A lot of people are perfectly happy with showing up for work, doing what they’re supposed to, and then going home. They don’t want to think about work when they’re, well, not working. For them, there is a clear delineation between work and the rest of their life. They work to live, not live to work.
One billionaire CEO has some bad news for those people: He says they’re not actually going to experience any real success. Apparently, working a traditional 40 hours a week isn’t enough. The work you do has to take over your entire life if you really want to excel. Work-life balance and success can’t co-exist.
Andrew Feldman, the co-founder and CEO of Cerebras, an AI chip company worth $8.1 billion, was recently a guest on the podcast “20VC with Harry Stebbings.” He made his thoughts about attaining any sort of work-life balance very clear on the show.
“This notion that somehow you can achieve greatness, you can build something extraordinary by working 38 hours a week and having work-life balance, that is mindboggling to me,” he said, per Fortune. “It’s not true in any part of life.”
Feldman admitted it’s not the end of the world if you choose to go after work-life balance, but you need to have proper expectations if that’s what you want. “You can have a great life,” he said. “You can do many really good things, and there are lots of paths to happiness. But the path to build something new out of nothing, and make it great, isn’t part-time work. It isn’t 30, 40, 50 hours a week. It’s every waking minute. And of course, there are costs.”
As Fortune noted, Feldman is far from the first person who is successful by society’s standards who has made this point. Eric Yuan, the CEO of Zoom, Reid Hoffman, the co-founder of LinkedIn, and even Serena Williams and Barack Obama have all expressed similar sentiments.
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Despite the idea that employees must focus on work every moment of the day to be successful, employees are seeking work-life balance in increasing numbers, especially among Gen Z. According to The Guardian, Randstad, a Dutch recruiting company, surveyed 26,000 employees. 83% said that the most important factor about a job to them was the work-life balance it offered. This came in ahead of salary, which was at 82%.
Additionally, a Deloitte survey found that most Gen Zers are focused on work-life balance. In fact, only 6% said they wanted to hold a leadership position in the workplace. For the majority of the latest generation to join the workforce, finding a healthy balance between their job and the lives they live is the most important thing they can do.
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Dan Kaplan, the co-head of CHRO at ZRG Partners, said the important thing to realize is that you’ve got to go the “extra mile.” “The lesson for most young professionals is if you want to get ahead, you’re not going to get there [with] 40 hours a week,” he said.
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Working hard and having a strong work ethic are important. However, it’s a bit hard to take career advice from a billionaire. Does anyone really think he still works every minute of the day? Surely he has people who can do that.
Besides, one thing many founders lose sight of is the fact that not everyone wants to be in their position. Some people just want to go to work to earn their paycheck and then live their lives. Their world does not revolve around work in the same way a founder’s does, and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with feeling that way.
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Mary-Faith Martinez is a writer with a bachelor’s degree in English and Journalism who covers news, psychology, lifestyle, and human interest topics.
