An entrepreneur says 32-hour weeks 'killed work ethic' at his startup and now he regularly works 60 hours

Advertisement
An entrepreneur says 32-hour weeks 'killed work ethic' at his startup and now he regularly works 60 hours

Ryan Carson

GrowthLab/YouTube

Ryan Carson says you have to work hard and smart.

Advertisement
  • "Work smarter, not harder" has been a popular ethos in recent years.
  • Ryan Carson, founder and CEO of programming education company Treehouse, created a 32-hour, four-day workweek for his employees.
  • But now, he's switched it back to a typical five-day workweek. "It created this lack of work ethic in me that was fundamentally detrimental," he explained.

Ryan Carson, founder and CEO of programming education company Treehouse, made waves in 2015 when he announced that his 87 employees would enjoy a four-day workweek.

Complimentary Tech Event
Transform talent with learning that works
Capability development is critical for businesses who want to push the envelope of innovation.Discover how business leaders are strategizing around building talent capabilities and empowering employee transformation.Know More

"There's no rule that you have to work 40 hours, you have to work more to be successful," Carson told The Atlantic in 2015.

Three years later, Carson still doesn't hew to the 40-hour workweek.

Advertisement

He actually works 65 hours.

Carson explained to GrowthLab Live recently that the four-day work week he had for his employees was ultimately nixed in 2016.

"There was a lack of work, like literally a lack of work ethic," Carson said in a conversation with GrowthLab founder Ramit Sethi, who also founded IWillTeachYouToBeRich.com.

"It created this lack of work ethic in me that was fundamentally detrimental to the business and to our mission," Carson added. "It actually was a terrible thing."

His experience goes against the growing workplace trend of "work smarter, not harder," and the idea that you can hack your productivity and put in less time at work for more, higher-quality output.

Advertisement

Perpetual Guardian, a New Zealand financial firm, is one of the latest companies to push for the four-day workweek, introducing trials of shorter workweek earlier this year. And according to a New York Times article on the company, it's worked well.

"Supervisors said staff were more creative, their attendance was better, they were on time, and they didn't leave early or take long breaks," one of those researchers told The Times. "Their actual job performance didn't change when doing it over four days instead of five."

Back in 2015, Carson said he was motivated by those findings.

"I was the poster child for that," Carson said in the GrowthLab video. "Literally, I was like, 'F- the 40 hour workweek. We're going to work 32 hours, because who says we can't, right? Because we write the rules.'"

Now, he's saying that you can't hack your way out of putting in the hours at work.

Advertisement

"The difference I want to communicate is, there is a certain amount of hard work you have to do," Carson said. "The whole like grind thing is kinda bulls-. I think you can work smarter, but I don't think you cannot work harder. You gotta do both."

{{}}