this post was submitted on 08 Jul 2025
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Work Reform

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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.

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[–] fogetaboutit@programming.dev 3 points 7 hours ago

Who needs a life, religion, and family when you are working as a cog in "profit generator machine 3000"?

[–] Morganica@lemmy.world 5 points 15 hours ago

Yeah, I’d work 995 if…

  1. I was being paid twice as much as I am now
  2. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner are provided.
  3. You have someone who can do all my chores and errands before I get home.

There’s not enough money you could give me could make up for having Saturday off.

[–] shalafi@lemmy.world 13 points 18 hours ago (1 children)

Yeah, you gotta work like that, if you're the one starting the business. Talking to a client who owned several businesses one night over drinks. He said you have to work your ass off for a year and-a-half to two years, then it pretty much runs itself.

One might note that he wasn't talking about his employees working like that.

[–] blarghly@lemmy.world 8 points 15 hours ago

Yeah, like, I would be willing to work those hours if I had a significant stake in the company and I had a voice in how the company was run.

As a salaried employee, I'm not doing that.

[–] RejZoR@lemmy.ml 52 points 23 hours ago (1 children)

I'd like to see this motherfucker work for 12 hours every day for 6 days a week for some minimum wage shit. These corporate suits are beyond disconnected from reality.

[–] paultimate14@lemmy.world 41 points 22 hours ago (1 children)

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.

[–] cecilkorik@lemmy.ca 28 points 22 hours ago (1 children)

"I work this hard, everyone should work this hard!" -- someone has no idea what hard work is.

[–] Asafum 8 points 20 hours ago (1 children)

Oh oh oh, they have one for this!

"HaRd WoRk DoEs NoT EqUaL VaLuAbLe WoRk!!"

[–] cecilkorik@lemmy.ca 8 points 20 hours ago

"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!"

[–] BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today 5 points 15 hours ago

We live in a world of Supply & Demand, and he won't get the supply of labor he requires unless he meets the demand for proper compensation. It's the simplest economics there is.

[–] surph_ninja@lemmy.world 21 points 21 hours ago

Well not everything needs to be worth a billion. Certainly no person should ever be that rich.

People with insatiable greed have a mental disorder. They cannot even conceptualize the idea of working a reasonable amount, and being happy with a modest profit.

Maybe we should stop letting the most sociopathic & insatiable people set standards that can never be satisfied.

[–] grue@lemmy.world 9 points 18 hours ago

You gonna pay me a billion dollars to work at your startup? No? Then shut the fuck up, you wannabe-slaver asshole!

[–] dangling_cat@piefed.blahaj.zone 8 points 21 hours ago

Tencent subsidiary riot games already does this. By soft policies like providing shuttle (only at night/early morning) and free dinner.

[–] Swedneck@discuss.tchncs.de 7 points 20 hours ago

these people are physically incapable of saying things meant to scare people without it coming out as supporting the thing they dislike.

no more billion-dollar startups? fucking hell yeah, let's implement it!

[–] sunzu2@thebrainbin.org 5 points 21 hours ago

Smells of a Nepo baby

[–] FerretyFever0@fedia.io 2 points 21 hours ago

No. It's obviously not.