'Can¡¯t sustain 80-hour workweeks without burning out', Duolingo co-founder Severin Hacker on work-life balance
Recalling his own experience when he had to work long hours during the early days of Duolingo, Severin Hacker said such long hours are not sustainable. According to him, 40-50 hours is a balanced work week.
Amid the continuing debate in India over long work hours and the lack of work-life balance, Severin Hacker, the co-founder of the language learning app Duolingo, has said that it is not sustainable and will only result in employees suffering burnout.
Speaking at an event in Mumbai recently, the Swiss-American computer scientist said he felt the optimum balance was working 40-50 hours a week.
CREDIT: BCCL
'I work 40-80 hours'
"Depending on your definition of work, I work between 40 and 80 hours. If you think about the time I spent on meetings, reviewing, or taking management decisions, it is not that many hours per week. If you include every single thought about Duolingo, it is a lot -- 80 hours or more," he said.
'Long work-hours can't be sustained'
Recalling his own experience when he had to work long hours during the early days of Duolingo, Hacker said such long hours are not sustainable.
"I just don't believe that you can work 80 hours a week for over a year. It doesn't work, people will burn out. We have to scale down at some point. If you want to build a sustainable company and work culture, the much more reasonable will be 40-50 hours," he said.
Debate over work-life balance
Recently, Serum Institute of India CEO Adar Poonawalla had also commented on the topic of long work hours. Poonawalla suggested that work hours should be limited to 8-9 hours a day as human beings can¡¯t be productive beyond that.
Earlier this month, SN Subrahmanyan, chairman of Larsen & Toubro, had come under heavy criticism after he advocated for a 90-hour workweek for employees. In a video that went viral, Subrahmanyan was also heard saying that he regretted the fact that he couldn't make employees work on Sundays.
CREDIT: BCCL
After criticism from various corners, some top executives in L&T claimed that Subrahmanyan made the comments in a lighter note.
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Bobins Abraham is the Assistant News Editor at Indiatimes. He has more than twelve years of experience in TV and digital journalism. An avid student of history and geopolitics, he is a conservationist and environmentalist at heart. He writes on environment, sustainability, human-animal conflict and more.
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