Zoho CEO Sridhar Vembu reignites 70-hour work week debate, asks should we work to demographic suicide? His answer is… | Company Business News

Zoho Corporation’s Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Sridhar Vembu reignited the 70-hour work week debate first sparked by Infosys co-founder Narayana Murthy. In a long post on X, he said, “The rationale behind the 70 hour work week is ‘it is necessary for economic development’.”

Vembu cited examples from the East Asia, saying, “Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and China have all developed through extreme hard work, often imposing punitive levels of work on their own people.” 

“These very countries also have such low birth rates now that their governments have to beg people to make babies,” he said.

The two questions

The Zoho CEO then raised two questions – “Is such hard work necessary for economic development? Is such a development even worth the price of a lonely old age for a large mass of people?”

Vembu responded to the first question saying, “…it is enough if only a small percentage of the population drive themselves hard. Please note the “drive themselves” – I am in that camp but I am not willing to prescribe this to anyone else.”

“Some percentage of the population will drive themselves hard (may be 2-5%). I believe that is sufficient for broad-based economic development, and the rest of us can have decent work life balance. I believe such a balance is needed.”

In response to the second question, the Zoho Corporation CEO said, “…no it is not worth it.” He said he doesn’t want India to replicate China’s economic success “if the price is China’s steep demographic decline [which has already started].” 

“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 said.,

He concluded the post highlighting, “I do believe we can develop without needing to work ourselves to demographic suicide.”