Your mentioning of epic all-night code sprees, and talk of other 'fun' and weird things startups do reminds me of the old tales of game development, before it b

Your mentioning of epic all-night code sprees, and talk of other 'fun' and weird things startups do reminds me of the old tales of game development, before it became such a huge business. Young males found it cool to hack around on something until odd hours of the night (I know I did), it's just that now it is startups rather than game development that is taking the focus. Maybe it's not necessarily the startup culture per se, nor even the game development culture, but just some sort of young male energy culture that wants to make all work places fun but also involve some all-night programming/business/development hazing ritual. Others see this enthusiasm and youthful energy and exploit it for their own ends (Publishers in game development, Venture Capitalists in startups), and we see this perpetualisation of exploitation.