptable, is _inhuman_.
I'm saying this as someone who's managed several teams over several years, but also someone who's read the literature: the surest way to get bad performance out of someone is to put that kind of pressure on them, _especially_ long-term. People in that situation get tired and/or sick, can't straight from the anxiety and pressure, and because of all of that that they'll make simple mistakes that take a long time to sort out (because everybody else is in the same situation).
In my experience the best work comes from people who are calm, healthy, and well-rested, _especially_ over the long term. Those well-rested people are the ones who are capable of putting in the discretionary effort to make something good.
> Working "hardcore", where 100-hour weeks are _required_, and only "exceptional" performance is acceptable, is _inhuman_.
this is something you and everyone else read into the email that was simply not written there. out of curiosity, what drives you to take "hardcore" and "this will mean working long hours" just about as exaggeratedly, hyperbolically uncharitably possible? I can't find a valid logical reason for doing this, yet everyone seems to be doing it, and I can't figure it out.
This is literally what Musk did first thing when he stepped into Twitter premises. He told teams to ship a feature in a short timespan or be fired, which required them to work over the weekends and sleep at their desk.
Working hard is necessary to make something good, of course. Working "hardcore", where 100-hour weeks are _required_, and only "exceptional" performance is acceptable, is _inhuman_.
I'm saying this as someone who's managed several teams over several years, but also someone who's read the literature: the surest way to get bad performance out of someone is to put that kind of pressure on them, _especially_ long-term. People in that situation get tired and/or sick, can't straight from the anxiety and pressure, and because of all of that that they'll make simple mistakes that take a long time to sort out (because everybody else is in the same situation).
In my experience the best work comes from people who are calm, healthy, and well-rested, _especially_ over the long term. Those well-rested people are the ones who are capable of putting in the discretionary effort to make something good.