how do you avoid burnout and getting taken advantage of?
andrew1: I'm baffled by all the 'do a startup' advice.Your complaints seem to be:- you feel you're working too hard and too long- you don't have a work/life balance, hence the girlfriend problem- you want to lead the good life- you are peeved that your hard work is making money for othersAnd who are you?- by the sounds of it you're a good engineer- in your twenties you can command a salary in the $100k range- you're a workaholic, or you allow yourself to be sucked into being a workaholicFrom all the talk on here about what startups are like, you'll end up working long hours, you won't improve your work/life situation and all for the questionable payoff at the end. Of all the YC funded startups, all the posting on here of 'feedback on my startup please', how many of those people are walking away after say two years with anything comparable to the $200k you'd make in those two years?If I were you, I'd restrict my working to 9-10 hours a day Monday-Friday, don't work in the evenings and don't work at weekends. Sort your personal life out. If you're as good as you think you are, which I have no reason to believe you aren't, then in 5 years time you could be earning a salary + bonus of $250k+, all for working a sane schedule. What life style do you want to lead that that wouldn't be enough to live on? And don't worry about the fact that your CEO is earning more than you, someone's always going to be earning more than you, the only thing that matters is whether you have what you need to allow you to live the way you want to.