The long hours mostly has to do with the startup community. They get funding and VC wants to make a profit within a year and get out, at the expense of any long-term goals of the company.
The result is 70 or 80 hour work weeks and burnout. The VC don't care because they will be done in the short-term anyway.
It's the reason why I refuse to work for startups.
This isn't exclusive or indicative to startups. I have friends who work at large companies (Apple in particular) who work 90 hour work weeks and are completely miserable.
This company is not a startup; it's merely a successful small business.
the startup community ... get funding and VC wants to make a profit within a year and get out, at the expense of any long-term goals
This is not unheard of, but certainly not the norm. Successful VC firms invest of big growth, but over a longer term. Look at the huge VC-backed successes in SV (obvious examples like Google, LinkedIn) and you'll see anything but a build-it-and-flip-it mentality.
I know this'll be a controversial stance but IMHO.. needing to work 5 or 6 days a week to prove the business case, make the business stick, and to scale the business to a point where you have multiple employees and processes that allow you to only work 4 day weeks if you want.
Of course, some businesses can run on fewer hours from the start, but many require a lot of sweat and long hours to get the engine running.
That small business is financially more successful
Sure. But they're not trying to build the same thing. I think it's mainly a midwestern attitude vs. Californian. Fried just wanted to build a business. Startup founders want to build companies.
Wow, could we put the mythical "startup" on any more of a pedestal? '... merely a successful small business' as a diminutive to 37Signals? We've really jumped the shark here, haven't we?
The result is 70 or 80 hour work weeks and burnout. The VC don't care because they will be done in the short-term anyway.
It's the reason why I refuse to work for startups.