It’s important to recognize that this is a tiny little company.

Around noon, Gupta usually picks up lunch for the team at nearby MIXT Salads. The workers usually eat together at a table in the office.

The founder can pick up lunch for everyone. So we’re talking what, 8 people?

There are 8 people out there who have nothing in their lives except for work and want their job to feel like a life. They get some kind of thrill from the intensity and they have probably been sold a dream about what their stock options will be worth when the company makes it big on the AI boom. They’re young, single, socially orthogonal people and their home lives were probably desolate and depressing before they took this job. The job gives them a place they can always go and find other people, where they have something to do. I’m not excusing the horrible WLB but I can easily imagine a small number of people who go for this. We just have to remember how miserable much of humanity are.

We don’t have to generalize about capitalism, San Francisco, tech, or anything else from this guy. Not that you were but others ITT certainly are.