India-origin CEO Daksh Gupta, Co-founder of San Francisco-based start-up Greptile, an AI (Artificial Intelligence) firm, has been in the headlines for sharing opinions on work-life balance and advocating working for over 14 hours a day.
On December 4, he took to X (formerly Twitter), satirically posting, "one throwaway tweet and next thing you know i’m live on NBC being be interviewed by a guy with 12 emmy awards." The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American commercial broadcast television.
Where it started
On November 9, in a tweet, Gupta said that he tends to inform candidates who apply for his start-up that Greptile offers no work-life balance. "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 tolerance for poor work," his tweet read.
The following day, on November 10, he tweeted again justifying his earlier opinion about work-life balance and working over 14 hours daily.
Additionally, he said that he received death threats. "now that this is on the front page of reddit and my inbox is 20% death threats and 80% job applications, here’s a follow up..," his tweet read adding, "to everyone who is overworked and underpaid at their software jobs esp outside the US, i feel for you, and i’m sorry this struck a nerve. the people that work here had 6-fig 20 hr/week jobs before this, and can go back to them any time."
Other points mentioned in the tweet are:
"it might be hard to believe but there exist people that want this, while a minority. the transparency exists to identify them."
"-this way of working isn’t supposed to be forever because it isn’t sustainable. it’s the first year or two of a startup which is like reaching escape velocity. like people said in the comments, as we mature we’ll hire older, more experienced people who have families and can’t work 100 hours a week, and naturally we would adapt like any good organization."
However, he also stated that this way of working is not the only perspective. "there are also successful companies with brilliant people who don’t push themselves this hard. many other started the way we are starting," he added.
Gupta revealed that he received a lot of "Indian hate", hence, he was clarifying his stance with his statement. "lot of indian hate coming from this post so i want to clarify that i am like this not because im indian but because im san Franciscan," he said in his tweet.
