"Startup" is just short hand for "self-absorbed shitbird(s) playing fast and loose with other people's money".

"We only hire slave labor here. You aren't nearly subservient enough for the honor."

Ah, the future value of equity ... sacrifice your life on spec that the venture will succeed when most don't and that your boss won't find a way to fuck you over of it does. Bearing in mind that the more money is on the table, the more likely it is that your boss will try to screw you out of it.

If you want to go to Vegas, go to Vegas. Do an 80-hour stint, see if you get rich, and if you fail then go home. Don't spend years at some shitty company run by an asshole.

Founder/CEO/Designer - Micro...

Unless that ends in "soft" you're a failure and you're trying to bring everyone else down with you.

If it is "soft", you're a known pedophile and you should be in prison.

I love the bit about how people who work for early startups have to work long hours for little pay so that the owner of the company can walk away with a highly successful business that pays them handsomely while you get maybe a decent wage if you're lucky, or if the company doesn't fire you when they realize they can hire three people for half the pay that you were getting by the time the company is actually making a profit.

If you're not willing to work yourself to death.... We don't want you

Guy makes CRM.

Only time I would work these kind of positions is when I truly enjoy the job, believe it can succeed AND shares of the company I don't have to buy. If i wanted extra hours and bad supervisors I could go back into the trades

A simple "we are going a different direction" would have been enough. Fuck this CEO and cue* the Mario Bros theme!

*thanks, citizen Train.

Our western society is built on this bullshit. It is the cancer that is killing us all.

A while back I did consulting for a startup where the CEO would hold all-hands meetings at this home -- on Saturday mornings. Attendance wasn't mandatory, but everyone knew it would look bad if they didn't show up. The 'executive team' also met on Sundays, and made sure on Monday standups mentioning that they had met.

They started messaging me about those meetings, and also texting me at all hours about problems they expected looked at right then or the next day. My work was pretty specialized but they kept trying to drag me into other problems they were having.

I very politely told them to go pound sand. Mentioned work-life balance. That I wasn't an employee and would only be available during the contracted hours. Also, that I had other projects and it wouldn't be fair to drop everything just for them. To their credit, they backed off (not that they had a choice).

A few years later, long after I was gone, they completely imploded. Was told things got worse and more frantic towards the end.

Kept seeing the same pattern in subsequent companies. It all stems from bad management.

You can always say you are passionate about your job, and then after they hire you, you limit yourself to contractual obligations. It's that easy.

The good thing about startups, even the ceo can do long hours without any rest without a team!