Maybe I'm a jaded 44yo at this point, but why would you put your maximum into it unless it's your own business or you have a guaranteed payout for that effort? Not everyone works at a startup, nor are all startups successful.

Look at the big tech layoffs earlier this year - they were letting both the cruft and top tier talent go. Is it easy to say you are truly safe where you are at?

No one will remember or care about your title, your salary, or the effort you put into wherever you work. Your next employer will have no insight into any of that at all outside of your interviews; they'll measure your worth on the job unless you are a world class snowflake.

I'm not saying don't continue to learn and excel! But there's more to life than your day job. Spoken as someone who discovered way too late a proper life/work balance.

When you're in a typical salaried position, it's unlikely that you'll be able to extract more money out of your work proportional to the additional effort you put in.

So the question becomes: what else do you get out of it?

Sometimes that can be learning -- maybe go read stuff that's accessible to you but outside of your typical work area -- but in many jobs that's not really possible.

Is it worth putting maximum effort into your job if it causes depression and burnout (making you less effective at your job), makes you sick because of stress (making you less effective at your job), ruins your marriage (making you less effective at your job), and gives you less time to educate your kids (making the next generation less effective at their jobs)?

Human effort is burstable, sort of, but for most people it's taxing to burst up to maximum effort. Apparently this isn't true for Carmack, but I have doubts.