Zoho CEO Sridhar Vembu reignites 70-hour work week debate, asks should we work to demographic suicide? His answer is...

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.”

Narayana Murthy's 70-hour work week

Narayana Murthy's 70-hour work week had triggered debates and met with brick-bats and flowers, wherein several business owners agreed with the need for increased productivity and some debated with adequate compensation.

In an interview with Infosys's former chief financial officer Mohandas Pai, Murthy had said that India's workforce would need to increase their productivity in order to compete with countries like Japan and China.

“India's work productivity is one of the lowest in the world. Unless we improve our work productivity, we will not be able to compete with those countries that have made tremendous progress. So, therefore, my request is that our youngsters must say 'this is my country. I'd like to work 70 hours a week,” Infosys co-founder Narayana Murthy had said.