> If you have a family, a few kids and maybe parents that rely on your financial support, a single dry month without income may spell disaster.

Sounds like you are asking for all companies to be stable and reliable sources of income. That wouldn't make any sense.

I actually agree with a lot of what you're saying. I'm working at a non-SV start up, and we've made many efforts to create a "normal" work environment: paying everyone at least enough to stay alive and out of debt, leaving at 5 and trying to reduce the ammount of extra-time people have to put in...

But we also realize the ways in which this is limits us, and I totally understand that when someone needs a breakthrough innovation or to fix a very hard problem, extraordinary sacrifices may have to be made. I know other startups working in the more SV/crunch style and honestly it probably makes sense for them.

Being willing to go this far for what you believe (or may be for the money you expect to make) has value.

Being able to go this far of course is very dependent on your lot in life (which is something we should work against, with a social safety net that enables people from all wealth levels), and also on the decisions you made before (like having kids; which I don't know we can be doing all that much about).

(I hope I made any sense, mondays are bad for my english-writing skills.)

Is there a realistic alternative? Sure, universal basic income eventually, but that's not practical at the moment.

I read a lot on entrepreneurship during 19th century and early 20th century US. My limited understanding: in those days entrepreneurs came from much wider range of demographics. In other words, entry barriers were much less during those days.

See: https://www.inc.com/magazine/20110201/in-norway-start-ups-sa...