These successful people sound like working long hours is an absolute evil. I think they underestimate the effort that an ordinary person needs to be even moderately successful. What if it takes me twice as long to debug a problem as my team's standard? What if a concept is so simple to everyone else in my team yet it's just so hard for me to understand? What if I see an opportunity to build a truly great product, yet I don't have the required technical background while I have at most two weeks to catch up? What if I really want to tap into machine learning yet I have meetings all day, so my only choice is to study after work? Now, before you ask me to switch my career, what if I do have a passion in tech and I'm even worse at doing anything else?
See? Working long hours sometimes is not a burden, but a choice, a choice that one makes to master what they love, and to make sure they won't regret wasting their life when looking back years later. And sometimes working long hours, as long as it's voluntary, is the only way to succeed.
The whole argument is not about temporary spikes in hours to meet a goal, it's about the wrong-headed idea that one should be working 60-80+ hours on a long term basis.
Some of the proponents of long term overwork argue that it is a requirement for big successes in entrepreneurship or that people must be willing to burn themselves out to 'change the world' or other such nonsense.
Working long hours on a short term basis is not evil, but there are quite a few organizations exploiting their employees in a chase for big exits that those employees will never benefit from.
If it's a choice, that is fine. If it's an assumed baseline that management leverages to squeeze ever more "productivity" out of people without compensating them for it, then its not.
If the latter, I guarantee you will have just as much regret looking back years later. The 'voluntary' part is the gray area that most seem to talk around.
See? Working long hours sometimes is not a burden, but a choice, a choice that one makes to master what they love, and to make sure they won't regret wasting their life when looking back years later. And sometimes working long hours, as long as it's voluntary, is the only way to succeed.