[bgxor]

I find it really hard to believe that anyone can actually "work" for 80 hours a week. Especially in mentally taxing work like designing and implementing software. That is something close to 9am-9pm 7 days a week. You pretty much have to be heavily medicated to even make it out to the other side if that. Maybe it's possible if you simply spend several hours a day in meetings or wasting time, but that is another issue altogether.

I have a sneaking suspicion that these 80 hour work weeks people brag about actually boil down to an anecdote about a terrible week they once had when they needed to get the job done quickly or lose their company. People that don't really understand what this kind of work entails just perpetuate these ideas because of some perverse idea of work ethic they get from reading about irrational people like Elon Musk.

I've got some breaking news for this "CEO" if he is for real and actually thinks an 80 hour work week is in any way a decent idea; the thing you are creating is not that important. You might think it is, but you are wrong. That is the hard but certain truth, and I truly hope you learn that in the least painful way possible.

If the Earth was suddenly going to be destroyed by an asteroid in just a few weeks, you'd be right to sacrifice the physical and mental well being of your brilliant team in ways like this to stop it. Even at that point you'd be better off with rotating fresh minds to figure it out.

Long story short, you are lying or just kidding yourself. Either way, you are doing a bad thing for the world.