Our hacker mansion is filled with people working on different companies, at different stages (some funded, some not, some with customers, some without, etc.), and all of whom add something interesting and different to the diversity of the house. I take _at least_ 1 day a week off, often two. But frankly, sometimes others have to tell me to, since I love what I'm doing.

In short, hacker mansions can work out great if the people there are vetted, smart, passionate, and okay with having social lives. If you get together a group of people who are only going to work 24/7, guess what, they'll work together and burn out together. That's not the house we built.

Furthermore, I get to hang out with deer and wild turkeys while I relax in an enormous house with killer amenities; I wouldn't have the money to pay for that myself. I code and run my business mostly from our shared office space in Palo Alto.

(Full disclosure: this is a separate and entirely different hacker house from the one ryancarson is talking about, but a hacker house nonetheless.)

Of course lots of work is going to get done at such a place, but who said that the experience and fun wouldn't also be incredibly beneficial to a young developer?

That doesn't sound like taking advantage; that sounds like quid pro quo. Developers are buying tickets to attend a hackathon.