34 Work Harder, Not Smarter

Putting in a shitload of hours was very valuable, culturally, in Android.

—Ficus Kirkpatrick

The main thing that the Android team was known for, within Android but also across Google, was for working really, really hard. Ficus Kirkpatrick called it “The currency of Android.”

“I don’t think I’m that smart of an engineer, but I work my ass off. I’d make up for my lack of education by just working hard and putting in an unhealthy amount of hours. There were times in the first four to five years where it was essentially all I did when I was awake. And I didn’t get as much sleep as I should. I know I wasn’t alone on that.

“There was this month that I worked every day. The latest I got to work in the morning was 9:30 ...

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