Yes: It is that easy to end up frog-in-a-pot. I've seen it, and I've done it. I've seen it nearly kill people and cause them to give up on careers.

And this underlines what stress is all about: Not working hard, but spinning your wheels and going nowhere. It will make a mess out of you.

And yeah, for whatever reasons the tech startup world can be ultra-nasty compared to everywhere else. The level of vindictive, nasty, hateful behavior can get completely out of control, often happening right out in the open. Not sure why, but when startups go bad, they can go ultra-bad.