The thing is, being a rockstar is a mostly about sleeping on buses, not washing, and using drugs to dull the loss of identity caused by never being in the same city for more than 6 hours.

What people want is to be successful and adored. That's all anyone ever talks about in these 'programmer as rockstar' articles. As much of a sense of martyrdom startup people cultivate about their work habits, none of it is as physically difficult or as psychologically degrading as actually being an truly internationally famous rock musician.

There's a reason why they all act so damn crazy after a certain point in their careers.

If you want to be celebrated and rewarded way out of proportion to your contribution to society, just say so, dont make some false analogy to a completely unrelated profession.