Just wanted to add that unless your partners in a startup (and that includes the youngest employee or the newest employee) does not have an emotional ownership in the goals and objectives of the startup, unless they are incentivized by the belief (beyond monetary incentives) that what they each create will embody their deepest passions and aspirations while enabling them to achieve their best potential.
I didnt write this though. I am borrowing from "What makes entrepreneurs entrepreneurial" a study that tries to understand the spirit of an entrepreneur. You are well advised to share the study with your CEO.
I gotta say that the drop in my motivation was gradual. I posted this above: the first 18 months were great. A lot of coding and I had a hell of a good time. When we hit a panic point the CEO made a decision that I thought was bad, and became a 9-to-5er during the 6+ month shit project this bad decision generated, mainly because I just couldn't work on it for longer and saw no point in putting in more ass-in-chair time to keep up appearances. So he started ramping up the status checks (to 2-4 per day) on everyone. I think this high-frequency checking had more to do with our panic point than anything punitive, because everyone else got hit with more pings, but it felt punitive. And when status checks are that frequent, it's hard to be more than a 9-to-5er. An 8-hour day with frequent interruptions is, IME, about the same as a 13-hour day, in terms of fatigue, in coding flow. Much less fun and far less productive, too.
I didnt write this though. I am borrowing from "What makes entrepreneurs entrepreneurial" a study that tries to understand the spirit of an entrepreneur. You are well advised to share the study with your CEO.