As an engineer who works for a startup, I find that one of the troubling aspects of this heroic startup narrative is the hacker who stays up all night voracious

As an engineer who works for a startup, I find that one of the troubling aspects of this heroic startup narrative is the hacker who stays up all night voraciously coding and then makes a breakthrough at 2AM. While there exist those of us programmers who do enjoy doing this, I find that this image is more commonly appropriated by more business-minded folk to squeeze that last feature out before a deadline. After all, what seems better to you? An image of yourself as "hacking into the mainframe" or some sort of stock-programmer-movie imagery, or the guy who's forced to stay there by social pressures from your boss? Point is, if you love what you're working on, don't let me stop you, but you don't have to be a slave to the code to prove you're passionate. Furthermore, another day of work != another day of productive work. I'd say that when I'm put in an office for 40 hours a week, week after week, I get less and less productive as the process becomes more and more tedious. Very infrequently do I have one full day of solid work with no distractions. However, when I've been away from the office for a while, I notice that my work becomes more interesting for me, and I can give it more focus. I'd be willing to bet this is true for others as well.