Venture capitalist Harry Stebbings faced a wave of backlash in June after urging European startup founders to increase their work hours — but he now admits there’s some room for nuance when applying his mantra.
Stebbings, founder of 20VC, a firm managing $650 million in funds, advised founders on LinkedIn last month that “7 days a week is the required velocity to win right now,” to compete with startups in Silicon Valley and China.
The post went viral, to Stebbings’ surprise, and sparked a debate on whether China’s brutal “996” work culture — which means working 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. six days a week — is needed in Europe.
I’ve seen a handful of new startups posting about their 4-day, 32-hour work weeks. I can only imagine they’re bringing on a scuzzton of top talent at middle-of-the-road prices.
When one of them IPOs for a billion dollars, I hope their employees are incredibly annoying about it. I hope they never shut up. I hope my LinkedIn feed is wall-to-wall “look what you can do on four days a week.” I hope they go door to door with a Rolex on both wrists and say “hello, sir/madam, I just wanted you to know I haven’t worked a Friday in five years.” I hope they post pictures of themselves relaxing with a martini at the start of every three-day weekend and people go ballistic in the comments and they don’t even notice because they’re too busy doing interviews with Forbes and Fortune Magazine. I hope I get sick and tired of hearing about four day weeks.
I’m sure as hell tired of hearing about execs that want their employees to burn out.