I can't even count the number of places I've interviewed and the number of entrepreneurs and startup engineers I know who work insane hours. I took a stand last year and said I'd stop working >40 hours a week -- full stop. It was the best decision I ever made. Sure, I got laid off from a small startup, but they had their priorities all wrong and weren't doing much right anyways. Now I'm at a place where the office is deserted at 6pm and I've never seen as much success and high quality innovation. I wish more folks in the startup scene would stop with the pissing contest of hours. It's seriously dumb. We're about disruption, right? Well how about disrupting silly norms like the 40 hour workweek?
Definitely couldn't agree more. I think there's a little bit of a prerequisite that I kinda set for myself, and that people need to keep in mind, which is basically that the 40 hour week works amazingly well so long as you're not blowing 5 hours a week on Facebook. I try to keep extremely focused, which means 40 hours is about my limit before I go bonkers and become ineffective.