I'm a believer in the 3-hour work-day. "4-hour work week" is impractical for most jobs. 40 hours is a reasonable average, but expecting anyone to put in an 8-10 hour contiguous block (that often ends up being ~11, including commute) is inhumane. Why, on the one 55-degree, sunny day in January that (by the weather's lack of concern for us) lands on a Tuesday, should people be stuck inside during that four hours of nice weather?<p>At least, if I were running a business, I'd plan on a 3-hour workday. First priority: get us to a point where we can survive on a 15-hour time commitment from each person. Project planning is based on that assumption. This puts slack in the schedule and reduces the slippage problem, because people working 9 hours per day in a "crunch" are pushing at 3x the planned rate, yet still working at a sustainable pace.<p>However, I'd only hire people who had enough interest in CS and software-- and, as importantly, whatever business I was in-- that they'd naturally fill to 40-60 (based on their ability) hours. I think people should leave <i>the office</i> before dark, but I'd want to hire the guy (or gal) who spends his/her stray hours thinking about and working on technology, even if I don't collect direct benefit. Think of it as "65% Time". You're not obligated for more than 15 hours per week, but you really don't fit if you aren't constantly looking to learn more.<p>I'd also have:<p>* an expectation that people eat lunch together. That's not to say you can't duck out to have lunch with a friend a few times per month, but your default behavior should be to eat with colleagues, not alone in a hurry. Definitely don't eat at your desk. (This may be my "Ah, yes" New England ancestry showing, but I really dislike eating at desks. To me, it's like eating in a car. You do it occasionally out of necessity, but you're supposed to feel bad about it.)<p>* 4:00 Tea, with snacks and board games. This isn't because I'm a nice guy, but because it gets people sharing ideas and encourages extra-hierarchical collaboration and mobility, and that makes both project quality and communication better. The somewhat devious thing here is that, after Tea's over (of course, it would never be called "over" because people are free to go) they'd have a lot of new ideas to try out and prove, so a lot of people would want to stay late anyway to experiment with the ideas they discussed over Tea.