An Indian software engineer has opened up about the upside of putting in long hours for his employer, even stretching it to 100 hours per week. Pranav Mehta is an employee of Mercor – an AI startup that pitches itself as the world’s fastest growing company. He took to the social media platform X to reveal that Mercor employees often work 72 hours a week, and sometimes even 100 hours a week, but the awards are well worth it.
World’s fastest growing company
Yesterday, Mercor CEO Brendan Foody posted that the AI platform had scaled from $1 to $500 million in revenue run rate in the last 17 months, making it the world’s fastest growing company in terms of revenue.
The AI training startup is targeting a valuation of $10 billion or more, according to a recent TechCrunch report.
“Mercor scaled from $1-500M in revenue run rate in the last 17 months, making us the fastest growing company of all time. Our growth is accelerating. We averaged 11% week over week growth in July, 18% WoW growth in August, and 19% WoW growth in September,” the CEO of Mercor posted on X.
“While everyone fears job loss, we’re creating a new category of knowledge work faster than any other time in history. The future of work will converge on training agents,” he added.
Working over 72 hours a week
Pranav Mehta, a former Microsoft employee, responded to the post with an insider’s perspective on what it is like to work at Mercor. Mehta said that while work weeks are often 72 hours long or even longer, they are worth it for the learning and growth he has experienced at the company.
“The 72-hour work week might sound daunting at first (occasionally stretches to 100),” he said. “But the growth, the learning curve, the pace- is truly unmatched.”
Mehta contrasted his 72-hour weeks with the traditional 40 hours that most people work. “A comfy 40-hour week won’t offer the same upside. Not the same energy, not the same rewards,” he opined.
Finally, he concluded by saying that it was a privilege to work at the world’s fastest growing company.
(Also read: ‘How long can you stare at your wife?’: L&T chairman says he wants employees to work on Sunday too)