'To become a CEO, need to work hard': Helios Capital founder Samir Arora on L&T chief's remarks

Market veteran and Helios Capital founder Samir Arora

Market veteran and Helios Capital founder Samir Arora joined the debate over work-life balance after Larsen & Toubro chairman SN Subrahmanyan suggested a 90-hour workweek, drawing parallel with Infosys founder Narayana Murthy’s controversial remarks earlier.

Arora, an Indian Institute of Management graduate, said the correct question to ask was how the promoters or chief executive officers manage to achieve what they do, suggesting it is because of hard work.

“It is not right to say that the CEO/promoter is working 70 hours because he is the owner and gets paid much more etc. You have to ask, why that person was able to become CEO or first gen promoter or whatever in the first place. Your choice,” Arora said in a post on X. He was responding to a user who sought the views of business leaders on the debate and if there was a connection between hours and productivity.

Arora said the first job he had after graduating from B-school made him work for 12-13 hours, excluding the travel time. Arora moved to another job where the working hours were more comfortable but he found the new firm "boring" and went back to his previous job. Arora said that “in the beginning one has to work harder than others to learn, get noticed and get ahead”.

Yes- in the beginning one has to work harder than others to learn, get noticed and get ahead. In my first job after IIM, I worked in Delhi where my hours were routinely from 9 AM to around 10 PM and about an hour each way for travel. I enjoyed it a lot but still sought a job with https://t.co/bMpVNesYxJ
Samir Arora (@Iamsamirarora) January 10, 2025

The latest controversy over working hours was trigged after a video of an internal interaction of L&T chief surfaced on Reddit, where Subrahmanyan said he "regretted" he was not able to make his employees work on Sundays and he would be happy if they did. “I regret I am not able to make you work on Sundays, to be honest. If I can make you work on Sundays, I will be happier because I work on Sundays also,” the CEO is heard saying.

In what appeared to be questioning the need for time away from work, Subrahmanyan said, “What do you do sitting at home? How long can you stare at your wife? How long can the wives stare at their husbands? Get to the office and start working.”

Defending his remarks, the L&T chief said the Chinese were able to compete with the Americans because “they work 90 hours per week”.

The comments triggered social media storm, with several users pointed out that an average engineering graduate at the company earned Rs 35,000 a month in remote locations, working 6.5 days a week. In comparison, Subrahmanyan earned Rs 51 crore in 2023-24, more than 534 times the median salary of L&T employees, a report by The New Indian Express said.