>>But 100 hours a week, for years? There's something bigger going wrong there--either you're trying to sell something people don't want, you've hired a lot of the wrong people, or whatever, I don't know. That's not typical, and it's certainly not praiseworthy.
You really need to get back to us after you've tried starting your own company. Even when you're not officially on the clock, it's impossible to put it out of your mind. I do not envy start-up founders; I'm quite happy with my inflated bay area engineer salary and up-to-date skillset that allows me to simply jump ship or swim to the next luxury yacht when the current one capsizes. (Honest) founders really pour their heart & soul into the business and have probably made some personal-life sacrifices and trade-offs.
Founders more than deserve the lion's share of any benefits yielded by the company.
And I'd say, you really need to step outside the YC bubble
YC has nothing to do with it. We're not a YC company, and we have taken no outside capital at all, which is one major reason I've been working so hard... because everything that needs to be done, falls on the founders to do. There is nobody else, since we can't afford to hire anybody. OK, we did have a paid intern one summer, but that's the only time we paid anybody anything.
Now, of course, you could say "well, then go raise a round and hire people". To which I can only say, we have made the decisions we made, for reasons that are important to us, and we are happy with them. I think the day will come when we will look to rise outside money, but it'll be when the time is right.
Anyway, just wanted to make it clear that my personal story has nothing to do with YC, or the "pressures of being a VC funded company" or anything of that sort.
I do know if I were talking to any of my business friends, and I said, "I've got a great new idea for a business. The model depends on me working 100 hours a week for years on end," they'd laugh.
It wouldn't sound like a serious venture, it'd sound like I was joking. (Or, to be totally honest, it'd sound like I was taking a mean-spirited dig at the internet startup people who think that's not just OK, but normal!)
I'm glad you made the decisions you did. I wouldn't be happy with any choice that threatened my health as severely as you've described above, but that's where my priorities lay, and I totally get that you have others.
I do hope you have success, and can stop working such long hours, and that it comes before you have to make further sacrifices to your health.
When you're truly passionate about what you do, how you do it, who you do it with and who you're doing it for it doesn't matter what the "normal" business world does. You end up doing what's right for your company at that moment.
I don't go to bed without reminding myself that this isn't just for me. It's for my employees (livelihood), my customers (their businesses) and my family (creating a better life).
When you frame it like that, hours just turn into numbers. It's irrelevant. Results matter.
IMO, it's not bull crap. I may not care about the little problem in solving today but I am mist certainly passionate about my company, my employees, our product and my family.
You really need to get back to us after you've tried starting your own company. Even when you're not officially on the clock, it's impossible to put it out of your mind. I do not envy start-up founders; I'm quite happy with my inflated bay area engineer salary and up-to-date skillset that allows me to simply jump ship or swim to the next luxury yacht when the current one capsizes. (Honest) founders really pour their heart & soul into the business and have probably made some personal-life sacrifices and trade-offs.
Founders more than deserve the lion's share of any benefits yielded by the company.