That's fine, not everyone can live that kind of life. There are a few engineers, however, who do want to put in the extra hours to build something awesome.
The thing is, for that to be successful you will never be asked directly to work long hours. If you've never experienced that, it's impossible for me to explain it to you. It's just a desire you get when you work around really talented people who are equally dedicated.
i worked 60 hour weeks and sometimes 80 hour weeks, sometimes for companies in start up mode, some established market leader companies, sometimes i slept below the desk, sometimes i didn't sleep at all, for some i had (phantom)shares, for some i didn't (i get around a lot).
sometimes long hours are necessary, 95% of the time they aren't.
working 60 hour or more is a problem, never a solution. constantly working long hours leads to lousy decisions and to a lack of priorities (and a lack of priorities are the reason for another round of long hours).
one of the best CTOs i ever worked for was confronted with a lot of friday evening major releases, which more often than not lead to him loosing his weekends. he created a new policy that the last release would be thursday morning. code quality, bug occurrences an work/life balance improved significantly.
The thing is, for that to be successful you will never be asked directly to work long hours. If you've never experienced that, it's impossible for me to explain it to you. It's just a desire you get when you work around really talented people who are equally dedicated.