[klyrs]

The author demonstrates that a one-summer hustle had a good outcome. Nobody's trying to take that away from you. Sometimes, I cannot contain my passion for a problem and I need to make a choice: lie in bed with a buzzing brain, or get up and work on it. All that's fine. But, word of warning from somebody who was all hustle for over a decade: burnout is real.

Hustle culture says we should all be doing the 996 thing for our entire lives and if you don't you're a weakling who doesn't deserve bread. That's toxic. And (almost) nobody actually has that opinion. But it's what people hear when they're already burnt out and a cubemate brags about how little sleep they got before an arbitrary deadline.

Positive outcomes from self-driven hustle: good. Hustle culture: still toxic.

[engineer_22]

Maybe "hustle culture" could be better defined. I think it means different things to different people.

When I think "hustle culture" I think multi-level marketing, corny fake Instagram ads, and poorly conceived business propositions.

You're right, bragging about how little sleep you got doesn't make you admirable, it makes you a schmuck.

[mikewhy]

Those are hustles, yes, but "hustle culture" means something else more towards the glorifying overwork end of the scale.

[weare138]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias