While plenty of companies have been bending over backwards in an attempt to improve workplace wellness for their employees (despite efforts not always being effective), at least one CEO is loudly and proudly going against the grain: Daksh Gupta, the 22-year-old at the helm of AI software startup Greptile. He’s made it crystal clear that work-life balance is a myth at his company—so clear, in fact, that he’s spelled it out in an online job description.
“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,” Gupta wrote on X last month in a post that has been viewed by over a million people. “I emphasize the environment is high stress, and there is no tolerance for poor work.”
He added: “It felt wrong to do this at first but I’m convinced now that the transparency is good, and I’d much rather people know this from the get go rather than find out on their first day.”
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…
— Daksh Gupta (@dakshgup) November 9, 2024
The brute honesty garnered Gupta massive attention and a mixed reaction on the social platform—including “20% death threats and 80% job applications,” according to his clarifying follow-up post on X—and a viral front page on Reddit.
“I liked the idea of becoming really extraordinary at a very specific thing because I want to become really, really good,“ Gupta tells Fortune. “Instead of calling my workplace ‘dynamic’ and ‘fast-paced,’ I want to be very transparent and say it is intense and difficult. We work extremely long hours because we’re trying to outwork our competition.”
The Gen Z leader, who was a student at Georgia Tech in 2022 when he began his AI startup in an aim to help software teams catch bugs, isn’t too irate about the backlash. He says he understands the “internet rule” that dictates if you say something opinionated or controversial, someone is always going to disagree. “I have no vitriol for anyone who replied, no matter how negatively,” he says, despite receiving “20% death threats and 80% job applications.”
Still, he emphasizes that, as a team of six people who are just starting out, he wants to work alongside those who have the same level of dedication to growing something from scratch.
“If you are not one of the small number of people that enjoy that and thrive in it and seek it out, then you probably shouldn’t work for me,” Gupta says. “I’m not asking people to work any amount of time because I don’t have the authority to do that. What I’m saying is that’s how hard we work here. I literally say we don’t have work-life balance in the job description.”
He also wanted to be clear about the nature of startup-culture.
“I personally didn’t know what a startup would be like when I started,” he says, noting that the leaders he personally looks up to are successful founders like Parker Conrad of cloud-based HR platform Rippling and Aaron Levie of enterprise cloud company Box. “I suspect most people don’t know.”
The impact of working 100-hour weeks
But is this type of work culture sustainable? Even Gupta admits that it’s not, explaining that, after a year or two of this lifestyle, he hopes he’ll feel more confident in the business—and thus more comfortable working less. “I don’t think it’s healthy past that point, and it’s probably not productive,” he says.
Working 80-plus-hour weeks inevitably affects people’s sleep, which is critical for optimal health and peak performance, with sleep deprivation affecting thinking speed, reasoning, and creativity. Not to mention that having no time for anything outside of work can tarnish relationships, increase stress, and significantly impact well-being and happiness.
But for now, Gupta is all in.
“I think from the outside, it can seem kind of silly that someone cares this much about enterprise software, but I care about it, and other people care about it a lot,” he says. “I care in the way an athlete cares about their sport or an instrumentalist cares about their instrument.”
More on workplace wellness:
- Want to boost employee morale and productivity? Ramp up volunteering
- How to quiet the noise in your head, and feel happier at work and in life
- Unmotivated at work? Cutting back on screen time can help, new study shows
