50 seems high for an average - and not trying to revive a zombie thread here either, just sharing experience. In 4 consulting groups I’ve averaged well below that. 50 is usually indicative of the need to hire more people, and really pushing the envelope of what constitutes a tolerable existence. I can see IDEO et al using their perceived status as a way to extract blood hours from young, naive kids just out of school that are looking to “change the world” and too blinded by that ideal to see how hard they’re being timeraped. Beyond the first couple working years, it’s kind of a “shame on you” situation if you let yourself get trapped in workaholic pressure cooker land. The work we do isn’t important enough to justify “living” like that 99.9% of the time. We aren’t curing cancer or anything. We’re usually changing the shape of plastic. Sometimes to a useful purpose.