Unless you're trying to start, say, a space flight business or a car company, working absurd hours is just stroking ourselves to feel special about the supposedly coveted "startup founder" persona. It's a really boring, old meme at this point. I'm a "startup founder" with a profitable SaaS business, but I also have unrelated hobbies and friends outside of that bubble.

Not that I don't have hobbies and friends. I routinely take week long beach vocation to make myself physically isolated from work. Just can't stop thinking about it daily and it's a hellof joy returning to my cubicle start working.

that's not healthy. find a hobby, sleep enough, remember to eat. you get to work or build plenty of companies, but you only get one life.

As a startup founder you're sitting on a nice pile of equity. That's why you are sacrificing more of your life for success. Chinese workers at Alibaba for example mostly do not have any equity at all.

Because you are going to make the money and reward. Only the most desperate idiots would work that hard for someone else's dream.