IT giant Zoho Corporation’s CEO Sridhar Vembu recently questioned the 70-hour work week suggestion, talking about the dark side of working “ourselves to demographic suicide.”
“The rationale behind the 70-hour work week is “it is necessary for economic development”. If you look at East Asia – Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and China have all developed through extreme hard work, often imposing punitive levels of work on their own people,” he wrote in a post on X (Formerly Twitter)
However, he pointed out that these same countries also have such low birth rates that their governments have to now beg people to make babies.
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He then went on to frame two questions based on this:
1) Is such hard work necessary for economic development?
2) Is such a development even worth the price of a lonely old age for a large mass of people?
For the first, he said “it is enough if only a small percentage of the population drive themselves hard,” clarifying that he himself is part of that group which he estimates to be about 2-5% of the population.
However, he also said that he wouldn’t prescribe it to anyone else and that he believes a decent work-life balance can be had and is needed for others, or the majority of people.
Answering the second question, he says it is not worth it, adding that “I don’t want India to replicate China’s economic success if the price is China’s steep demographic decline (which has already started).”
This is because “India is already at replacement level fertility (southern states well below that already) and further declines to East Asian levels won’t be good.”
He concluded his post, stating he believes that “we can develop without needing to work ourselves to demographic suicide.”
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Vembu’s views are in stark contrast to that of Infosys founder Narayana Murthy who advocated for a 70-hour work week, citing it is needed for the nation’s development.
He cited the same examples of countries which Vembu had given where strenuous work cultures contributed to huge industrial and economic growth.
However, Murthy’s comments met with widespread criticism in general and sparked multiple discussions on the topic by many others.
