Sometimes, it’s just time to go home

I don't want to be a wet blanket, but when I read how hard he and others work, the first thought that comes to me is:

"I'm not working even close to that level."

In a way, it's a glimpse into the reality required to do Great Things. Followed by the painful self-awareness that you're nowhere close.

Last year I worked for a startup and I allowed myself to be pushed past the breaking point. The founders tempted me with equity (which never actually materialized) and I ended up doing many all nighters and many 90-hour weeks prior to an early release (another company was doing the front-end while we did the server in-house).

I don't have a wife or a puppy, but I shouldn't have allowed this to happen. I was hired to work for a set salary under the assumption of a 40-hour work-week - although I am naturally obsessive so I knew that wouldn't actually last. But I didn't expect my boss to say things like, "If we don't have a working build by 3pm tomorrow, we're all fired," (which turned out to be false, actually).

Pacing is important, and I think it would be interesting to do a startup where pacing is actively encouraged. I think this might be possible at a startup with strong IP protection, good funding, and leadership that sets realistic goals and trusts it's people to be motivated to get it done. It may mean that the public has to wait a bit longer before having a cool new thing available to them, but it also means that the thing will have been constructed by fresh, happy minds.

There is a moral imperative to not buy goods made in sweatshops. There is also a moral imperative to not use software produced under inhumane conditions. Congratulations on discovering this for yourself - and I hope you encourage your coworkers to be humane to each other and themselves as well.

Great Things require dedication, passion, and vision. Working yourself to death is not on the list of requirements, and in fact can often be counter-productive.

If you're passionate about your job, you're likely to work hard. But there's a line between "working hard", and overworking. Beyond a certain point, more hours may (or may not) mean more things done, but almost certainly doesn't mean more of the right things done.

well said. as a corollary, id say that finding the right balance is really energizing. in some sense, i think its backwards to decide you want to do something "great"- i think its better to get in tune with what kind of processes and styles you like, and let that dictate where you go, knowing that because you are doing things that are suited to you, you are going to progress much faster.

This is not the reality of what is required to do great things [1]. This is one path, but there are many others. There are lots of people who work 40-50 hours a week and have incredibly successful startups/companies/whatever. There are people who work 80 hours a week and their startup is a complete piece of garbage.

Jamie Zawinski has a great great blog post about this [2], which I'll quote part of:

> He's trying to make the point that the only path to success in the software industry is to work insane hours, sleep under your desk, and give up your one and only youth, and if you don't do that, you're a pussy. He's using my words to try and back up that thesis. I hate this, because it's not true, and it's disingenuous.

I'm not saying the OP is trying to sell this lie too. He is posting about how he is tired and wants to go home and relax. However, the life he describes is very much in the vein of Jamie's blog post. This lifestyle is not required to succeed, and it may in fact be quite counter-productive (as this blog post is attesting to). If your life isn't like this and you aren't working this hard it really isn't saying anything about how likely to succeed you are.

1: Though I don't know exactly what "great things" is... Making a lot of money? Going to Mars? Getting on the cover of Forbes magazine? Some of these require more effort than others.

2: http://www.jwz.org/blog/2011/11/watch-a-vc-use-my-name-to-se...