Just look at Japan to see what a 12+ hour / day work culture looks like. Their population and their economy are both slowly going down the shitter thanks to it, depression is widespread, etc.

Why live life like that? The only way to win is to not play!

I totally agree with the health problems it causes though.

I'm not sure either, but, at least as the story is told today, that was Ford's motivation for implementing the 8 hour workday at Ford. He allegedly surmised that if people were too busy working, they wouldn't have time to buy his products. It certainly seems plausible. If you spend all your time working, you really don't need to buy much other than the basic necessities, which doesn't help with a robust economy.

Well have we tried it?

That looks likely. But it will reduce the concentration of wealth (probably, dramatically), so expect some opposition.

Also, aren't we supposed to be accepting of all cultures? If that's the Japanese culture, why is it okay to disparage it?

If you're looking for businesses who operate in marathon mode you may have to look outside SF/SV or NYC (those are the top 2 markets for long hours built into the economic model and high employee turnover). Once the economic model for an area is based on 50-70 hour weeks then it gets baked into pay, baked into cost of living, etc. This is certainly a longer topic than I have time to comment on right now fully.

All their business knowledge goes out the door with them. You end up wasting time with the hiring process and then finally hiring someone who costs more money who doesn't understand your business at all and won't be really able to contribute at a high level for 6 months while getting up to speed.

Yes, some companies have poor management, but these companies are also not exclusively tech companies.

[0] Yes, sometimes we all work a bit of overtime because of issues in the field, or one poorly run iteration. These things happen. The critical thing is how management works to avoid those situations in the future.