Infosys CEO Narayan Murthy has been trolled by some on social media for his comments on 70-hour work weeks, but he’s doubling down on his stand.
Narayan Murthy has now said that he doesn’t believe in work-life balance. “Mr Murthy, lets talk about work-life balance,” an interviewer tried asking him yesterday. “First of all, I don’t believe in work life balance,” Murthy interjected. “Frankly, I was a little bit disappointed in 1986 or something when we moved from six day week to five day week. I mean, I was not very happy with that. I think in this country, we have to work very hard,” he added.
“There is no substitute for hard work. Even if you’re the most intelligent guy, you need to work hard. So therefore, I am sorry I have not changed my view. I will take this with me to my grave. I am very proud of having worked very hard,” he continued.
Murthy had earlier said that young Indians should work 70 hour weeks, which had raised eyebrows in some quarters. “My request is that our youngsters must say, ‘This is my country. I’d like to work 70 hours a week,” he had said on a podcast. “This is exactly what the Germans and Japanese did after the Second World War… they made sure that every German worked extra hours for a certain number of years,” he added. The 70-hour week comment however became a meme, and Murthy was severely criticized on social media by some people.
But Murthy has doubled down on his earlier comments, going as far as to say that he doesn’t believe in work life balance. Murthy isn’t the only tech pioneer who’s said things on these lines — Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos too has said that he doesn’t believe in work life balance, and believes in work-life harmony instead. Other successful entrepreneurs like Elon Musk and Jensen Huang too seem to work extremely long hours.
And Murthy does have reasons to back up his comments on work-life balance. Murthy says that India is still a developing nation, and its citizens don’t have the prosperity that developed nations enjoy. As such, they’d have to work doubly hard to make sure their country catches up to lifestyles in the west. Also, Murthy seems to back his words with his own actions — as per all accounts, he himself worked extremely hard while building Infosys, and he wants Indians to emulate his work ethic. And Murthy doesn’t seem to be imposing his views on anyone — Infosys doesn’t impose a 70-hour work week, and neither is he encouraging companies to do so. But Murthy does seem to be saying that if young Indians — and the country as a whole — want to be successful, they’ll need to put in the long hours to get there.