- In grad school, I averaged 4 hours of sleep (6/7 days per week) and about 8 hours on sunday for about 5 months straight.
- In my first startup, I worked 9am to 11pm (had to walk back from the office) for about 12 months.
- During my second startup gig, my son was born and also I had an 8 hour time difference between local time and the primary timezone of the office. I woke up at 4 am and generally went to bed at 10pm most days. Waking up randomly at night to deal with newborn through toddler moments for about 4 years.
My experience with all of this:
Pros:
- Really fun to grind at times and euphoric when something works.
- Build really strong relationships with people in the trenches.
Cons (I felt like I was working but in retrospect I wasn't really productive):
- Pseudo-working - I ended up spinning plates of unnecessary pseudo-work that didn't move the needle.
- Time Dilation (biggest factor) - 9pm to 12am feels like 30 minutes. That's because my brain was slowing down. The more sleep deprivation, the more this happens during the day.
- Physical Burnout - My body felt tired with a constant low level of pain and my energy levels low. Also, stress eating made me fat.
- Mental Burnout - My mind constantly looked for distractions. Even when trying to focus, I couldn't focus
- Tactical Stupidity - I didn't find clever ways to avoid or fix problems. I just focused on the next thing. I didn't have bandwidth to reason effectively as I normally would.
Overall:
It's definitely useful to crunch and a great way to be mission oriented, but crunch cannot be constant. Sometimes you need to eat a pile of shit, but you shouldn't smear shit out and take it one lick at a time.
Furthermore, when you've attained a degree of understanding, you should be able to find better ways to leverage your time. The brain and body needs downtime to be creative--the best solutions are creative.
Finally in the world of agents, we have near infinite leverage. As a community should be engaged in deeper thought, rather than trying to grind towards a finish line that constantly moves.