[pedalpete]

This is not correct, you don't 'pretty much always end up getting paid for hard work'.

I've worked in a few startups, as well as had my own where I was working 6-7 days a week 15+hours on most week days, and it didn't result in a big pay day. I've had lots of stock in bankrupt companies and experience to show for it.

However, I will say that it is possible you'll gain lots of experience, and I wouldn't give up my long hours in my youth for anything else. It was great experience and I loved being in the thick of it.

As I've gotten older, I've started to appreciate more of a balance.

[hkarthik]

He specifically said it was false for a certain group of people (those in banking).

People in banking/finance have a very skewed sense of reality when it comes to work and fair compensation. You generally have to take their anecdotal advice with a grain of salt if that's all they've ever done.

No line of work can consistently deliver the kinds of returns that finance can. Hence its very easy to justify the longer hours in that industry since they turn into very real dollars. For the rest of us, putting a dollar value on our output is much harder to quantify.

[throwaway9848]

"Tier 1 bonus bucket at a bulge bracket one year, Tier 2 the other year."

He was at a bank, not at a startup. Since you are not familiar with bonus structures at banks, what he's talking about could roughly double a salary in a _cash_ bonus.