I came across Dan Crow's insights into startups and older workers this morning, and I couldn't stop myself from nodding in agreement through out the article. Part of it, surely, is that I am now closer to 40 than 30. But everything he says about the value of spending time with family, the pointlessness of working grueling hours, and the skills that come from experience had an air of "I've been there".
Many startups, especially in Silicon Valley, have a macho culture of working extremely long hours. I vividly recall a long stretch of consecutive 100+ hour weeks at Apple early in my career — which came on top of a 3 hour commute to San Francisco. The quality of my work noticeably declined, and it took me months to get my focus and energy back afterwards.
It seems that both corporate america and silicon valley startups, while vastly different cultures in almost every regard, still see people as expendable resources that can be used up and replaced. Sure, if you're working non stop for a startup, you can tell yourself that there's a huge payoff at the end, or the chance of it. But the risk is that you spend your 20s and early 30s working forever without much to show for it. That was never something I wanted to do, and I'm lucky that I didn't have to, either.