[npc]

No matter what, you're always going to be at a disadvantage to someone who is willing to sacrifice more than you, whether that be health or family or anything else. I liked the article but it completely danced around the obvious conclusion which is, "maintaining a healthy relationship with your family is going to cost you time and energy which is going to at least somewhat lessen your chances of success and you have to be okay with that."

Edit: I've realized that my last sentence was somewhat ambiguous, I want to make it clear that I in no way support neglecting your family for a chance at economic success. When I said you have to be okay with it, I meant being okay with the risk of failing.

[michaelochurch]

No matter what, you're always going to be at a disadvantage to someone who is willing to sacrifice more than you, whether that be health or family or anything else.

Not always. If you're in a line of work where your own competence matters, sacrificing your health or family life will burn you. It doesn't take long.

The relevant issue is that most white-collar workers (even programmers in many dysfunctional organizations) are private-sector social climbers by trade and practice, and competence matters a lot less than image for them. If appearance matters more than capability, extreme sacrifice can help you.

[npc]

>willing

There was an important word there that you seemed to miss. I didn't say that he who sacrifices more will always win, but they do have more options available to them, so to speak. Please don't think I'm advocating sacrificing health and family in the name of success, far from it. I just don't like this post facto moralizing that glosses over the difficulty of choosing between working late on something that might be critical to the success of your enterprise and going home to see your wife and kids.

[md224]

I think this discussion highlights something very important about any Darwinian system, be it inter-species rivalry or free market competition: evolution has no higher ideals. Whatever is best at domination will dominate; whatever is best at spreading will spread.

People put so much faith in evolutionary processes as if they believe that evolution honors some kind of Platonic ideal. Evolution is a cold process, and it does not give a shit about you or anything you hold dear, unless what you hold dear is conducive to dominance in the specific arena under discussion.

Not to say natural selection is bad or good... I'm just pointing out that it's a value-neutral process, and I think it's a good idea to remember that, especially when we get the urge to derive norms of behavior from evolutionary evidence.

[xal]

That's nonsense. There are 5 creative hours in the day if you are generous. Some companies are build so poorly that it takes staff 12 hours of being present to access those but that's the failing of these businesses and they will likely die.

There are two solutions to the issue, avoid the issue and hire people crazy enough to put up with the hours or actually build a great company without the flaw. First one is way easier and seems to be working in places like NYC and Silicon Valley, it's really a pity.