Well said. I never understood why people associate startups with long hours. Sure, that was the stereotype for VC-backed disaster startups back in the '90s, but there's no reason to expect that you need to work 12 hour days just to run a software business.

I live comfortably on revenues from my little software empire, and I can't remember the last time I worked a 40 hour week on one of my products.

I'm like most developers in that I work in bursts. I get maybe one or two full-day pushes in a good week, and lots of little tinkering bursts that last an hour or so. When none of that is happening, you'll find me off living my life.

While it's likely true that people who sacrifice everything are rarely successful, I think that the people at the top of their fields almost always have.

There's almost, but not quite, the subtext here that over the top dedication doesn't matter. But it does affect one's potential, it just doesn't guarantee success.

So rationally, since you probably won't get to the top of your field, it's folly to burn yourself out trying. But then, by that same logic, starting a startup is altogether irrational since it'll probably be a lot of work for little money and ultimate failure.

There's a function from commitment to potential, and the area between that line and the plot of a rational career choice is the place founders live. It's really a matter of how far of a departure overbearing self-confidence allows you to justify. But the biggest winners are the ones that start among the most self-deluded. ;-)

I think about this a bit because I have kids. I simply refuse to not spend time with them. If success at a startup is predicated on spending all your waking hours working, I'm doomed to never succeed.

I don't think this is the case. Strategy and design are two good examples of areas where more hours doesn't necessarily mean better. It is better to be slower and right.

Setting the tone and pace for others is a riskier part of this. Will employees stay late if the founder is never there for dinner?

I don't think there is anything wrong with crunch for a month or three, on the promise that the team can wind down, relax and be acknowledged for their crunch period after.

I find I can work intensively for three months, but then need a few weeks of working 9-5 to recover. I think that is pretty normal, and I assume this is what the SocialCam team did.

(swombat: got a source for the quote?)

Thanks for writing this -- it made me write my thoughts down on some things I've also been meaning to write.

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2309723

I think in this case, it's more about the timing. They want to get it done by SXSW. So it's not an arbitrary deadline, or worse just a philosophy that you have to drive yourself into the ground. They have a real deadline that, if they can hit it, they will likely give a nice bump to their launch and chances of success.

While I'd agree--killing yourself isn't good strategy or a real recipe for success--sometimes it needs to be done.

It's not just your physical and mental energy that gets burned out through 12 hour days, it's also your passion. For all entrepreneurs there is a strong underlying passion burning inside and we push ourselves based on how brightly it burns, because we simply have nothing else to answer to. So if you're well-rested or highly caffeinated or adrenaline-filled with passion, you will be productive, because you're excited to. If you're pushing yourself to work 100 hours a week just because you think it's the right thing to do (this is the equivalent of face time in a corporate company) then you will be less productive, if not also resentful and discouraged. That's not to say deadlines aren't important, but work ethics should come from a desire within instead of from external pressure. I mean, we don't like the corporate world because of this external pressure, right? So why bring it with us to our startups?

When I read yesterday's post about the sprint to launch at SXSW, I thought 3 things:

  1. Great determination, great work ethic, great job.
  2. It doesn't have to be this way.
  3. It shouldn't be this way.
  

I feel fortunate that my DNA is blessed with some sort of internal "governor". I don't know where it came from, but I've always had it. Here's how it works: It stays out of the way when I am enthusiastic about something, allowing me work ridiculous hours and pursue almost anything that looks promising, whether it makes sense or not. But when I reach a certain point, it turns me off, completely. I don't seem to have conscious judgement of what that point is or when I reach it, but when it happens, I know.

A few examples:

- I have worked many times without sleep, preparing for a launch. Sometimes, I know my judgement is failing and continuing would cause more problems in the long run. So I stopped and apologize to everyone. I went to sleep and informed everyone that the project would resume at x. I'm not really sure exactly what happened, but I know I had little control over the governor.

- I had 2,500 invoices spread across the carpet, looking for a clue about a bug. After 8 hours, everything was fuzzy. So I just gathered up the invoices, filed them away, and went to sleep. Three days later a lightbulb went off, I spread out 100 of the invoices, and found the problem in 15 minutes. I know that if I had continued that night, I never would have found the problem.

- I worked 90 hours per week for 2 months for a big deployment. Without telling me, my co-founder spent all of our reserves travelling to a customer site to oversee the install. He emailed me every 20 minutes with a problem. Between being pissed off at him and exhausted from working on the wrong things, I realized the project was going nowhere and would never succeed. So I just stopped working completely. I went to bed and didn't answer email for 4 days. I'm not proud of this, just one more story about my internal governor.

I'm a little frustrated that I don't have much control over my governor, but also a little relieved that it does it's thing. After all, I've never really been burnt out, and I'm still going strong. Thank you, governor.

well said. Starting a startup is a marathon not a sprint; pace yourself or you'll regret it later.

Everyone starting out seems to think it'll be all over in a year and they'll be rich. It's more likely to be a couple of years and few people can sustain intense work for that long without crashing.

There's value to the experience of being on a team of people, working towards a goal you all believe in, all giving 100%. Agreed, you wouldn't want to do this 365 days a year, but I think it's important to understand the state of mind required to do this, so that you can call on it or recreate it for circumstances that merit it.

It's definitely easier to do this if you think your team is going to "win". In fact, if you don't think you stand a reasonable chance of winning, you may as well just go home.

But: If people thought too much about statistics, no one would ever try anything new. So I don't think that being able accurately to gauge your chances of success is actually that important (never mind the fact that it's essentially impossible).

That's a lot of modafinil. That stuff burns me out after a week of daily use, let alone 9 months. Mixing it with caffeine makes me crazy as well. Be careful with your neurons people.

Can I ask what sort of doses you were taking?