Software development has a '996' problem

"Founders sell it as being "hardcore," "all in," or "grind culture," but it's the same idea: Crush people with hours and hope something brilliant falls out the other side. And now we're trying to instantiate this idea in code or, rather, GPUs. Some assume that if we can just get large language models (LLMs) to work the equivalent of thousand-hour weeks, generating code at superhuman speeds, we'll magically get better software."

"Gergely Orosz of The Pragmatic Engineer fame recently dismantled this myth with surgical precision. Orosz made a damning observation regarding the "996" work culture, the schedule of working 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., six days a week, popularized by Chinese tech giants: "I struggle to name a single 996 company that produces something worth paying attention to that is not a copy or rehash of a nicer product launched elsewhere." The schedule and pace aren't merely inhumane. They're counterproductive."

Output does not equal outcome; more hours or more lines of code do not guarantee success. 996-style schedules produce copycat, low-value products and are counterproductive rather than innovative. Brute-force approaches yield volume without differentiation and rarely produce true innovation. Applying grind-culture thinking to AI and LLMs risks producing vast amounts of derivative, bloated, and unmanageable code rather than better software. Frictionless production already created low-value, high-volume internet content; software faces the same fate with unchecked AI-generated code. High code churn increases maintenance burdens, technical debt, and long-term costs, undermining business progress.

Read at InfoWorld