I got nowhere fast in life by just sitting around waiting for things to happen. I had all sorts of excuses on why I wasn't succeeding, the article likes to supply plenty, and they are just poisonous thoughts.
then i lit a fire under my butt. I wanted to be a principle engineer, so I did research by looking at profiles on linkedin and found a masters at a great school would make that path easier. I spent time waiting in the subway, nights, and weekends studying and applied. I got rejected. I kept improving my application, I got accepted.
I changed my mind on what I wanted to be and wanted to be a data scientist, preferably a top tech. lots of rejections, lots of no response. took me years of trying different things and spending my nights and weekends doing kaggle competitions and learning. eventually I got what I wanted.
hustling alone didnt get me where I wanted to be, but resting around on my laurels and blaming other things for my lack of success would have done nothing. worse than nothing, it would have made me a bitter failure.
the article suggests the hustle culture is a symptom of a failed work system because people are afraid to loose their job. I disagree. I think its because many recognize we are in a rare window in time that we can do so much with our effort. we may have to change our expectations, we may have to fail a bit before we get there, but if we keep trying better things will happen.