The author speaks of passion a few times. I think that&#x27;s the key here; he forced himself to feel passionate about the end goal when in reality he didn&#x27;t care. You can&#x27;t do that. If you&#x27;re not passionate, faking it will kill you.<p>There is a middle ground between signing and not signing here: set boundaries up front. Let them know &quot;Hey, I&#x27;ll sign this and help with the integration, but just know my heart won&#x27;t be in it. I don&#x27;t know that I can promise you more than a solid 45 hours a week. But I can&#x27;t deliver that passion I had building the product because I&#x27;m really not passionate about this.&quot;<p>And yeah, those employment contracts are bullshit. Before you sign a contract, you are under no obligation to do anything. A good tactic is to just redline anything you want thrown out and send it back to the lawyers without comment. Also realize that many companies throw these bullshit clauses in just so they can negotiate them away later (as opposed to having to offer you more money).<p>If it&#x27;s important enough to the founders, they will find the money to make it worth your while. An extra hundred grand out of a big payday to ensure a critical employee is present to handle the sale is just a cost of doing business. Unless you would go out for drinks with someone after you stop working with them, it&#x27;s not going to hurt your relationship (they may even respect you more for it).