alt Hacker News> outsource their work to low paid overseas assistants
Literally every business is based on the idea of tacking on a margin onto someone else's work and profiting from it. Markets are based on imperfect information distribution at the end of the day.
It's likely the very company he'd be doing that too is already doing the exact same thing with their customer support (or "success" as they call it now), and their subcontractors themselves outsource various jobs. But I guess we've been conditioned to accept that as good because the boss is pocketing the difference, vs the lowly employee.
> only responding to your coworkers once a week
I struggle to think there is a company in the world where this kind of behavior would fly, but if there is then they must be satisfied with the work (or lack thereof I guess) and so in that case is it any worse than just slacking off at work and browsing HN for that matter?
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Now should you do this? No, but not because you should feel bad for anyone. You should not do it because it's really hard to find someone good enough (and cheap enough) to deliver the same kind of quality you do and worthy of trusting them with your reputation. But if you know a magical place where to find such unicorns, go right ahead!
> Literally every business is based on the idea of tacking on a margin onto someone else's work and profiting from it.
Which is fine if everyone knows what’s happening. Nobody assumes that their grocery stores or Best Buy are operating as charities that take 0% margin.
What’s not okay is signing up to a company as an employee, being given access to their Slack and Git, and then handing those credentials and source code over to someone you hired on Fiverr so you can go vacation more. The numerous problems with this should be obvious.
> I struggle to think there is a company in the world where this kind of behavior would fly, but if there is then they must be satisfied with the work (or lack thereof I guess)
That’s the thing about most Tim Ferriss advice: Much of it is fanciful and unrealistic. The takeaway isn’t literally that you should be responding to email once a week, it’s that you need to be pushing the limits of how much you can get away with not responding to things and ignoring conversations with your coworkers. The email autoresponder is held up as a North Star ideal of what you’re trying to do: Hide from work and avoid contributing to the team you’re on.
As for companies being happy with it: They’re generally not! The story in the book is to gradually push the limits of what you can get away with. It suggests working extra hard when you know your boss is watching and doing things like sandbagging your productivity before you go remote. The book has this whole idea that your job is only temporary anyway until your side hustle takes over and replaces your income (dropshipping T-shirts is the example used in the book) so being a productive employee isn’t a priority.