What if I told you that 10 other people had the same idea as you and are willing to work 9 to 6? Or 9 to 9 even?
The reason most successful startups take tons of work is that they are competing against peers willing to put in tons of work. If the whole ecosystem decided 9 to 5, 5 days a week was the effort cap, then sure, but game theory tells us that won't happen.
Seems like a psyop to me. The work is important, but not the most important part. Execution is vital, but if you're executing on a shit idea and are not able to reorient plans quickly and deftly, you'll likely end up wasting an enormous amount of time going down the wrong alleys.
A real example is a friend of mine that only sleeps an hour or so every few days. Yes, his work output is fantastic, but his planning, decision-making, and "big picture" foresight are nil.
He is grinding out tried-and-true business models, but is unable to take it to the next level because he simply does not have the creativity, free time, or the wandering mind to make those leaps.
Sure, he makes a very good amount of money, but he's been hit in the past with having to shutter businesses due to completely foreseeable potholes.
When you focus completely on getting to your destination, you never stop and ask yourself if that's really where you need to go.
I will also note that the people that "work" 9 to 9 and so on are very rarely doing non-delegateable work or working on high-intensity "important" problems for the entire duration. That sort of thing is simply impossible, because you lose your consciousness after a short bit, and end up running on intuition and learned movements, i.e. a robot.
There is something to be said about working hard, but there is a lot of nuance lost in most discussions (dare I say, because most people that survived this game did so with a huge dash of luck, and are not cognizant of what really moved the needle).
The reason most successful startups take tons of work is that they are competing against peers willing to put in tons of work. If the whole ecosystem decided 9 to 5, 5 days a week was the effort cap, then sure, but game theory tells us that won't happen.