Infosys co-founder Narayana Murthy in a recent interview reaffirmed his stance on working at least 70 hours a week and said he worked for 85-90 hours while he was setting up his company. In an interview with The Economic Times, the 77-year-old said that countries in the past have only progressed due to hard work and youngsters in India must work for at least 70 hours a week to make the country go ahead. "I used to be in the office at 6:20 am and leave office at 8:30 pm and worked six days a week. I know every nation that became prosperous did so through hard work," Murthy told ET.
"During my entire 40-plus years of professional life, I worked 70 hours a week. When we had a six-day week - till 1994 - I used to work at least 85 to 90 hours a week. That has not been a waste," he added.
Murthy further said that his parents strongly believed in hard work and instilled in him the value as a means to escape poverty. "My parents taught me very early in life that the only way we could hope to escape poverty was to work very, very hard – of course, assuming that one gets the best productivity from each hour of work," he said.
In October, Murthy triggered a nationwide debate when he said that if India's overall work productivity has to improve, then the youth must work for 70 hours every week, which translates to about 12 hours of work per day assuming a 6-day work week. His views attracted mixed reactions from all quarters. While some agreed with his views, others felt that the quality and not quantity of work was essential to deliver optimum results.
He highlighted examples of Japan and Germany that grew because their citizens worked harder and for longer hours to rebuild their nations in the aftermath of the Second World War, and further noted that India’s worker productivity is one of the lowest in the world.
"India's work productivity is one of the lowest in the world," he said at the 3one4 Capital's podcast "The Record". "Unless we improve our work productivity... we will not be able to compete with those countries that have made tremendous progress."
"So, therefore, my request is that our youngsters must say, 'This is my country. I'd like to work 70 hours a week'," he added.
Murthy's views of working 70 hours a week found support from prominent business leaders such as Ola's Bhavish Aggarwal, Sajjan Jindal, Vinod Khosla, and Suniel Shetty.
Ola CEO Bhavish Aggarwal said, “Totally agree with Mr Murthy’s views. It’s not our moment to work less and entertain ourselves. Rather it’s our moment to go all in and build in 1 generation what other countries have built over many generations!”
Industrialist Sajjan Jindal said he wholeheartedly supported Murthy's statement. He said that a five-day week culture is not what a rapidly developing country like India needs.
Vinod Khosla, venture capitalist and co-founder of Sun Microsystems, recently said that those who felt "attacked" by his views needed mental health therapy and if they did not wish to work for 70 hours every week, then they should be ready to face the consequences that follow.
"For people who "felt attacked" by this they need mental health therapy. They should learn to "toughen up" and not feel attacked. OK to not work 70hrs/wk and live with the consequences of the choices you make. He is speaking to "career ambitious" young people but there are other ways to live with different choices," Khosla wrote.
"Not working 70hrs/wk may not get you the biggest house or car to show to your neighbors, but you can make that choice. Lots of other things make people happy. Be internally driven and not externally driven by what others expect of success: bigger titles, bigger house don't make everyone happy," he said.
Recently, the Centre too commented on the debate. It said that it is not considering the 70-hour work week. “No such proposal is under consideration of Government of India,” Rameswar Teli, the minister of state (MoS) for labour and employment, said at the parliament.
Teli was replying to a question by three Lok Sabha MPs during the ongoing winter session of parliament. Congress MP Komati Venkata Reddy, Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) leader Manne Srinivas Reddy and YSR Congress Party MP Kanumuru Raghu Rama Krishna Raju asked the Ministry of Labour and Employment if the government is evaluating the 70-hour work week proposal made by Murthy.