I should not have made a personal attack. But I really would encourage you to consider what others have written and think about why your take on hiring is not healthy and may even be actively discriminatory against a protected class.

You'll be happy to know I have nothing to do with hiring of any kind, but just as an individual contributor it seems quite unhealthy to me to work on a team where work is my #1 priority, but everyone else's distant second.

I suspect you'd find it quite ridiculous to have to pick up my slack as I have to run at 5pm to practice with my bandmates, at least if you weren't paid correspondingly more for the extra effort. Change that to a PTA meeting or soccer practice, though, and suddenly it's how dare you suggest that I get paid less for not only doing less work than you, but doing some of the work I was expected to in the first place!

Well, I would say that if you make work your number one priority for a company that you don’t own, it’s very naive. If you got hit by a bus tomorrow, the company would send flowers to your funeral and have an open req out for your position before you’re buried.

>I suspect you'd find it quite ridiculous to have to pick up my slack as I have to run at 5pm to practice with my bandmates

I suppose it depends what the context of "pick up the slack" means but, in general, I'd find it perfectly normal for a co-worker to take off at 5pm for an evening activity, family-related or otherwise.

I do tons of work-related travel and the like. I also don't do nights and weekends work day-to-day. Work emergencies happen (as do odd-hour conference calls) but it's rare I'll schedule evening activities around work when I'm not traveling.

Not sure what the proper way to respond to a deeply nested comment around here is, but @scarface74:

Company A will pay me $400k/yr, but only if I make work my top priority

Company B will pay me $150k/yr, no matter what

Please explain why it's "naive" to choose Company A. I don't need "ownership" in the company to profit from this.

I don't see how the company's reaction to my death factors into the decision at all.

That's a legitimate tradeoff, which may or may not be worth it to everyone.

But that's not even close to the situation most developers are in. Most are getting paid somewhere around an average salary, maybe with a few probably-worthless stock options, and they're getting asked to sacrifice their personal time working for free to make founders rich. Working extra hard isn't likely to advance their career at all; it just gives them a reputation as somebody who is willing to take abuse.

If you're in a situation to make a crazy good salary by working hard, by all means, do that if you want. But understand that situation is very rare. And even if you're getting that deal, the person sitting next to you might not be in the same boat.

Working hard to make other people rich is a sucker's bet, akin to playing a slot machine. For a rare few, it pays off big. For a somewhat larger cohort, there's a modest payoff. For the large majority, it's just wasting their career and their time.

First, your A-B situation is not a reality for most of engineers.

Second, if you want to dedicate 10 years of your life to work, make money and retire early - it's a reasonable choice for many. But if it goes into 40s - why do you need money, if you would not be able to enjoy it constantly working? Your money may go straight to doctors and psychotherapists eventually.