I know plenty of non unicorn startup founders that don’t work overtime, and they net about $1Mm per year. Sure, not a path to billionaire status, but not too shabby either.
Show me a definition of startup from a reputable source that claims that scaling up quickly is a requirement. All companies start off by being a startup [0]
Developers generally agree that it's better to spend some time writing tests, as even if it increases our latency in the small term, it will improve output it in the long term.
Yet, we also seem to think that it's totally fine to sacrifice mental and physical being for the sake of short term gains instead of long term ones?
I am not saying one should not do the occasional push, but surely as a founder it's better to work 40 hours a week and keep yourself sane, than push yourself into burn out after 1 year of 70h/week and no holidays?
Not everyone thinks of the same thing when they think startup. I think the main difference is that some people also include starting a lifestyle business, or a business that's much less ambitious in scope than being a globally known name. There's nothing wrong with a business that employs less than 20 people, and nothing that necessarily means it has to grow.