From what I’ve heard, the shell of Windsurf was purchased for their certifications. So all the staff except a single digit few (the ones who do the compliance certification work) will probably be laid off in the not-too-distant future, regardless of whether they take the buyout.
So everyone should take the it, rather than get worked to death and then unceremoniously RIF’d in a months.
> Windsurf delivers AI-powered coding solutions built for federal agencies, contractors, and system integrators. FedRAMP High authorized and compliant with DoD IL5 and ITAR
Open source really has shown how you do not need so much cruft/guilt-tripping to build on top of good models.
How sad is it to over work folks & be proud of it, sure if Cognition equity is going to the trash just as Windsurf's lol, the irony of all this grind.
Is the logic that working with AI will need grind, waiting for the burnout blogs to show up here in some time.
If you really want to develop on the cutting edge, you need a lot more than smarts. You have to have that dog in you. That fire in your belly that makes you obsessed, consumed with your work and solving the problems you set out to solve. If you don't... you're gonna lose out to someone who does. Go sling Java for a bank or insurance company, then, if you want to punch out at 5.
Scott Wu has that dog in him. It's reasonable for him to expect the same of his employees.
Passion is a different thing and I agree you need passion you be the best. While there is clearly a correlation between people with passion and people willing to work more, it don't see why someone can't be passionate and also have other interests or responsibilities outside of work.
We know that the design of software is fundamentally a different sort of task than loading pig iron. It requires management of complex amounts of state in working memory, which must be acquired before work begins, and much of which is lost after work ends (or is interrupted), requiring reacquisition when work is restarted. I believe that because of this, Carmack's observation is that more contiguous time spent on the task yields superlinear gains in output, because you're just spending that much more time with the system state in your head. And if you're a really smart guy working on cutting-edge stuff you want to take advantage of those superlinear gains because you are messing with much more deep and complex state, in terms of your own cognition, that would take more time to reacquire when lost.
Get real.
If there's an emergency, sure, work 12 hour days until it's fixed. Maybe if you're really in the zone, go ahead and keep working for 12 hours once in a while.
But, being behind schedule is not an emergency. And if the emergency continues for more than a couple days, it's a situation, not an emergency. 12 hours of focused work is hard to do. And if it's not focused, might as well punch out at 5, live your life outside of work, get some rest, maybe let problems marinate, and come back tomorrow.
As a founder, I think there’s a similar incentive to work all day every day, not just because of the potential payoff, but also because you love it and it is your life. It is unrealistic to expect the same intrinsic passion from employee #30, much less employee #300. They don’t have the ownership, both financially and spiritually. It’s not their baby.
Grinding and hustling _without_ participating proportionally in the upside is naivete at best and foolishness at worst.
This kind of thinking is a disease and a race to the bottom. I don't think we should stop people from doing it, but we certainly shouldn't reward them, in the market or otherwise.
If it was up to the owners then we would not have labour laws, weekends or decent work hours either. Owners should feel free to work to death alone & with money you can't take with you, just don't expect to get friends/employees to join in this.
Strive to have a balanced life and be extremely careful not to get burned out. Maintaining that joy for building things requires balance and perspective instead of slaving away your life.
As a hiring manager, I _vastly_ prefer hiring someone that values work-life balance over this grind culture bullshit. YMMV, but in my experience, the folks that care about balance tend to be more focused and productive during the hours they are working.
Of course, exceptional circumstances exist where long hours are required. Not disputing that. But making that the default for the company culture is insane.
Sorry, but despite your best intentions, even those long hours are wrong and unnecessary. It's the leadership's planning skills and inability to take responsibility of the exceptional circumstances. In such a situation good leadership just cuts scope without flinching and reflects to avoid a repeat.
edit: typo
That’s not to mention the subset who do receive equity that are working at startups whose equity is statistically worthless.
And if someone’s identity is tied up in thier jobs, their an idiot.
I’ve worked at 10 jobs in my career of over 30 years everything from startups, boring enterprise, BigTech to now working full time for a consulting company. I’m always prepared to jump ship when facts on the ground change. I need a job - not the current job I have.
Working more hours wouldn't make the situation any better. In that case it would decrease quality of life.
If you're in that position you should still work your 40, but you need to just get better.
That’s where the whole always being prepared for the shit to hit the fan comes in - having a strong network, enough liquid savings to cover a gap of unemployment, a resume that’s updated at least quarterly, a longer form career document, up to date skillset…
I have never once in 27 years (3 years after my first job) been stressed enough about losing my job to overwork myself and I’ve worked at the shittiest BigTech company (you know the one based in Seattle) where they love to overwork you.
> “We don’t believe in work-life balance—building the future of software engineering is a mission we all care so deeply about that we couldn’t possibly separate the two,” he wrote, per the outlet. “We know that not everyone who joined Windsurf had signed up to join Cognition where we spend 6 days at the office and clock 80+ hour weeks.”
996, American Edition, is almost complete.
Thanks, Elon! /s
I hope everyone takes the bait while they still can. Absolutely repugnant behavior.
schwentkerr•6mo ago
Windsurf Paradox: When Acquisition Looks Like Extraction
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/windsurf-paradox-when-acquisi...