I tested just "side project", "YC" and "launch", touching grass when burnout is over 80%, ignoring anything work related, trice:

RAT RACE · ACQUIRED sold the company at 25 · walked away with $6.40M · peak burnout 82%

RAT RACE · ACQUIRED sold the company at 26 · walked away with $11.37M · peak burnout 91%

RAT RACE · ACQUIRED sold the company at 26 · walked away with $8.96M · peak burnout 95%

Trying to balance grind, touch grass and side project took me 20 years before retiring with 20'ish millions after selling a hard-worked side project.

It seems that if you ignore work and do "side project" only from first month, your networth increases with the compensation when you are fired, and if you last one year (almost all runs), you can keep "side project" indefinitely.

This seemed to work best.

Unexpected given what I know second-hand about the valley - which is to grind leetcode and keep job hopping.

I finished it the first time by just hitting "grind" until burnout got above 80% and then hitting "touch grass" until burnout got down below 30%, repeat until win. It actually feels like my current job.