[superswordfish]

No, I still disagree with you. Carmack is the outlier of the outlier and not a useful example. To be able to get and keep a team of those people would be the opportunity of a lifetime.

Keep in mind that I'm the sort of person you are indicating already. I sleep little and don't care much about work/life balance. When I've worked on teams that are burning the candle at both ends, I am able to hold out longer than others and usually end up carrying things over the finish line.

That's the point of my comment: Even for those who ought to thrive, things start to break down, and no amount of energy or toughness changes that. We are human. I want to warn/remind other engineers that these practices are unsustainable. Hell, I want to remind myself of that after repeating this work to the bone/burnout cycle so many times.