Definitely right. After 13 years of this I just find it really hard to care that much about X startup or tech company. My daily work is basically the same no matter where and what industry I'm at. Given some baseline of company quality. There is probably some upper echelon that I'm not smart enough or hard working enough or care about enough to break into - because it would require sacrificing too much of my personal life. And I don't mean your run of the mill FAANG corporations.

The quality of my work is better than ever but my caring is at an all time low. I still study new technologies and learn better soft skills and it's easier than ever with great resources and the perspective from experience. I've had my share of lottery tickets in startups and grinding away at bigger companies and what I truly want is like a 3 or 4 day work week.

Wow, I could have written the exact same words.

I wonder what would it be like if access to this upper echelon worked differently; if selection wasn’t based exclusively on total sacrifice and dedication.

My feeling is there is a lot of hidden potential wasted among the rank-and-file...

There's a limited number of spots at the upper echelon, so it's natural that they go to talented people who are most passionate about that kind of work (which translates into willingness to work longest hours and other personal sacrifices).

It's a very fair system - let's say the world has money for a total of 1000 string theoretists, so it makes sense to only assign the jobs to geniuses who are also in love with string theory, as opposed to say smart people who are kind of interested in physics.

Yup. Every job I've become emotionally invested in I end up working until 9PM on Fridays and being constantly ON CALL for the sake of the work. I have ended up burnt out every single time.

Something I enjoy enough to do 40ish hours a week and can walk away from on the weekends? Perfect.

Yeah this is what I'd call foundersyndrome - at least at startups if you're an early employee. It is easy to get sucked into the founder mentality and forget your piece of the pie is not that big.

There's a certain amount of dedication and emotional investment that you'd expect a founder to have. A good founder/leader will demonstrate that in a way that other employees are inspired but NOT sucked into it.

Wow, thanks for this post, it seems obvious now, but it really gives me some closure on a startup role I burned out on after a year. I totally had foundersyndrome, and it was extremely stressful because there was a total mismatch between my emotional investment in the company, my equity share, and my power to enact change.

I only had 0.5% equity yet was completely invested in the company at the detriment of my wellbeing. And it wasn't really discouraged, some of the other employees regularly worked weekends, and I was dumb enough to do it too when my work was particularly interesting.

I LOVED the work, but ultimately it just ran me into the ground, and when I didn't have the power to push initiatives through that were important to me it was extremely frustrating. That combined with being the first engineer and basically building the engineering team and V1 of the product, but then not being promoted to director of SW basically sealed the deal for me, and I was like fuck it I'm out of here.

Thanks for your comment, I've doubted myself many times for leaving that role, but now it's crystal clear that there needs to be a good match between emotional investment and ownership, and mine was completely out of balance, so it really was never going to work out.

So right around 15 pieces of flair?

Exactly sixteen pieces of flair.

Spoken like a true burnout veteran.

I have 3 lovely coffee mugs to prove it. Luckily my wife likes coffee.

Would anyone here consider applying this to their romantic relationship?

I think a matching level of emotional investment is hugely important.

Do you mean to imply that a person should have similar relationships to their job and significant other? If so, can't say that I agree.

What exactly are you thinking? Is your point that it couldn't possibly apply to a romantic relationship, or are you thinking it could?

I'm thinking that there is a similar dynamic going on in romantic relationships. There are people who choose a partner for other reasons beyond strict love or money. For example, you might want a partner who is at home and supports you and your work (traditional household model). In order for this relationship to actually support you, like ioseph said, a matching level of emotional investment is important. Otherwise you're too dependent on your partner and that won't work out in your favor. I hope I could clarify my train of thought a little.