burnout
3 articles
When the Productivity System Becomes the Point: How "Total Optimization" Fell Apart After Two Years
A guy spent two years doing every productivity tip out there, only to realize he had become "the most disciplined unproductive person alive." The problem was not a lack of effort — it was making the optimization system itself the goal, and forgetting to ask what it was all for.
The AI Vampire: Steve Yegge Says AI Makes You 10x Faster — and 10x More Drained
Steve Yegge's 'AI Vampire' theory: AI boosts productivity 10x, but who gets the 9x gain? If the company takes all, burnout. If you take all, company dies. Agentic coding is 3-4 hrs/day max. Yegge's $/hr formula: control the denominator, not the numerator.
HBR Study: AI Doesn't Reduce Your Work — It Makes You Work Harder Until You Burn Out
Berkeley Haas study: AI tools make employees work faster, take on more, and work longer hours, often unasked. Simon Willison finds LLMs draining. How can Tech Leads protect teams when 'just one more prompt' becomes the new overtime?