I’m not entirely sure that I’m qualified to comment on this issue as I run neither marathons nor sprints, and while our little startup here is progressing nicely, I wouldn’t claim we’re (yet) something to model your business after. That said, I feel the need to comment anyway. (Big surprise.)

Jason Calacanis sent out e-mail with his advice on how to have your startup hunker down as the economy goes from worse to worse. A key quote:

“Hold an optional off-site breakfast meeting on a Sunday and see who shows up: If folks don’t show up for you to grow/save the company on a Sunday for a two hour breakfast, they probably aren’t going to step up when the sh#$%t really hits the fan. You need to know who the real killers on your team are and you need to get close with them now. Again, it’s fine to have 9-5ers on your team—if you’re the Post Office. You can’t have them at a startup company. Note: if you reading this and saying I’m anti-family, save it. Folks don’t have to work at startups and some of the hardest working folks I’ve met have families and figure out how to balance things.”

Now… Jason puts suggestions like this in his missives partly to be provocative, so it’s not clear that responding is the best course of action. That said, even if you don’t agree with a tactic like this (and I really wonder what kind of leader needs to pull a stunt like this to see who on their team is committed to the company’s success) many folks in the tech industry don’t question the notion that if you’re working at a startup you need to be working 60, 70, 80 hours a week.

I understand why some investors look at startup employees as disposable resources. (I don’t think it gets them the best results for their dollar, but I understand the perspective.) But I don’t understand why non-founder employees of startups think that working themselves to death is a good deal? And most importantly, I don’t understand why startup leaders think this makes sense as they’re bound to get diminishing returns.

While I won’t claim to be an expert, as best I can tell, creating a successful technology-based small business is a marathon, not a sprint. You can spend all your energy killing yourself to meet a deadline and leave no energy for what comes next. I don’t know anyone who can work around the clock for weeks at a time without experiencing some slowdown in their productivity and the quality of their work. If execution is about consistency, then getting employees into a rhythm where they can live their life and consistently contribute to the business at a high level should be the goal. It’s so expensive and difficult to find a great employee, why would you want to burn them out by having them work around the clock for months at a time?

I know that some of Calacanis’ inspiration comes from trying to figure out ways to motivate his employees to work as hard as they possibly can. Maybe I’m naive, but I think your goal in creating a startup is to create a place where the best people want to spend time working — because they love challenging work, they love working together, they love the environment, and they all share real opportunity for participating in the potential economic success of their work. If you can do that, you won’t need to come up with gimmicks like arranging meetings for Sunday mornings to test people’s loyalty and commitment.