If you are a startup founder, you should not look for work-life balance. Instead, choose a team you can comfortably work with 24 hours a day, seven days a week. That’s the advice for young professionals coming from Joe Tsai, co-founder and chairman of Alibaba.
Speaking to students at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business last month, Tsai emphasised that starting a company often requires passion and putting aside personal time and hobbies. So he advises budding founders to be prepared for long hours and blurr boundaries between personal and professional life.
“As a startup, you’re not gonna go home very much This work-life balance is not gonna be something you should be focused on,” he told the audience of young professionals, highlighting that building a startup requires intense commitment to create a company from scratch.
Tsai stressed that since building a startup demands hard work, the pressure of long working hours becomes far more manageable if entrepreneurs surround themselves with the right people. The real priority, he said, is selecting co-founders and teammates you genuinely enjoy spending time with.
“One simple test,” Tsai suggested, is to ask: “Do you wanna go out and have a beer with this person after work? I think that’s the first test.” He noted that personal compatibility is just as important as professional capability, because startup teams often spend nearly all their waking hours together.
Tsai, who cofounded Alibaba with Jack Ma added that working with Ma was not just a business partnership but also a mentorship. “He’s taught me a lot of things, and I felt like I could learn a lot from him,” Tsai said.
Notably, Tsai’s views have also been echoed by other global business leaders. His business partner Jack Ma previously defended China’s controversial “996” work culture — working from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., six days a week — saying that if you are passionate about your work, it should not be a problem. “If you find a job you like, the 996 problem does not exist; if you’re not passionate about it, every minute at work is torture,” he said in a 2019 interview, arguing that passion makes long hours feel less burdensome.
Similarly, Warren Buffett has long maintained that loving what you do removes the burden of work and that career satisfaction depends heavily on the people you work with.
In fact, Elon Musk has repeatedly promoted intense work schedules. He has said working 80–100 hours per week gives founders a competitive advantage.
In India as well, Infosys co-founder N. R. Narayana Murthy sparked debate in 2023 when he said young Indians should consider working 70 hours a week to help boost the country’s productivity. He argued that India’s work culture needs strengthening and that young professionals should dedicate more time and effort during their early careers to drive national growth.
