> In other words, if it's possible to do great work in short amounts of time, why do most successful entrepreneurs end up working very long hours to make their companies succeed?
Because there's a lot to do and very few people around to do it. One of the distinguishing aspects of a startup is that the initial team is very nearly overwhelmed by the sheer quantity of things that need doing, but don't yet have the revenue to hire people and distribute that load properly. No founder is sitting around at 3pm going, "Well, now what do I do for the next two hours?" They're going to sneak in ten minutes of product development, answer a dozen emails, wash dishes in the office kitchen, whatever.
Once a company stabilizes (meaning that its revenue stream is mostly predictable and dependable), it can ramp up employee count to the point where the load is more sanely distributed and there's no longer a reason to work very long hours because everything is properly parallelized.
Because there's a lot to do and very few people around to do it. One of the distinguishing aspects of a startup is that the initial team is very nearly overwhelmed by the sheer quantity of things that need doing, but don't yet have the revenue to hire people and distribute that load properly. No founder is sitting around at 3pm going, "Well, now what do I do for the next two hours?" They're going to sneak in ten minutes of product development, answer a dozen emails, wash dishes in the office kitchen, whatever.
Once a company stabilizes (meaning that its revenue stream is mostly predictable and dependable), it can ramp up employee count to the point where the load is more sanely distributed and there's no longer a reason to work very long hours because everything is properly parallelized.