> VCs aren't risking their own money.
First, that isn't universally true. Also, the term "VC" is often used to mean "investors". I think I can say that the history of most businesses does not start with VC's that manage hundreds of millions of dollars not belonging to them.
Business is hard, very hard. There are very few dorm-to-unicorn stories like Facebook. Even then, the Facebook story isn't about pink unicorns and lollypops for everyone from day one.
That's the major fallacy in these ideologies that vilify business. They don't come from a framework that really understands what is entailed in running and funding a non-trivial organization and making it successful in a globally competitive market.
> Maybe we shouldn't be normalizing unsustainable work that creates health problems for people, whether at the CEO or the regular worker level.
Suggestion: Go work at a farm for a summer.
I don't know of any competitive job of any kind that does not bring with it stress. Let's be careful not to manufacture fantasies. It's the "grass is greener on the other side of the fence" idea. I know someone who is theoretically worth nearly $800MM who has problems the average office worker would not want to ever have to face on a daily basis. The grass isn't always greener. It seldom is.
To add to that from a personal anecdote. I started a business back in 2000. It was a hardware/software business. I was locked in my garage 18 hours a day, 7 days a week for 18 months before I could ship our first product. Six month after shipping, and with some sales in the bank, I decided to get a new car. My old car had 200K miles and I could not even consider upgrading it before.
I was talking to a neighbor a couple of weeks after that.
He said something like "Wow! You must have hit the jackpot. Did you get a new job?". You see, from the outside, nobody sees the 18 hour days, 7 days a week, 18 month effort, struggle, pain, suffering, sleepless nights, crying, self-doubt, family problems, financial risk, etc. All they see is Martin driving a new car he did not have for the last five years. That's all they process. They have no clue, at all, none, of what it took to get there --and to stay there.