Silicon Valley is within the grip of AI panic. Firms are dashing in direction of AI at breakneck pace, boards are urgent for quicker outcomes, buyers are asking startups “Where’s the AI?” in the event that they haven’t jumped on the bandwagon already.
Consequently, CEOs are arriving at conferences with pressing realizations about falling behind, founders are working excessive schedules, and entrepreneurs are sacrificing journey, trip, and private relationships for the trigger. An all-nighter earlier than a significant launch has been a staple of the tech business, making for a great story to inform afterward, however that is one thing completely different. The depth is palpable; the AI revolution is creating each ecstasy and agony in equal measure, with the rising variety of self-reported 100-hour workweeks or open-letter requests for the workers to work long-term 80-hour schedule.
However observing this depth firsthand, I consider there’s one other perspective price contemplating about constructing enduring companies in occasions of disruption.
Having constructed and offered an organization for $2.25 billion, I’ve discovered that the entrepreneurs who create lasting worth—and the exits that matter—aren’t those burning themselves out in hundred-hour weeks. They’re those who perceive that “overnight success takes seven years to build” and that working a 100-hour week over a protracted time frame is unsustainable.
Success is a compounding recreation
Constructing a enterprise isn’t a dash—it’s a marathon of sprints. In lots of workforce sports activities, comparable to hockey, the “repeat sprints” metric is a greater predictor of efficiency than a straight-line sprint. Enterprise is similar method – it’s important to know when to push, however you additionally need to be taught to get well rapidly, and most significantly, methods to hold going, time and again. The actual worth doesn’t come from working nonstop for 1 / 4. It comes from compounding: compounding expertise, compounding experience in your business, compounding model recognition and buyer belief, and compounding product capabilities.
This compounding solely occurs whenever you’re within the recreation lengthy sufficient to see it by way of. And you’ll solely keep within the recreation in the event you’re working at a sustainable tempo.
I discovered my limits the arduous method
A part of what makes a mature entrepreneur or govt is realizing the place your limits are—each for long-term sustainability and short-term bursts—and mixing these modes of labor strategically. There are occasions to dash and occasions to tempo your self. The knowledge is in realizing which is which.
After I began my first enterprise at 18, I used to be concurrently holding down a full-time job and pursuing my faculty diploma. That tempo can be unsustainable for me now, in my 40s with kids. However right here’s what the 100-hour evangelists miss: I greater than compensate for any slight distinction in hours with a long time of sensible expertise, connections, and sample recognition.
The 100-hour workweek is a blatant delusion
Let’s be trustworthy: many claims of 100-hour workweeks are both exaggerations or unsustainable anomalies. Whereas there is perhaps distinctive people who can genuinely maintain this tempo, each private expertise and medical analysis persistently present that sleep-deprived persons are much less productive.
Extra importantly, enterprise and product growth is a high-stakes recreation. We’re paid to make essential choices underneath uncertainty, typically with out full data, after which dwell with the results. The standard of those choices deteriorates quickly with exhaustion. Would you need your surgeon working on hour 95 of their workweek?
When ‘hard work’ turns into a pink flag
Right here’s a inform: when founders declare they’re bored with working an excessive amount of, one thing is basically mistaken. When founders genuinely work lengthy hours sustainably, it’s sometimes a labor of affection — they’re energized by the work, not exhausted by it.
The present AI panic is producing a distinct dynamic. Founders describe working from profound paranoia, treating each fifteen minutes as having a price ticket, feeling that every little thing is pressing and significant. This isn’t ardour; it’s panic. And panic hardly ever produces good long-term choices.
It’s a psychological recreation, and in the event you’re within the mistaken psychological mode, you received’t maintain lengthy sufficient to see the advantages of compounding. You’ll burn out earlier than your corporation mannequin proves itself, earlier than your workforce gels, earlier than your product finds market match.
Firms lie about work-life stability (and it hurts everybody)
I want HR insurance policies, each in Europe and the U.S., allowed corporations and people to be extra clear about work expectations. It’s completely wonderful for some founders and firms to push arduous—innovation typically requires depth. The issue arises when there’s a disconnect in expectations.
Some startups want individuals prepared to work startup hours. Some individuals thrive in that surroundings. The problem is when corporations fake they provide work-life stability whereas secretly anticipating 80-hour weeks, or when candidates overestimate their work ethic throughout interviews. This disconnect hurts everybody.
AI adjustments every little thing besides human biology
Sure, AI represents a big technological shift. Sure, corporations have to adapt. The urgency is actual and well-documented. Nevertheless, the legal guidelines of human physiology and psychology stay unchanged. Sustainable success nonetheless comes from constructing sturdy groups, making good choices, and staying within the recreation lengthy sufficient in your benefits to compound.
My very own expertise validates this: the corporate I constructed to a $2.25 billion exit wasn’t the results of grinding 100-hour weeks. There was loads of grind to go round. Nonetheless, greater than that, it was the results of good teamwork and constant, strategic decision-making over time, constructing methods that might scale, and sustaining the psychological readability wanted to navigate complicated market dynamics. The founders who burned out early by no means received to see their compounding results.
The irony is that in dashing to not be left behind by AI, many are adopting work patterns that just about assure their companies received’t be round lengthy sufficient to profit from no matter AI revolution emerges.
Construct for the long run. Know your limits, and be prepared for the truth that there are individuals who can’t match them. Create sustainable excellence throughout the workforce. The compounding will deal with the remainder.
The opinions expressed in Fortune.com commentary items are solely the views of their authors and don’t essentially replicate the opinions and beliefs of Fortune.
