I guess it’s all a matter of taste. Looking at the current state of affairs I would love to be part of the work. A need to improve production greatly while cutting costs (for the products) means it’s a time where there is a lot of investment in the process. New machines, new flows and lots of things that need to be made. I have a background in the semiconductor industry and the times like these, the make or break periods where fantastic. Work turned into a sport and you and everyone else came together like an underdog team that had a shot at the World Cup! Sure working 70 hours a week and sometimes a critical 24 hour day isn’t healthy. But there was never any management pressure to do this, that was us taking it upon ourselves because try as they may, management couldn’t drag us away from the line.

Looking forwards Tesla will settle into a much gentler pace, and it will become the same old incremental production cycle plant mentality thats shared by so many. But right now it must be amazing to be on the floor, even if it is exhausting.

Until the more productive and engaged fellows start questioning what exactly are they working overtime for or simply burn out, then they're replaced by fresher more productive fellows and the cycle continues. Best way to break it is to have balance from the beginning, not after you burn out a few times and form the company culture that supports it.

Productivity and number of hours worked are orthogonal.

There's diminishing returns, but they are definitely correlated.

Yeah sure, another one of those who claim to "work" 80 hours per week ...

This is why everyone in countries like France, Germany, Sweden, etc. is unemployed.

Sorry, what? This is news for me, I'll go work there in that case

Not convinced. In history as automation has increased working hours have tended to trend downwards.

I doubt anyone smart wants to burn out working under those kind of conditions.

No. They'll be replaced by people who still produce 7 hours of work a day, but take 12 hours to do it, because people like you think butts in chairs are the same thing as productivity.