Youngsters should work 12 hours a day: Murthy

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Indian youngsters need to work 12 hours a day to ensure India can compete with economies that have made tremendous progress in the last 25-30 years, said Infosys co-founder NR Narayana Murthy.

In an interaction with former Infosys CFO Mohandas Pai for a 3one4 Capital’s podcast, The Record, Murthy said India’s work productivity is among the lowest in the world and that in order to compete with countries like China, the country’s youngsters must put in extra hours of work as Japan and Germany did after World War II.

Speaking about youth and productivity, he said, “Somehow our youths have the habit of taking the not so desirable habits from the West and not helping the country.”

Murthy, added, “Unless we reduce corruption in the government at some level… unless we reduce the delays in our bureaucracy in taking decisions, we will not be able to compete with those countries that have made tremendous progress.”

“So, therefore, my request is that our youngsters must say, ‘This is my country. I want to work 70 hours a week.” German leaders made sure that every German worked extra hours for a certain number of years. Murthy said every government is as good as the culture of the people.

Emphasising the need for India to grow, he shared two anecdotes. Murthy said 13-14 years ago, he was on the board of a bank in London. Over a period of five years, he found that in 2007-8, when they mentioned China three times, they mentioned India once, and they mentioned US four times. Five years later, they mentioned China 30 times and they didn’t mention India even once.

And in 2023, last month, during an intellectual discourse in Europe, he heard the name of China six times while that of US three times. No one took the name of India even in 2023.

Giving another anecdotal record in 1994, he said Infosys commissioned a study on IITs and Regional Engineering Colleges and found that no student passing out from those colleges mentioned Infosys as a job destination.

Five years later, a fresh survey revealed that 18% students mentioned Infosys as their possible employer. That’s because the founders spent little but worked very hard to make sure every investor would know Infosys.