Melinda French Gates believes CEOs who sleep less to work more are ‘so dumb’

Melinda French Gates said she aims to sleep for seven or eight hours every night. (Image credit: AFP)

Melinda French Gates has recently said that she believes it’s “so dumb” to sleep for fewer hours so that they can put in extra hours at work. Commenting on the men she has encountered who claim to sleep three or four hours a night, the billionaire philanthropist told Vanity Fair,  “Some of us didn’t want to be around them! Let’s be honest!”

French Gates added that she aims to sleep for seven or eight hours every night.

Interestingly, her ex-husband and fellow billionaire Bill Gates was in his youth influenced by other entrepreneurs bragging about not needing enough sleep, leading him to believe that “sleep is laziness and unnecessary”. He admitted it  and said that now, he aims for a minimum of seven hours of sleep each night.

"[I] would be like, ‘I only sleep six hours.’ And the other guy says, ‘I only sleep five!’ and ‘Well, sometimes I don’t sleep at all," Gates, 68, said on his Unconfuse Me with Bill Gates podcast last year. “I’d be like, ‘Wow, those guys are so good. I need to try harder, because sleep is laziness and unnecessary.’”

The Microsoft co-founder, however, changed his habits after his father was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease, prompting him to start learning about brain health, he said.

“One of the strongest things to emerge in [the Alzheimer’s] area is the importance of good sleep,” Gates said. “It’s one of the most predictive factors of any dementia, including Alzheimer’s, whether you’re getting good sleep.”

Among other business leaders, the richest person in the world, Elon Musk, once used to brag about pulling all-nighters and sleeping under his desk as his electric vehicle company Tesla tried to meet its production goals. But speaking to CNBC last year, he said he since changed his habits and tries to sleep for at least six hours every night.

Former PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi had said in 2018 that she typically worked until midnight and woke up at 4 am.