what if the push to work 4 days instead of 5, and less hours in a day, and the wedge being driven between the founders and the proletariat is the result of a psi-ops from Russia and China to hobble the US from the inside. Convince the current generation that working hard and pursuing your craft is inherently a bad thing. I feel like this would work.
fabricated outrage. There is no reason why a "go for it" startup wouldn't be honest about the hours they want to get out of employees. You don't have to work here. It's not always a conspiracy.
at will, exempt employee. no overtime. There is generally no cap on the number of hours an employee can legally work in a day. Employer can ask for just about any hours, and you can quit if you don't like it.
Have a discussion. Present your case and listen to your manager's response.
I can't speak for all managers, but I've never met a reasonable manager who wanted to drive our a good engineer even in this economy.
Perhaps there was a misunderstanding along the way?
Don't listen to the people who presume all managers are bad, have bad motive, want to screw you for stochastic reasons, or are 100% willing to execute their manager's bad plan.
A lot of managers are ex engineers just like you that want to build great products, enjoy work and their engineering brains still exist and don't want to be a*h*les.
There is way less team loyalty.
Teams are not geographical, so no physical attachment.
Teams change players too much for me to become a fan and buy their merch.