A tech startup CEO admits he is looking for employees willing to work 84 hours a week.
Daksh Gupta, who runs an artificial intelligence startup Greptile in San Francisco, in a recent post on X explained he wants his team to work from 9 a.m. to 11 p.m. at least five days a week, and often on weekends, to be competitive.
"It's a rocket launch in some ways," Gupta said in an interview with NBC Bay Area on Tuesday. "And when you have two groups of smart people that are trying to solve the same problem, the one that works harder and is luckier wins. And you can't control your luck, but you can control how much time you put in."
recently i started telling candidates right in the first interview that greptile offers no work-life-balance, typical workdays start at 9am and end at 11pm, often later, and we work saturdays, sometimes also sundays. i emphasize the environment is high stress, and there is no…
— Daksh Gupta (@dakshgup) November 9, 2024
The backlash to Gupta's post has been quick and in some cases brutal. Other CEOs said startups like Greptile take hard work too far.
"It's not the first time we're hearing that 'Work is everything,'" said Kristy Kim, CEO of TomoCredit.
Kim said you can work hard and find success without sacrificing a personal life.
"But the key here is don't let work consumer your entire life," she said. "If that happens you will burn out."
Gupta said that makes sense for other companies.
"If you care about work-life balance, I think that's great," he said. "There's plenty of places that operate that way and they're very successful."
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Gupta admits he faced a lot of blowback on X, but also got a number of job applications. The CEO said he is hiring software engineers interested in hard work and a big payday down the road.
