Here are a few random thoughts and experiences of my own:
When I started at justin.tv, as hire #2, I worked frankly hellish hours. It was self-imposed, but everyone else was doing it too, and I'm pretty certain they expected it from me as much as I expected it from myself. My wife was amazingly supportive. For nearly a year, we saw each other for about half an hour each day on weekdays, and maybe an hour each day on the weekends. I didn't and don't begrudge having done this. Justin.tv wouldn't be where it is now if we hadn't all done that (but of course maybe I would begrudge it if we hadn't had some degree of success - who knows?).
That life is not sustainable for more than a couple of years though. I don't do it anymore, not to the same extent. I do still spend more time in the office than most of my friends who aren't at startups, and I'm always on-call (I carry a cell phone, netbook and EVDO card with me - I can always be online within about 10 minutes). I also spend an inordinate amount of time just thinking about work when I'm not doing it. But I don't spend ridiculous amounts of time in the office anymore. I work from home when I need to - I've found periodically changing my work environment stops me from burning out.
I'm also spending some time getting healthy - I took up running at the start of the year. While it's certainly true that the bay area can encourage incredibly hard work, I've found it can also encourage very healthy living - a lot depends who you hang-out with.
When I started at justin.tv, as hire #2, I worked frankly hellish hours. It was self-imposed, but everyone else was doing it too, and I'm pretty certain they expected it from me as much as I expected it from myself. My wife was amazingly supportive. For nearly a year, we saw each other for about half an hour each day on weekdays, and maybe an hour each day on the weekends. I didn't and don't begrudge having done this. Justin.tv wouldn't be where it is now if we hadn't all done that (but of course maybe I would begrudge it if we hadn't had some degree of success - who knows?).
That life is not sustainable for more than a couple of years though. I don't do it anymore, not to the same extent. I do still spend more time in the office than most of my friends who aren't at startups, and I'm always on-call (I carry a cell phone, netbook and EVDO card with me - I can always be online within about 10 minutes). I also spend an inordinate amount of time just thinking about work when I'm not doing it. But I don't spend ridiculous amounts of time in the office anymore. I work from home when I need to - I've found periodically changing my work environment stops me from burning out.
I'm also spending some time getting healthy - I took up running at the start of the year. While it's certainly true that the bay area can encourage incredibly hard work, I've found it can also encourage very healthy living - a lot depends who you hang-out with.