That's a good point. I believe the research (and my experience) suggests overwork can provide benefit in the short run (2-3 weeks) but much after that and you g

That's a good point. I believe the research (and my experience) suggests overwork can provide benefit in the short run (2-3 weeks) but much after that and you get diminishing and then negative marginal returns - followed by a "time off" recovery period. Strategically used, overwork can provide benefit but it sounds like Starcraft was a year-long overwork, which is a disaster. Many of the "Founders at Work" stories glorify overwork and make it sound like it was part of the norm of the culture, so it seems like it was much longer than a few weeks. Which is why I'm confused - either long-running overwork caused these companies to succeed, or it was not bad enough to cause them to fail?