Hard work is a lagging indicator.

There is a big feud in tech over hard work. It’s between teams who work long hours / 996 / hustle all the time, vs those who focus on a more measured approach, in the style of “slow is smooth, smooth is fast”.

It has become a culture war — people attach part of their identities to one camp, and often disdain the other.

I believe this whole conversation is based on a fallacy.

In my experience, motivated people naturally work hard — because they care, not because you told them so. When you hire talented people and give them the right amount of direction and agency, the result is... they work hard!

Working hard feels fun when people do so because they enjoy pushing themselves. It’s not fun when they do it out of fear, or to seek approval. That’s where teams crash and burn.

So the question is: have you created the conditions where people want to work hard? Or do they do it because they feel they need to?

Hard work works best as a lagging indicator — the natural output of a healthy, high-agency environment. You can’t force it upstream, but you can create the conditions for it to happen downstream.