She noted that they normally just keep working their asses off and keep coding.  They keep at it.  I can understand why it's generally difficult to understand, or to write that off as being "no fun".

The thing is, coding is fun.  It's sometimes frustrating and tedious, but if you pull off some product that becomes successful, (I imagine) the satisfaction is incredible.  Even from tiny projects I write for myself, it's an incredibly satisfying feeling to create something useful purely out of your ideas.  Not just satisfying, but FUN.

To non-tech folks, that (I think) is the missing key.  In other industries, it costs so much money and involves so much infrastructure that it just isn't possible to turn your ideas into working products.  But in the software industry, the barrier to entry is incredibly low.

Hacking is fun!