If your start-up can only succeed by being a sweatshop, your idea is simply not good enough. Go back to the drawing board and come up with something better that can be implemented by whole people, not cogs.
David Heinemeier Hansson. Sound rebuttal of the workaholic myth.
Organizations need whole persons, people who will go the distance, people who have time to imagine and innovate, people whose families appreciate the company dad or mom works at, not those who are on the verge of exhaustion wishing they had never joined the company that only helps to pay the bills but does not care about their life.
Startups are about visionaries motivating talented people on a team, not about dictators forcing sweatshop workers to put more hours into a job. Yes there will be hard work sometimes, beyond normal hours, but that should be the exception not the rule, to be able to work consistently you need to be at your 100%. And for that you need a whole person, and I would argue even his family should like your company, or something is not right, there is just no other way to excel. Startups must excel.
