The founder of jois de vive hotel chain, chip conley, says don't mistake activity for achievement. People want to appear busy so they feel like they matter, or that they're important and distracting themselves from whatever it is that they don't want to face. In a large company you can hide more easily, i will say. Inside of a start up, it's just not going to work that way. With start ups, they are lean, and also require everyone to give discretionary effort. That's what start up people do.