[h1karu]

> People claim that startups work you hard, I personally don’t see it. From people I’ve talked to, I’d say 50 hour weeks are average. That’s about what you see in corporate America these days.

If you're working at an early stage startup then in general nobody should "work you" at all, rather you'll work yourself 60+hours a week because you ACTUALLY HAVE SIGNIFICANT EQUITY in the company and therefor you want to see it grow quickly.

In a corporate environment you don't have any "skin in the game" so to speak so there's no incentive to push yourself.

If you're working at an early stage startup and you don't have significant equity then you're doing it wrong.

[ulfw]

'significant equity'. Who outside the founders and maybe five first employees really have that in a startup? If owning 0.1% which gets diluted to 0.01% before the startup sells for say 40MM bucks four years later is significant to you...

[h1karu]

It depends on what you mean by "startup" I suppose. I've worked for three and in each I've been one of the first dozen or so employees. You don't have to be a founder but I think that being a core "early employee" with a fair equity stake is the right way to get the real "startup experience". Anything else is like.. well working for an established company, and doesn't have the same vibe, or excitement.