I run a smallish team (6 including me) at a startupish company (as in it's quite small with growth ambitions, but the nature of the industry means it's never go

I run a smallish team (6 including me) at a startupish company (as in it's quite small with growth ambitions, but the nature of the industry means it's never going to be worth much more than $40m even in the best case. I say this sort of thing - not that often because people have taken it on board. As far as I'm concerned it's just best practice. Sustained crunch style working doesn't make you go any faster - bugs, burn out, turn over they'll all kill any short term gains you might get. If someone is being pressured into running a team into the ground, they have a professional duty to push back against that - it's in the best interests of all concerned. I also feel that it makes it much easier to ask people to work longer if some emergency does come up that can't wait (bug in production or something like that - we get this maybe 3-4 times a year and it generally means a couple of late days getting it sorted). I'm not sure why anyone thinks "this time the death march might work!"