[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.