Should a culture of intense hard work be openly celebrated, or is that expectation harmful?

Paul Graham · published Oct 2006

Long hours are universal in successful startups, and are especially necessary for young founders who are less efficient than they will later be.

He can't think of any successful startups whose founders worked 9 to 5.

source A Student's Guide to Startups

Marc Lore · published Jul 12, 2021

Being in sixth gear genuinely conflicts with a balanced life; you cannot do it all, and hobbies, TV, news and social media have to fall away in favour of prioritized commitments.

There simply isn't enough time in the day to sustain that intensity and also maintain all the peripheral activities.

7:13 20VC: Jet.com's Marc Lore on How To Assess Human Potential and "The Resume Test", Why Chief People Officer Should be One of Your First Hires and Why We Need a New Type of Venture Capital

Harry Stebbings · published Aug 4, 2023

You cannot build a great business — defined as $5B+ — while maintaining work-life balance

Scope: offered as his own contrarian belief that others disagree with

38:23 20VC: Why "Hire Great People and Get Out of the Way" is Total BS, Why Your Upbringing Can Make You a Worse Leader & A Bentley, Two Nissan Cubes and Becoming One of Macedonia's Largest Employers; The Story of Slice with Ilir Sela

Mike Shebat · published Nov 27, 2023

Once-in-a-generation companies are built by small groups of committed people working extremely hard on something very hard to make work

Looking back at Microsoft, Amazon, and Apple, that is the common pattern

5:26 20VC: Keith Rabois and Mike Shebat on Creating an Olympian Mindset to Work Ethic, Why First-Time Founders are Better Than Serial Entrepreneurs, Why Remote Work Does Not Work, Why the Best Founders Always Start in their Teens & Why Companies are Cults?

Harry Stebbings · published Dec 1, 2023

You cannot have work-life balance and be part of the top 0.1% at anything, including being a great public company CEO

You can be good or very good with balance, but not great

50:21 20VC: HelloFresh CEO on Why When You Raise VC You Only Have Two Options, Why Your IPO Price is Irrelevant, Why Timing is So Important in Going Public & Why D2C is Not Dead with Dominik Richter

Harry Stebbings · published May 13, 2024

Monzo and GoCardless succeeded precisely because Tom had no work-life balance; nothing great is created with balance

To create something great you have to be exceptional, which is incompatible with balance

49:08 20VC: Behind the Scenes at Y Combinator: The Interview Process | What the Best & Worst Do in the Program | Do the Best All Raise Pre-Demo Day & YC's Fundraising Advice to Startups | Why the Value is in Application Layer AI with Tom Blomfield

Eiso Kant · published Oct 7, 2024

AGI is a genuine race rather than a competition against yourself, so these first years determine who earns the right to compete, and the sacrifices of extreme work are the price of entry

This is the moment the table gets set — like mobile or the internet — and you don't want to look back in ten years having not given it everything; choosing a race means you don't get to have it all

Scope: most startups are not races; framed as a personal stance shared with his co-founder and Margarita

51:18 20VC: Raising $500M To Compete in the Race for AGI | Will Scaling Laws Continue: Is Access to Compute Everything | Will Nvidia Continue To Dominate | The Biggest Bottlenecks in the Race for AGI with Eiso Kant, CTO @ Poolside

Shervin Pishevar · published Jan 13, 2025

Uber's culture was excellent, not the ruthless problem it is portrayed as

It was the fastest growing company in history, and you cannot achieve that without fierceness, extreme hard work and very intelligent people working as one team

18:38 20VC: Shervin Pishevar on The Epic Uber War and What Really Happened in the Firing of Travis Kalanick | Raising $15BN to Win China | Why The Traditional Venture Capital Model is Dead | The Future of Quantum and How We Will Cure All Diseases in 10 Years

Harry Stebbings · published Mar 18, 2025

Working unreasonably hard yields better outcomes and work-life balance is a myth

Scope: offered as an example of a position people can genuinely take the other side of

12:33 20VC: HubSpot CEO on Where Value Accrues in SaaS AI | How HubSpot Competes Against Salesforce | Why B2B Is Not a Winner Take All Market | How to Go From SMB to Enterprise an Win | How SEO Dying Changes HubSpot's Business with Yamini Rangan

