Infosys founder NR Narayana Murthy has said that youngsters should work 70 hours a week if India wants to compete with economies that have made tremendous progress in the last two to three decades. Murthy stated these on the first episode of 3one4 Capital’s podcast ‘The Record’, which was released on YouTube today.
He argued that unless India’s youth commit to significantly more working hours, the country will struggle to catch up with economies that have seen remarkable progress over the past few decades.
In conversation with former Infosys CFO Mohandas Pai, Murthy highlighted India’s underwhelming work productivity, ranking among the lowest in the world. To reduce this gap between other developed nations, Murthy suggested that India’s youngsters must put in extra hours of work – like Japan and Germany did after World War 2.
Furthermore, Murthy also blamed other issues like corruption in the government and bureaucratic delays, saying: “India’s work productivity is one of the lowest in the world. Unless we improve our work productivity, unless we reduce corruption in the government at some level, because we have been reading I don’t know the truth of it, unless we reduce the delays in our bureaucracy in taking this decision, we will not be able to compete with those countries that have made tremendous progress.”
Mentioning the prominent role of discipline and enhanced productivity, Murthy expressed, “Youngsters form a significant majority of our population at this point of time, and they are the ones who can build our country. We need to be disciplined and improve our work productivity. I think unless we do that, what can a poor government do? And every government is as good as the culture of the people. And our culture has to change to that of highly determined, extremely disciplined and extremely hard-working people.”
A time when employee-friendly work culture is widely discussed, this statement from a tech pioneer has created a huge buzz in the industry. Backing Murthy’s view point, Bhavish Aggarwal, the founder and CEO of
Ola Electric, reacted in solidarity that, “The current era demands a lot of dedication and a collective commitment to building a stronger India in a single generation, mirroring the progress achieved by other nations over several generations. Totally agree with Mr Murthy’s views. It’s not our moment to work less and entertain ourselves. Rather it’s our moment to go all in and build in 1 generation what other countries have built over many generations.”
