Work-life balance
There’s been a spate of CEOs being all rise and grind with their, “we don’t believe in work-life balance, our mission is too world changing,” spiel. It’s important to understand a very sophisticated and nuanced point about that: they are talking shit.
It’s their job to talk shit. Talking shit is what makes a VC-backed CEO rich, and their companies rich. They deploy grandeur and calls to adventure to attract people looking for purpose, who will run themselves into the ground for a react app, and to value signal commitment to work. It is an ad to prospective investors and customers. It’s brand building, but the brand sucks.
The things CEOs of irrationally-high-valuation companies say get amplified, despite everyone (presumably?) knowing that they’re playing a game. I can’t change that, but I can rage against the dying of the light in my quiet, home grown corner of the internet. Maybe it will touch someone who would otherwise torch themselves in service of something stupid. Fact is, “working” 80 hour weeks building an “AI software engineer” is just not that smart an endeavour. Anyone who sincerely thinks that’s the right way to get good results from people has so little insight into people that they can’t possibly hope to make a good thing. Very likely the company I’m alluding to will make a bunch of money, because the world is not rational and making good things doesn’t pay in the same way that talking shit pays.
Working 80 hour weeks on a SaaS product is not good, but I concede that the notion of “work-life balance” is basically nonsense.
As I write this, I am privileged to be at the tail end of 3.5 months of paternity leave. There is no balancing parenthood. It is not a part time gig. There is no conceivable mission to which I am so key, so absolutely crucial, that I cannot afford to be entirely present with my family for the months around my second child’s arrival. Similar is true for essentially every knowledge worker. Would that each had the fortitude to embrace that.
If the claim is that that makes me a bad employee? I’m a bad employee.
I have a PhD in particle physics. I’ve had “principal” in my title. I’ve been engineer number one at a startup that yet lives, a decade later. None of this is impressive or even atypical for a tech career, but the only thing I am trying to impress upon you is this: I am not a slouch. This tirade is not borne of laziness or entitlement. I like to do things that others consider work. I can go hard. I think it is good to work with intensity and focus on things that matter. I’ll do my very best to work hard at good things.
After I’m done working hard for about 8 hours (often more, rarely less), I’ll spend the evening doing bath time and reading stories with my toddler. Then I’ll pick up my baby, settle him down — probably doing laps of our front room — snuggled into my chest, to sleep there for a few hours, so his mother can have some small amount of time untouched. On Fridays, I don’t work at all. I spend the day with the toddler, trying my hardest to be the sturdy and compassionate father he deserves, and to commit these fleeting years to the most sacrosanct and enduring space in my heart.
Is this what people mean when they say work-life balance? I don’t know. There will be time to work later.