I believe Amazons program was something like come to work from 10:00 to 14:00 Mon-Fri. The problem with this is that I think it's a lot easier to be pressured to stay longer over the course of a week than if you only worked 3 days a week.
This is why I like Google's version, where you can work on personal projects. You are still around if people need you, but you can work on other things as well rather than burning out trying to work on one thing for 40+ hours a week.
I heard once anecdotally that google side projects are sometimes "supposed to be work related" so not quite as free as you'd imagine, FWIW...or perhaps they're not dunno never worked there.
I think they are supposed to be work related, but that's still a change of pace. There are things I want to fix at my job that will never be fixed because it isn't anybody's job, and nobody would let you mess around with it because it would be circumventing the normal decision making process. It would be really nice to just say "I'm just trying something out," without needing to schedule an hour-long meeting with 8 people to create a roadmap.
Ouch. I feel lucky to have enough autonomy I can blow a few hours out of a week "just trying something out" without being grilled why I wasted a few hours over it.
