I've worked 80hrs per week. It does happen. The reason for the work was the company was taking off and there was a huge "pull" to do more hours. Every hour of work would produce great returns.
It's probably impossible to "push" 80hrs of work a week on a startup that's not working , or you're trying to get it off the ground.
Yep, came here to say this. Burnout is a thing, and it happens when people work 60+ hours a week for 6+ months (estimate). If people didn't actually work their butts off for that long and were just 'wasting' time, what is commonly known as burnout would just be sleep deprivation.
I know a bunch of coders doing this, it's just a question of your Ritalin supply.
This might be true in tech but it certainly isn't true in a variety of other areas. Many years ago when I was just out of high school I worked (along with many others there) 80 hours a week in a restaurant and every single hour was bust-your-ass busy.
I think this is valid. I'm the type of person who works in bursts. Some things are conducive to this and others aren't. To be honest I feel like regular office hours are not at all, but its the best system we have when coordination needs to happen.