I've never understood the risk trade-off for early stage employees (Employees ~4 through ~10-20).

At this stage equity packages are often <0.5% over 4 years. Founders on the other hand may have more like 30% equity at this stage.

But the odds of success are still quite low - <3% is generous.

In venture funded companies I think it's wrong to say that at <10 employees, founders are 60x more responsible for company outcomes (or taking on 60x more risk), even accounting for what they did to start the company.

That being said - I get working hard if you're appropriately rewarded for it. Just less so if it's primarily on behalf of someone else.

My favorite paragraph:

> I’ve pulled many all-nighters, and I’ve enjoyed them. I still do. But they’re enjoyable in the right context, for the right reasons, and when that is a completely personal choice, not the basis of company culture.

Back in 1999 in SF, at the peak of dotcom boom, a few startups located down South from the Market street would shutter down their entrances after around dinner time. All people still inside, working over night. I had two of my friends (actually colleagues - we were from a consulting firm) working at those places. It became a norm around that place and youngsters loved that kind of all-nighters.

The new year eve of millennium Dec 31, 1999 - we went to Fishermans's wharf, roamed around and then went back to work at 1 am. No Y2K issues.

“I think founders need to create incentive mechanisms and the right atmosphere - where people want to work hard because they believe this is the best way to spend their time. It should feel like contributing to a mission that can’t be matched by other things.”

- Gregor Zunic [1]

“A soldier will fight long and hard for a bit of colored ribbon.”

-apocryphally attributed to Napoleon

1. https://x.com/gregpr07/status/1964392101682303438

I think it's fine for kids who want to do that. You should try to get yourself into a situation around other motivated kids who want to do something great together as a tight knit focused team at that age; it's fun and you'll make lifelong friends. But by 30 you'll start to understand that work is just a tiny part of life and not really what matters at all. It will naturally shake itself out by then as simply no one will accept it in this country as a widespread policy.

I did and still do sometimes a lot of 60-70 hour weeks, for months. But being in the service industry means you get paid in 15 min increments and the after-business-hour rate is much higher, usually 1.5-2X. So if you do the math it’s actually pretty good money and you will find very little people complaining about it. I never worked in product-first businesses and don’t know how the compensation model is, but there is no way I would work an extra hour that isn’t paid. That should be the norm.

On the topic of working hours, flexitime is highly addicting and I cannot imagine anything that's better for a software developer. Clock in, have meetings, write code, commit, clock out. Overtime? Just leave early without asking your boss. It just makes sense. Plus, the negotiated working hours per week / working days / mandatory hours can be set to whatever value that makes sense.

Nobody is paying you to sit, people care about the working product.

Anyone who thinks they can just "out work" the competition cannot be serious about innovation. Sure, you have to be willing to work hard sometimes, but its much more important to work smart, meaning, knowing where to go and how to get there efficiently and effectively. The latter can't happen if you are too busy to get a good nights sleep. Good ideas don't happen when your brain works on fumes.

Wanting to work 12 hours a day is the saddest thing I’ve ever heard.

> When someone promotes a 996 work culture, we should push back

And like the author says, it just doesn’t make sense either.

Speaking as someone who has worked in a role which legitimately requires weeks of intense work (running large deals, where you're a Dune-style "mentat" about every aspect of a relationship)... these are absolutely not sustainable and the quality of your work starts to fall apart after a certain point....

It's biologically impossible to generate good long term results form 996 or 007.