Larry Aschebrook · published Jun 16, 2025

Work-life balance is found when your work is your life — you can only sustain the grind if you love it enough to make it your identity

The years of unrewarded grinding, like Harry's early unlistened-to shows, only happen out of love for the work

85:50 20VC: How We Made $800M on Coursera | We Lost Money on Uber and Made Money on Lyft | We Did 3x on Postmates in 18 Months | DPI is King, MOIC is BS | We Dodged Theranos and I Still Lost Millions with Larry Aschebrook @ G Squared

Peter Rahal · published Aug 8, 2025

As the world gets more competitive, outlier outcomes require extraordinary effort and always carry a huge personal cost

Ordinary inputs don't produce extraordinary outcomes; look at any real outlier and there is a large cost behind it

45:33 20VC: The $BN Greenoaks Backed Protein Bar | Hitting $100M Revenues in David's First Year: Lessons & Mistakes | $0 to $600M: The Untold RXBAR Story | Product-Market-Fit, Pricing, Branding: What Every Founder Gets Wrong Today with Peter Rahal

Andrew Feldman · published Oct 6, 2025

You cannot build something extraordinary from nothing on thirty-eight or fifty hours a week; it requires every waking minute, and the work-life-balance version of entrepreneurship is a myth

It isn't true in any part of life — world-class athletes like Ronaldo control everything they put in their bodies, train daily, and even work on rest as a discipline

Scope: allows there are many paths to a happy life and many good things one can do; acknowledges there are costs

61:17 20VC: Cerebras CEO on Why Raise $1BN and Delay the IPO | NVIDIA Showing Signs They Are Worried About Growth | Concentration of Value in Mag7: Will the AI Train Come to a Halt | Can the US Supply the Energy for AI with Andrew Feldman

Harry Stebbings · published Nov 9, 2022 · hedged

His own relentless seven-day-a-week work is why his show has been successful, and he suspects other companies' growth is flat because their people are off doing offsites and yoga retreats

He attributes the podcast's success to working seven days a week, and sees stalled growth at companies focused on perks

Scope: admits he is being 'totally unfair'

15:27 20 Product: Hugo Barra on Lessons Building Hardware Products at Android, Xiaomi, Oculus, and Detect; Feature Kings vs. Budget Kings; 996 Work Culture in China; There Are No MVPs in Hardware; The 3.5-Hour Recruiting Interview

Keith Rabois · published Nov 27, 2023

There is no substitute for effort and dedication if you want to be top 1% in any field; the people who work hardest get the most opportunities and therefore thrive

Interviews with successful people in athletics, music and technology all show the hardest workers get the most opportunities, and opportunities create the chance to thrive

Scope: applies across all fields

7:12 20VC: Keith Rabois and Mike Shebat on Creating an Olympian Mindset to Work Ethic, Why First-Time Founders are Better Than Serial Entrepreneurs, Why Remote Work Does Not Work, Why the Best Founders Always Start in their Teens & Why Companies are Cults?

Keith Rabois · published Nov 27, 2023

Elite performers in every field keep outworking everyone even after they succeed, and that is what makes them successful

Jordan and Kobe took 500–5,000 shots a day and practiced after playoff games; successful DJs play 300 shows a year to make it and 150 a year after

10:32 20VC: Keith Rabois and Mike Shebat on Creating an Olympian Mindset to Work Ethic, Why First-Time Founders are Better Than Serial Entrepreneurs, Why Remote Work Does Not Work, Why the Best Founders Always Start in their Teens & Why Companies are Cults?

Harry Stebbings · published Dec 13, 2024

It is easy to win today because most people are weak and won't do the extra work

He wants to watch Netflix like everyone else, but watches twenty minutes and then works two more hours — across seven days that's two extra full days of work per week

57:20 20Growth: How to Scale to $30M ARR Bootstrapped through Content and Brand | The Ultimate Equation to Success in Sales and Why Most Founders Suck at Sales | Why You Should Overpay People and What That Means with Guillaume Moubeche @ Lempire

Andrew Ng · published Nov 17, 2025

People who work hard get more done and accomplish more, and society should empower and celebrate those who want to work hard

This is a moment where there is so much that could be built, so people who work hard to learn and build will accomplish a lot

Scope: not everyone at every point in life is in a position to work hard; people who can't work hard should be equally respected; he wishes four-hour weeks could produce wild success but that isn't the practical reality

54:18 20VC: Andrew NG on The Biggest Bottlenecks in AI | How LLMs Can Be Used as a Geopolitical Weapon | Do Margins Matter in a World of AI? | Is Defensibility Dead in a World of AI? | Will AI Deliver Masa Son's Predictions of 5% GDP Growth?

