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Nothing accelerates burnout faster than bad management. You can be passionate about the craft, but a toxic culture will drain that battery faster than you can recharge it.
The danger is that burnout is often framed as a personal failure—“I didn’t have enough resilience.” In reality, it’s often a structural failure. In small startups, culture is maintained by proximity and shared mission. In large orgs, it’s maintained by policy.
When managers prioritize policy over people, they don’t just kill productivity; they kill the very passion that drove their team to join in the first place.
Updated: January 30, 2026