Silicon Valley and Wall Street heavyweights are sending a blunt message to Gen Z: if you want to reach the C-suite, a standard 9-to-5 won’t cut it. Top CEOs insist that relentless hours and intense dedication are non-negotiable for those aiming for the corner office, no shortcuts for work-life balance dreamers.
“This notion that somehow you can achieve greatness, you can build something extraordinary by working 38 hours a week and having work-life balance, that is mind-boggling to me,” Andrew Feldman, cofounder and CEO of $8.1 billion AI chip company Cerebras, emphasized recently on the “20VC” podcast. “It’s not true in any part of life.”
As calls for shorter workweeks grow across the U.S., the country’s top executives remain committed to the “grindset” approach as the path to trillion-dollar success. Feldman joins a roster of leaders including Google cofounder Sergey Brin and Shark Tank investor Kevin O’Leary who continue to stress the hard truth of what it takes to succeed.
Professionals can absolutely maintain a 40-hour workweek and enjoy their careers but, as the Cerebras CEO pointed out, they won’t be the ones creating the next unicorn or introducing products that redefine an industry.
“You can have a great life. You can do many really good things, and there are lots of paths to happiness,” Feldman continued. “But the path to build something new out of nothing, and make it great, isn’t part-time work. It isn’t 30, 40, 50 hours a week. It’s every waking minute. And of course, there are costs.”
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Top leaders have long challenged the idea that work-life balance is always attainable. Zoom CEO Eric Yuan told employees there’s “no way” to achieve harmony, noting that “work is life, life is work.” Former President Barack Obama emphasized that being “excellent at anything” demands a one-track mind at key moments. Even LinkedIn cofounder Reid Hoffman cautioned that building a startup means giving up late-night Netflix binges after office hours.
“If I ever hear a founder talking about, ‘This is how I have a balanced life,’ they’re not committed to winning,” Hoffman told Stanford University’s “How to Start a Startup” class in 2014. “The only really great founders are [the ones who are] like, ‘I am going to put literally everything into doing this.’”
Entrepreneurs aiming to scale their businesses often wonder when to step back and unplug and some Silicon Valley founders have criticized the extremes of 100-hour workweeks. Still, there’s broad agreement that sticking to a standard nine-to-five is unlikely to accelerate career advancement.
Khozema Shipchandler, CEO of $17 billion company Twilio, sets aside just eight hours on Saturdays to step away from work. He told Fortune that “every one of us has to make certain work-life choices,” noting that people can pursue hobbies and reserve evenings for themselves yet he’s “never spoken to a peer” who doesn’t follow a similar schedule.
Similarly, tennis star Serena Williams said entrepreneurs must “show up 28 hours out of 24” each day, while multimillionaire Kevin O’Leary urged founders to “forget about balance … You’re going to work 25 hours a day, seven days a week, forever.”
While aspiring CEOs shouldn’t take these words literally, one leader offered a more practical benchmark: earlier this year, billionaire computer scientist Sergey Brin told Google Gemini staffers that “60 hours a week is the sweet spot of productivity,” with workplace experts noting that true growth comes from going the extra mile.
“The lesson for most young professionals is if you want to get ahead, you’re not going to get there [with] 40 hours a week,” Dan Kaplan, co-head of the CHRO practice at ZRG Partners, said to Fortune earlier this year. “Part of the danger of the comment [about] the 60-hour workweek is it’s actually not about 60. It’s about working extra until the work is done.”
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While entrepreneurs debate the ideal number of hours for peak productivity, Feldman told Fortune that there’s no magic formula. The key, he says, is simply focusing on getting things done.
“It’s not about logging hours,” Feldman says. “It’s about being passionate and being consumed by the work. It’s about being driven to change the world, to be the best you can be, and to help your team be the best it can be.”