Alan Chang · published Jan 5, 2026

The only way to build a generational company is with a very strong work ethic; wanting work-life balance is legitimate but incompatible with that goal

He simply sees no other way to do it

Scope: respects people who want a nine-to-five; those people should not join Fuse

11:06 20VC: $0-$260M in Revenue in Three Years: How We Did It | You Need to Work Weekends to Win — Most Founders Aren't Ambitious Enough | The Revolut Playbook: Speed, Urgency, Extreme Ownership, and Zero Excuses with Alan Chang @ Fuse Energy

Avichal Garg · published Apr 11, 2022

Work-life balance is not something to believe in or aim for; the better outcome is turning your obsession into your day job so you can do it constantly

he loves and is obsessed with his day job, so the distinction dissolves

Scope: acknowledges he is fortunate in this respect

50:58 20VC: Why Crypto is Software Eating Money, Why Crypto Firms Will Outcompete Traditional Venture Firms, How To Price Tokens and When To Have Them, DAOs: How Are They Structured and What Makes One Successful with Avichal Garg, Co-Founder @ Electric Capital

Tobi Lütke · published Apr 3, 2023

Work-life balance is basically nonsense; 'life harmony' is a better frame

He is never off and never tries to be, always running background processes, and Shopify is a perfect vehicle for someone on a live mission

Scope: grounded in his own type of brain

32:24 20VC: Shopify Founder Tobi Lütke on Why Micromanagement is Good | Why You Will Learn More From Studying World of Warcraft Guilds Than You Will Companies | Why Happiness is BS; Lessons on Marriage, Fatherhood & Decision-Making Quality

Mike Shebat · published Nov 27, 2023

The claim that extreme work intensity is unsustainable is simply not true

The hardest working people put energy into their craft even after leaving a nine-to-five, and nobody calls that work; with like-minded people building something mission-driven it doesn't feel like work

10:03 20VC: Keith Rabois and Mike Shebat on Creating an Olympian Mindset to Work Ethic, Why First-Time Founders are Better Than Serial Entrepreneurs, Why Remote Work Does Not Work, Why the Best Founders Always Start in their Teens & Why Companies are Cults?

Dominik Richter · published Dec 1, 2023

The work-life balance framing is wrong because work is part of life; balance is needed but not between work and life

The term assumes work is bad and life is good, whereas in practice it is fluid whether you read something because you enjoy it or because it makes you a better CEO

Scope: you should still be balanced in some way

50:36 20VC: HelloFresh CEO on Why When You Raise VC You Only Have Two Options, Why Your IPO Price is Irrelevant, Why Timing is So Important in Going Public & Why D2C is Not Dead with Dominik Richter

Kevin Systrom · published Feb 22, 2023

Startup culture cannot be built on perks like espresso machines; the startup process is a grinder that screens people out either because the work is too hard or because the emotional volatility of swinging between succeeding and failing is too much

The work and the unresolvable uncertainty about whether you're winning or losing chews people up

56:54 20VC: Instagram Founders Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger on Why Social Networks Should Be Less Social & The Next Wave of Social | Why San Francisco Will Return with a Vengeance and The Future For Remote Work | Let's Get Personal: Relationships to Money, Be

Mike Shebat · published Nov 27, 2023

Being explicit about an intense work culture is a self-vetting mechanism: it filters for people who are opted in and unlocks a velocity and intensity that most companies never reach

Early stage startups are very hard and most fail, so you only want people who are excited about that commitment; high performers elsewhere are frustrated that 80% of colleagues aren't pulling their weight

Scope: framed for early-stage startups

11:52 20VC: Keith Rabois and Mike Shebat on Creating an Olympian Mindset to Work Ethic, Why First-Time Founders are Better Than Serial Entrepreneurs, Why Remote Work Does Not Work, Why the Best Founders Always Start in their Teens & Why Companies are Cults?

