Not being a programmer, I don’t know if this is relevant to silicon valley in particular, but people in general overestimate how many hours per week they work, and the greatest exaggeration is found among the people reporting the longest hours.
Men estimated spending a total of 23 hours on housework per week, versus the 10 hours they actually spent when forced to keep a time diary. Women estimated 32 hours versus 17 hours in the diary.
Not being a programmer, I don’t know if this is relevant to silicon valley in particular, but people in general overestimate how many hours per week they work, and the greatest exaggeration is found among the people reporting the longest hours.
Full BLS report
Shorter NYT version
Great find. From the NYT summary: