Venture capitalist Harry Stebbings faced a wave of backlash in June after urging European startup founders to increase their work hours — but he now admits there’s some room for nuance when applying his mantra.
Stebbings, founder of 20VC, a firm managing $650 million in funds, advised founders on LinkedIn last month that “7 days a week is the required velocity to win right now,” to compete with startups in Silicon Valley and China.
The post went viral, to Stebbings’ surprise, and sparked a debate on whether China’s brutal “996” work culture — which means working 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. six days a week — is needed in Europe.
He probably “works” more than that, because for him his “work” looks like riding a private jet, golfing with business associates, fancy lunches and dinners, or sending emails from his phone on the beach.
“I work this hard, everyone should work this hard!” – someone has no idea what hard work is.
Oh oh oh, they have one for this!
“HaRd WoRk DoEs NoT EqUaL VaLuAbLe WoRk!!”
“As you can clearly see on this chart I made of the value I put on things, the value I put on my own work is the highest, and the rest of you are very low, and you should feel bad that I don’t value your work! What are you going to do about it? Work harder? Haha, that will just make my value go up even higher!”