Entire startups exude a rah-rah environment during the all hands, and then at 5:15pm the office is a ghost town (even though everybody rolled in after 10am).
Once difference these days, is that working from home is much easier. It would not be unusual for me to leave at 6PM, hit the gym or play a soccer game, and then do some more coding from 9PM to midnight. That said, there were also stretches when I left early and then completely shut down. And if an employee gets away with that, then that will become the culture.
"(It's rare that any kind of fight is ever "won", so avoiding political fights in general might be best. I wish I had known this when I was at Google.)"
As human beings that evolved for living in smaller tribes, our anger and retribution instinct makes a lot of sense. If you get a reputation for just accepting being walked all over, then your life will be much worse. You need to need have honor, and to defend your honor, and attack those who bully you. But in the modern world, reputation does not travel in the same way. Nor do you have the same tools for defending yourself. Duels became passe long ago. So fighting back often is just net negative to your own interests. When you run into a bad boss, the past option is usually to play along and then plot an escape.
Once difference these days, is that working from home is much easier. It would not be unusual for me to leave at 6PM, hit the gym or play a soccer game, and then do some more coding from 9PM to midnight. That said, there were also stretches when I left early and then completely shut down. And if an employee gets away with that, then that will become the culture.