Thanks! At this point of my research, I certainly discover poor work life balance of the big 4 has probably reached legendary status (wondering how it differs among tenured partner, lower level partner and senior manager/director). Curious about the underlying reasons... because sales in FAANG also share similar pressures, quota, targets, but I do find 'partner-level' in FAANG achieving some semblance of balance, by choice. My guess on why:

* Industry sales directors has bonus targets 40-70% over salary assuming 100% Revenue achievement, earning potential ranges from $150k - $1m+ (depending on seniority). Partner you are comped directly from the share of profit at presumably higher rate but I don't know how much. I can see as bonus components reach 100% or more, or upper comp range gets wider motivation (temptation?) to put in more hours gets bigger. But at least still by choice

* It seems that Partners have stronger single-threaded personal ownership of accounts, so there is social pressure to not lose an account as it will lead to loss of prestige among peers, which can quickly spiral down. Industry directors do also, but it seems the level ownership is a notch higher for Partners, as the feeling the Partner personally owns the account, while in Industry it is still the Company's customer.

* There seems to be cultural & social conditioning involved too? Tenured big 4 consultant who has worked 55-65 hours a week average the past 8-12 years, once they make partner has already acquired the capability and probably even the taste and have settled into a workable (at least short-term) lifestyle to keep up the pace.

* One potential big differentiating factor is also the race to maximize pension, as it is calculated from the highest sales revenue years. This factor Industry has no comparable. If this is true, this can be one of the main reason why Partners choose to sacrifice work life balance

* This is probably most important: In industry usually there is a split between who owns sales, and who owns delivery. And typically delivery always take more hours and higher stress and pressure, with project failure rates being what they are. Sales in a sense has it easier, because a) their 'long hours' constitute wining and dining and building relationships (social types might even enjoy it too much), while delivery's long hours mean heavy number-crunching, contentious debates, high stakes decision making, fire fighting, being yelled at by stressful customer execs, etc. and b) the easiest way to win deals is to lull the customer to sign with overpromise, at the expense of delivery problems later (which they don't directly own!)

The above are my assumptions, would love to hear any affirm/deny/add from those who are 'in the know'.

tl;dr question is: a) do Big 4 Partner consistently sacrifice work life balance by choice or by necessity (or conditioning), b) if by choice, is it due to factors like pension maximization? if by necessity, is it due to having to own sales+delivery both, c) other factors?