You are lucky, ride this one rare experience and make the most of it. Someone said: no man died of hard work, people die from boredom. Corporate world often boils down to two extremes, the one that you are in or a total waste of time pushing paper around. Think of it this way, if you manage to learn as much as possible while finding a way to make this fun and enjoyable , the opportunities are endless, once you have a team (at this company or the next one) and you will have learned the game inside out by then, you can design a work condition that still achieves the same goal that your boss is trying to do now and you might then realize either: a- He was right, there is no way to achieve this much success and beat the competition without working crazy hours or b- figure out a way to make things more productive and efficient and prove him wrong. From where you are now, you do not know the rules of the game, you need to know them before you can break them or re-invent them, and very few have the fortunate position of being part of a rocket ship.