I've worked 80hrs per week. It does happen. The reason for the work was the company was taking off and there was a huge "pull" to do more hours. Every hour of work would produce great returns.
It's probably impossible to "push" 80hrs of work a week on a startup that's not working , or you're trying to get it off the ground.
Yep, came here to say this. Burnout is a thing, and it happens when people work 60+ hours a week for 6+ months (estimate). If people didn't actually work their butts off for that long and were just 'wasting' time, what is commonly known as burnout would just be sleep deprivation.
This might be true in tech but it certainly isn't true in a variety of other areas. Many years ago when I was just out of high school I worked (along with many others there) 80 hours a week in a restaurant and every single hour was bust-your-ass busy.
I think this is valid. I'm the type of person who works in bursts. Some things are conducive to this and others aren't. To be honest I feel like regular office hours are not at all, but its the best system we have when coordination needs to happen.