&gt; Unless you are building a lifestyle business, you do not have a successful company until your small team is on fire.<p>I was a &quot;founding employee&quot; of a very successful company and I don&#x27;t think I would have ever classified anything as being &quot;on fire&quot;.  I also slept 8+ hours a night because I like sleeping and never worked on the weekends because I like enjoying weekends.  The company did well because when everybody came to work they were ready to come up with great ideas and execute them quickly.<p>I don&#x27;t think your comment is complete off-base, I&#x27;ve met a lot of people who &quot;play startup&quot; and spend time doing things that aren&#x27;t actually helpful to their company but feel like they are (going to conferences, perpetually talking to investors, etc).  These people probably aren&#x27;t going to be successful.  However, it also isn&#x27;t true that the only way to succeed is to ignore everything else in your life and devote yourself fully to your startup.<p>I&#x27;m not saying that you shouldn&#x27;t work 80-100 hours at your startup if you want to.  If that is bringing you personal satisfaction and you are efficient at it than more power to you.  But that lifestyle is not a requirement for startup success.