I have no idea why people take pride in long workdays (12 hours+) at a late stage company. 90% of the time is probably spent in status update meetings that could have been a Slack update.

I can understand long workdays if it was an early startup (default dead) and each incremental hour led to something tangible. Imagine Uber in its early days. It is also something I can tolerate if you are using the hours to make meaningful product releases that can lead to 10X outcomes. I have had periods at work where we have had to really push ourselves.

What I can’t understand is this becoming the norm at late stage companies where they ship like one project a month. Most of the time is just wasted with silly status update meetings.

BTW we shipped dozens of features + experiments in H1 here at Gojek, (Check POW), but I rarely attended more than 4 hours worth of meetings/day. Even that is a lot. Rest of the workhours is spent looking at data, reading research reports, and just responding to Slack messages.

I constantly check my calendar for redundant status update meetings and if I find spending a lot of time in meetings I ask myself why? Is it because I am doing something meaningful or is it just suboptimal processes and useless status update/ visibility meetings?

I was talking to a friend who recently joined a new company and he mentioned that people in his company have to put ‘don’t put meetings after 8 on my calendar’ message so that people don’t invite him to meetings post dinner. I can guarantee that a lot of pretend work is happening there.

I really can’t understand this.

I am the king of toxic productivity btw and someone who needs to find meaning in his work and am on Slack 24*7 (trying to change this though). (Not bragging, just being honest.)

I can’t imagine working at a place that has so many meetings though. I love working, but not meetings.