I worked for a while at another company also known for being hyper-aggressive and a brutally difficult work environment -- probably the poster-child for that sort of thing, back then. I burned out hard after a couple years and ended up prioritizing "work-life balance" in my next job searches.
I landed at a 40-hour/week place where I usually work less than that. There's a strong appeal to working so little for a solidly decent salary. I have to remind myself often how good I have it, especially when others don't have jobs at all -- or they have to do back-breaking labor for table scraps.
But I agree it's also undeniably boring. I constantly find myself fantasizing about being back in the adrenaline-fueled environment of my last job. A large part of why I burned out was my own poor stress-management skills, and I like to imagine that I could probably perform well -- and excel -- in that sort of boiler-room environment now. (Especially if the comp could be what it was, too!)
On the other hand, I think all companies that have tried that aggressive approach have not made it sustainable. People burn out, or the whole company burns out, or both. It's tough to keep it going without lots of support and motivation (financial and otherwise).
The idealistic part of me likes to imagine it's theoretically possible to sustain such a thing, though -- a healthy, psychologically-safe place where people could work on ridiculously impactful things at a velocity and scale not available anywhere else. But it doesn't seem like anyone's cracked the code -- not my former employer, who faded away in a blaze of toxicity, and certainly not Amazon.
I worked for a while at another company also known for being hyper-aggressive and a brutally difficult work environment -- probably the poster-child for that sort of thing, back then. I burned out hard after a couple years and ended up prioritizing "work-life balance" in my next job searches.
I landed at a 40-hour/week place where I usually work less than that. There's a strong appeal to working so little for a solidly decent salary. I have to remind myself often how good I have it, especially when others don't have jobs at all -- or they have to do back-breaking labor for table scraps.
But I agree it's also undeniably boring. I constantly find myself fantasizing about being back in the adrenaline-fueled environment of my last job. A large part of why I burned out was my own poor stress-management skills, and I like to imagine that I could probably perform well -- and excel -- in that sort of boiler-room environment now. (Especially if the comp could be what it was, too!)
On the other hand, I think all companies that have tried that aggressive approach have not made it sustainable. People burn out, or the whole company burns out, or both. It's tough to keep it going without lots of support and motivation (financial and otherwise).
The idealistic part of me likes to imagine it's theoretically possible to sustain such a thing, though -- a healthy, psychologically-safe place where people could work on ridiculously impactful things at a velocity and scale not available anywhere else. But it doesn't seem like anyone's cracked the code -- not my former employer, who faded away in a blaze of toxicity, and certainly not Amazon.