Sleep deprivation is not a badge of honor

Good article... and it reminds me of the messes that I've had to clean up at various jobs; in every case, the people who were working the insanely long hours weren't getting as much done as I was, and since I was getting my work done, I had to clean up their messes. The people working the 80+ hour work weeks typically ended up causing more harm than good, and also typically got more rewards and respect from the management because of their "dedication" to the job.

Never mind that most of the code they wrote didn't work until someone else fixed it.

Doing a startup seems to me more like playing soccer than running a marathon. Though you need to pace yourself, there are moments when you want to work super hard. So while being out of breath is not a sufficient condition for winning, it probably is a necessary one.

Likewise for startups. Sleep deprivation is not a sufficient condition for winning, but empirically it seems to be a necessary one. Not long-term, obviously, but during certain peak times. Even at YC there are times when we have to work so hard that we sleep less. On interview weekends, for example.

So the reason people who work hard (not just in startups, but in all fields) treat sleep deprivation as a badge of honor is that it's a sign that one has the necessary commitment not to cave when there are spikes of work.

I don't believe the "out of breath" analogy quite holds, because being sleep deprived is not working at your brain's full potential, whereas running flat out probably is working at your lung's full potential.

A better analogy might be playing while hurt. You're clearly not at your full potential, but you are making progress.

But I'd argue that I'd rather have people on my team that aren't hurt: it is detrimental to performance in a similar way and acknowledges the commitment.

And it is also usually a bad idea.

Depriving yourself of sleep for long periods of time is obviously not good. But pulling a couple of all-nighters a week when needed is pretty necessary if you want to get anywhere IMHO.

In my years as an investment banker, most of the sleep deprivation that I was subjected to was the result of poor planning (mostly by other people) and a hyper-macho, superficial culture. Now as I'm trying to rebuild my health and psyche, I realize that maybe 20% of it was necessary to accomplish some important project. The rest could have been skipped without harming the financial results of the company, though my reputation would have suffered and I might have been fired long before I quit.

David, if your advocacy leads to even slightly more humane workplaces, you will deserve to be hailed as a saint by millions of people.