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During his twenties, when he was developing Microsoft, Bill Gates didn’t believe in weekends or vacations. He went as far as memorizing his employees’ license plates to monitor their working hours.
“You can over-worship and mythologize the idea of working extremely hard… and I don’t think most people would enjoy it... But yes, I have a fairly hardcore view that there should be a very large sacrifice made during those early years.”
In the initial stages, launching a startup demands significant sacrifices and offers impossible work-life balance.
However, it presents a chance to condense your entire career path into a brief timeframe.
With enthusiasm for your venture and a highly skilled team, those extended hours can become more enjoyable and fulfilling than a traditional 9-to-5 job. Take it from Paul Graham:
“Economically, you can think of a startup as a way to compress your whole working life into a few years. Instead of working at a low intensity for forty years, you work as hard as you possibly can for four.”