I suspect that's more a result of a response to the low-productivity spiral that burnout seems to be. You lose productivity, so you push yourself harder, so you become less productive, so you feel the need to spend more hours, and soon you end up drained and unable to accomplish anything.
If you're in this spiral, then you need to step back and think of what you need to do to recharge. That might become a realization that "I've stopped spending time with my family; I'm going to make sure I'm at dinner with them every Thursday".
I'd find it extremely strange to hear that someone at Google was prevented from making time to spend time with family on a regular basis. I wouldn't be surprised that an employee in the process of burning out needed encouragement to step back.
I suspect that's more a result of a response to the low-productivity spiral that burnout seems to be.
I'm a little lost as to which part of my comment this was in response to. At Apple in the early 90's, you could rarely find an engineer at his desk. Working interactively with people was a bit of a mess, what with all the ping pong, foosball, video game playing, the midday trips to the gym, the beer parties, and some peoples' weekly offsites to see a movie. The only people getting any sort of burnout or burns just weren't changing out their bong water often enough.
If you're in this spiral, then you need to step back and think of what you need to do to recharge. That might become a realization that "I've stopped spending time with my family; I'm going to make sure I'm at dinner with them every Thursday".
I'd find it extremely strange to hear that someone at Google was prevented from making time to spend time with family on a regular basis. I wouldn't be surprised that an employee in the process of burning out needed encouragement to step back.