[potatolicious]

Hogwash. If you can't do something at a sustainable pace, you can't do it at all.

In startup environments crunch time has a nasty tendency of becoming normal time, and you get nosediving morale, massively increased attrition, and lower overall productivity. It's lose-lose all around.

So sure, in a startup you'd expect some late nights. When late nights become the norm though, you are now officially in dysfunctional company territory - don't let naive founders with rainbows and unicorns in their eyes convince you otherwise. Very sick of this Valley attitude that you must push yourself to the very edge of death-by-exhaustion to achieve anything worthwhile.

[nmcfarl]

Hogwash. You can’t even start a new bank on bankers hours much less spaceship company, or more prosaically a restaurant.

Companies are founded on the time and passion of their earliest members.

Obviously burnout is a problem from day one, and the trick to building a company for the long haul is to move from zero to a monetarily sustainable enterprise while at the same time moving from insane hours to viable ones, and to do it fast enough that you don’t burnout the whole company before you get there. It’s not an easy trick.

[Domenic_S]

You're not really disagreeing with the GP.

A real big question, especially in startup-land, is when is a startup no longer a startup? When you offer health insurance? When you're cashflow positive? $1MM/yr? $10MM/yr?

It's really easy to justify the long nights with, "Well, we're a startup." And if you generate enough money with those long nights to KTLO and make sure paychecks don't bounce, it's hard to call it quits. But after N years, the "we're a startup" excuse gets old.

[creekside408]

Every baseball team has a bench. The unsung hero that is the difference between start-up success and failure is often a family member, friend, or junior helper who keeps the caffeine and food and goodies stocked, has the temerity to send people home when they're so exhausted they're no longer helpful, and last but not least, can occasionally talk some sense into the SuperFounder. Or at least makes sure there is a long comfy couch.