[sonjat]

I get that being passionate about a job, bringing all your skills and all you have to a cause you believe in can create a fire. And isn't that a goal of life? To have a fire, a purpose? So kudos to her for finding that. That being said, a culture that demands that kind of hours is a culture that limits who will work there. Forget having young children. Forget having a time-consuming hobby outside of work. Forget even having a good social life. For some people, that is a worthwhile trade-off. For others, it isn't. Those others might be the very kind of people who could contribute a lot to your company, but they won't work there for long.

I think companies who encourage that kind of work environment are, to some degree, missing the forest for the trees. They get a lot of hours out of their employees, but they can only hire from a small section of the population. Potentially valuable employees are not available to such companies, and I think often this hurts the companies in the long run.