Investor and Shark Tank star Kevin O’Leary once declared that to succeed in business you must be willing to grind out 25 hour work days. He has since walked back on that idea, calling it, in his own words, “sheer stupidity.”
In fact: “The worst advice I hear young founders talk about all the time is that they want to work 18 hours a day. How stupid is that?” O’Leary said in a video posted on his Instagram page last week.
The eat-sleep-work lifestyle—also known as the “996” schedule first imported from China, which stands for 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., six days a week—has since gained momentum among Silicon Valley tech companies.
Despite his previous declarations, O’Leary says it’s high time to put that idea to bed. “You’ve got to get some sleep, you have to eat well to stay focused,” he says. “That’s how you’re successful.”
Being tired is practically a personality trait in corporate America. Harvard University research found 55% of CEOs get six hours of sleep a night or less.
Yet, research consistently shows that productivity is closely tied to sleep. One 2019 study found that sleep-deprived entrepreneurs were more likely to favor weaker business ventures, failing to look past the surface-level features of new business ideas to understand their long-term potential.
For the sleepless founder, making important decisions also becomes more difficult after a long day of work, as the effects of decision fatigue start to take hold.
“There’s lots of evidence that you should make the major decisions right after you wake up when you have the maximum energy and your mind is clear,” O’Leary says.
Success should not come at the detriment of your health. “This idea that you don’t get any sleep, as if it’s good for investors, is sheer stupidity,” he says. Eating well, getting sleep, and exercising are his actual secrets to optimization.
O’Leary now sees those founders hustling 18 hours a day (or at least, those who look like they’ve been) as poor bets. “If you show up looking half-dead, I’m not investing,” O’Leary wrote in the video caption. “You’re not a hero, you’re a liability.”
So, the next time you feel pressure to camp out in the office, take a page out of O’Leary’s playbook and:
- Go home and get a good night’s rest.
- Show up to work looking and feeling fresh.
- Tackle your most important tasks first thing.
In doing so, you’ll not only look better and feel better but maybe most importantly. . .work better.