Which is an excellent point that I deleted because it felt off-topic. I'm to the point where I want to work hard from 10-6 then go be a human, instead of working from 10-9 with lots of Nerf gun fights and Reddit breaks.

Well, OP does talk about missing out on seeing his friends, so that would imply working long hours.

This is a valid point, but go to almost any startup pitch event where potential talent is in the audience -- "Work hard, play hard" comes to mind.

My favorite learning experience (from a startup perspective) is also the one I think was the biggest failure. So much tech and a lot of dedication on my part, but looking back, the lost time with my wife. All of it really due to a lack of planning and an over commitment by management expecting engineering to step up. I don't ever recall being asked for estimates, just what needed to be done. I was in my tunnel at the time, building things.

I look back and the pre-devops, "devops" call at 1pm on a Saturday (after a 60+ hour week, they didn't have / hire sys admins before launching) was basically the end of line for me. Thankfully, the wife and I were driving back down 1 from SF to the Central Coast. We took our time and nourished the lack of coverage.

You're absolutely right, and I'm not sure that the parent would disagree with you.

However, the grandparent specifically formulated the choice as a dilemma: (I'd work my ass off without options, but the options really make it easy to say "I will do everything in my power to make this succeed" instead of "I'd rather go spend time with my friends tonight"), and that is probably what the parent was referring to.

I totally agree. I don't like the term "working hard", it doesn't mean anything. I'd rather use "efficiency". If you work 70 hours but you do as much as someone working 20 hours, I don't consider that you are working hard. About the low wages for startup employees with high equity; I don't find it right as if you want to attract great workers, you need to offer them something now and not only something which might come possible in the future. Even if you have very high hopes to become a successful startup, this is never 100% sure. Startups have to look forward but people tend to look at present.

I'd rather use "effectiveness" than "efficiency". Doing in in 20hrs what takes someone else 70hrs is efficient, but it may not be effective. There's no point getting loads done if the work is low value. It's more important to focus on doing valuable work than getting lots done imo.

I agree with effectiveness