‘Learn to toughen up’: OpenAI investor Vinod Khosla’s stern take on Narayana Murthy’s 70 hour work week comment

Vinod Khosla, the first investor in OpenAI and co-founder of Sun Microsystems, has now weighed in on Narayan Murthy's controversial comments urging young people to work 70 hours a week to boost India's labour productivity. In a Q&A session, Khosla noted that people who felt offended by Murthy's comments "need mental therapy" and urged them to "learn to toughen up".

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In reply to a post on X (formerly Twitter), Khosla wrote, "For people who "felt attacked" by this they need mental health therapy. They should learn to "toughen up" and not feel attacked. OK to not work 70hrs/wk and live with the consequences of the choices you make. He is speaking to "career ambitious" young people but there are other ways to live with different choices." 

“Not working 70hrs/wk may not get you the biggest house or car to show to your neighbors, but you can make that choice. Lots of other things make people happy. Be internally driven and not externally driven by what others expect of success: bigger titles, bigger house don't make everyone happy” the venture capitalist added.

70 Hour work week controversy: 

Infosys co-founder N R Narayana Murthy stirred a little storm on social media when he said young people should work 70 hours a week to level up the country's productivity.

In a conversation with former Infosys CFO Mohandas Pai in the inaugural episode of 3one4 Capital's podcast 'The Record,' Murthy said that youngsters should put extra hours at work to compete with leading economies.

"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," he said, comparing India with China, Japan and Germany.