The most common mistake young founders make is forcing everyone to work 24/7 or 996. Here's 5 reasons why: – Very talented people, paradoxically, will work hard mimetically when they see people around them doing it, without the burden of compulsion. They want a carrot, not a stick. – It alienates practically everyone >35 or with kids. Experienced people who can save you months of time in the future making good decisions in the present, not just blind velocity. The best engineers can get more done in 40hrs/wk than most in 80. – The cost of losing someone good and familiar with your stack to burnout is far greater than the +20% hours. Two quarters of missed revenue, and it will hit your retention numbers. – I get it. It takes hard work to will a startup into existence. Founders should put in the effort (you, after all, have 25-100x the equity of your employees) and set the bar for what's expected. Reward those who meet the bar, remove those who don't. – Freeing up the compulsion to work all the time allows the best people to have fantastic ideas. Ideas need time to breathe and blossom. There are always exceptions, but generally you don't build generational companies with a slave-driver mentality. Culture is important. You want your employees to love their job and tell their friends that. Early engineers at companies like Google, OpenAI and Anthropic worked because they wanted to, not because they were forced to. Build a culture where people want to work hard. Don't force them to.