[cpwright]

You can actually be incredibly productive when working a 60 hour work week, and I used to do it regularly. When I was doing it at a large company, there was little reward for it, but I did learn a lot and was able to turn that into a better, and less stressful job in finance.

There are definitely benefits to having one person work 60 hours rather than two work 40, beyond cost savings to the company. Often if you're tackling a hard and involved problem, it often isn't something that can be easily split up. There is a lot of context, and one person working on it steadily will certainly be more efficient than trying to have two people work on it and communicate.

I don't work like this now, but I can say that when I did I was remarkably productive. It does come with an associated cost on family life and out-of-work activities, and unless you're going to actually get compensated for it; it is likely not worth it.

Working on an interesting problem, though, can be very difficult to put down.