Mike Shebat · published Nov 27, 2023

Interviews can't fully screen for willingness to work this way — some candidates say the right things, don't believe the culture is real, and wash out within about a week

People have joined thinking Traba was kidding, then discovered colleagues really do work past 9-10PM every night

Scope: a minority of hires

21:27 20VC: Keith Rabois and Mike Shebat on Creating an Olympian Mindset to Work Ethic, Why First-Time Founders are Better Than Serial Entrepreneurs, Why Remote Work Does Not Work, Why the Best Founders Always Start in their Teens & Why Companies are Cults?

Mike Shebat · published Nov 27, 2023

A hard-work culture is only sellable if it's tied to a big enough dream, and a candidate's immediate reaction to hearing it — excitement versus trying to justify or negotiate it — reliably predicts fit

People who already work those hours or who are excited that everyone around them will are the right type; anyone trying to change the terms up front probably won't be a good fit

Scope: based on reading candidates in interviews

18:52 20VC: Keith Rabois and Mike Shebat on Creating an Olympian Mindset to Work Ethic, Why First-Time Founders are Better Than Serial Entrepreneurs, Why Remote Work Does Not Work, Why the Best Founders Always Start in their Teens & Why Companies are Cults?

Mike Shebat · published Nov 27, 2023

If you want top-1% outcomes you cannot run a middle-of-the-bell-curve culture, so it's better to state the demands upfront and be misunderstood by everyone else

Most people are in the middle of the distribution but the desired outcomes are on the far right tail; people tired of average results want to pull every lever that raises the probability of success

20:36 20VC: Keith Rabois and Mike Shebat on Creating an Olympian Mindset to Work Ethic, Why First-Time Founders are Better Than Serial Entrepreneurs, Why Remote Work Does Not Work, Why the Best Founders Always Start in their Teens & Why Companies are Cults?

Sridhar Ramaswamy · published Feb 10, 2025

High-intensity leaders should bring people along by showing them the big picture and the fleeting nature of opportunity, and should not apologize for high expectations

Snowflake grows in two years what world GDP takes a century to achieve; the returns and opportunity are big and the opportunity cost is even bigger, so it takes extraordinary people

Scope: accepts that it is not for everyone

11:51 20VC: Why Model Providers Will Kill Many Startups Moving into the Application Layer | Why Deepseek is not a Threat to OpenAI & Why OpenAI Beats Anthropic | Apps vs Models vs Infrastructure: Where is Value in AI with Sridhar Ramaswamy, Snowflake CEO

Alan Chang · published Jan 5, 2026

Team members are expected to work weekends

Fuse is competing against huge energy companies with billions in revenue and far bigger balance sheets; with less cash and fewer resources, work ethic is the only way to win

40:57 Weekend work is the only edge against bigger rivals

Andrew Ng · published Nov 17, 2025

It is unfortunate that in parts of the United States advising someone to work hard is treated as socially unacceptable

He came to appreciate the speed and intensity of Baidu and the China ecosystem

53:59 Stigmatizing hard work is a cultural liability

Paul Graham · published Sep 2001

Web-based software shifts the sysadmin burden from users to programmers, combining two kinds of stress without the limits that make each bearable — less total stress, but more for programmers.

Programmers can normally go home and forget the code and sysadmins paged at 4 AM rarely face anything complicated; with Web applications programmers become system administrators without sharply defined limits.

source Web softwares lack of a shipping endpoint makes permanent crunch the default

Paul Graham · published Jun 2021

There is nothing admirable about working too hard; it produces worse results and amounts to showing off, if only to yourself.

You're not merely getting worse results, but getting them because you're showing off.

source Working past the point of diminishing quality is not admirable and amounts to showing off

Paul Graham · published Jun 2021 · speculative

Cultural traditions of performative hard work are probably net bad.

They make a parody of something important and cause people to wear themselves out doing things that don't matter.

source Performative hard work traditions are probably net bad since they parody real work and waste effort