This is the best quote from the comments: Unfortunately, I see way too much of two kinds of people in startups. There are way too many dishonest owners and bos

This is the best quote from the comments: Unfortunately, I see way too much of two kinds of people in startups. There are way too many dishonest owners and bosses who will take advantage of trusting geeks. After all, our skills are all engineering and software, not negotiation and conflict. On the other hand, there are way too many gullible geeks, and geeks who like so many beaten house wives are simply unable to grow a pair and stand up for themselves. Assuming you care about your employees, it's probably up to you to stand up for them. That right there is the reason you see this question come up over and over in software companies. The plainly obvious answer, when asked to work 60 hour weeks as a matter of policy, is "Not just no, but hell no. It simply doesn't work. We'll do it (to your detriment) but you're going to have to pay us hourly while it's happening." But because of this unique combination of uninformed (or manipulative) management and meek developers, that answer never gets presented and the policy gets put in place. If you see this start to happen at your office, stand up for yourself and your co-workers immediately. They won't put the policy in place if they know for a fact that the whole team will walk.