This post is annoying in that it conflates and oversimplifies far too much. On the point of humblebragging: I (and 95% of the internet population) agree, humblebragging should not be done (even though the author later goes on to humblebrag that he only works 35 hours per week... hypocritical much?).
But on the separate implied point that working 50+ hours a week is mutually exclusive with working smartly, I disagree. That is naive and simplistic. When you have a finite runway (which decreases in length whether you are or are not working) there's a very strong case to be made for sacrificing a degree of your free time in order to maximize the utility of that runway. Separately, one should carefully balance the multitude of competing development concerns to be working as smartly as possible, i.e. YAGNI, refactoring, testing and CI, tight customer feedback loop, etc.
Conflating smart work with the need to work long hours betrays the likelihood that the author has never even considered the reality of bootstrapped startups.
But on the separate implied point that working 50+ hours a week is mutually exclusive with working smartly, I disagree. That is naive and simplistic. When you have a finite runway (which decreases in length whether you are or are not working) there's a very strong case to be made for sacrificing a degree of your free time in order to maximize the utility of that runway. Separately, one should carefully balance the multitude of competing development concerns to be working as smartly as possible, i.e. YAGNI, refactoring, testing and CI, tight customer feedback loop, etc.
Conflating smart work with the need to work long hours betrays the likelihood that the author has never even considered the reality of bootstrapped startups.