Does anyone even care what your grades were beyond your first job?

Much less one’s college admission test scores - how do they signal a “hard working person” especially 20 years down the road?

Why would a person with 20 years of experience want to work for a company with no work-life balance?

I prefer investing in Tesla/SpaceX instead of working there, and leave working extra hard to young people who have more energy than me.

> Why would a person with 20 years of experience want to work for a company with no work-life balance?

The initial comment by bfieidhbrjr already answered that very nicely: out of the desire to actually do something that is important re work. Important being subjective to the person in question obviously.

A lot of people already work meaningless jobs with no work-life balance and they would find it to be a substantial improvement to work somewhere with meaningful work even without a proper work-life balance.

Plenty of mega-corps are full of people who phone-it-in every day, you don't have to work demanding jobs.

I personally love working hard, which is why I only work with startups, which tend to have a higher personal ROI and more meritocracy oriented.