CEO is the lowest-paid employee of a start-up, says Greptile’s Daksh Gupta who advocated 84-hour workweek

Daksh Gupta, CEO and co-founder of Greptile, a Y-Combinator-backed AI start-up based in San Francisco, shot to fame recently for a long post he wrote on the ‘X’ platform where he wrote about his start-up’s culture of long working hours.

He mentioned that typical workdays start at 9 am and end at 11 pm and often later, and they also work on Saturdays and Sundays. This post made its way to LinkedIn and Reddit and evoked sharp reactions from netizens, following which he wrote a follow-up post where he explained that this gruelling work schedule is not prescriptive.

He also mentioned that this is meant to be done in the first year or two of a startup, which is like reaching escape velocity.

Although Gupta, who graduated from Georgia Institute of Technology (also known as Georgia Tech) last year, is based in the US, he is currently visiting his family in Delhi where MintGenie caught up with him.

He recalls how a billionaire’s generosity in writing a cheque of $1,00,000 two years ago facilitated him to pursue the journey of entrepreneurship.

Besides, he elaborates on a slew of topics ranging from entrepreneurship to start-up culture in the US & India, the amount of money he earns and his future goal.

Edited Excerpts:

Do you still believe in the need to follow an 84-hour workweek after all the trolling?

In the first interview while hiring for Greptile, I told candidates very clearly that if they are looking for a work-life balance, then this (Greptile) is not the right place. Some youngsters consciously look for jobs where they can feel pressured into developing something meaningful.

Even the engineers who joined Greptile had the option to work in big tech firms where their life would have been more comfortable. But they chose to work with us.

In the highly competitive space of AI, only the first one or maximum top two players will survive. For instance, in the ride-hailing space, there are only Uber and Lyft (in the US). This is what happens in every industry. This does not mean that those who do not make it to the top one or two are not smart (but they perhaps did not work hard enough). When there are two geniuses, the one who works harder will win.

How did entrepreneurship happen even after you had an offer from Amazon at a lucrative package?

I was also a reluctant entrepreneur. I had an offer to join a large tech firm at a package of $2,00,000 but decided to start on my own. A job in a large tech firm is far less stressful and pays a lot of money. Despite a high-paying job offer, I wanted something that required me to push myself hard. I wanted to be thrown deeply into difficult projects. My two friends — Soohoon Choi and Vaishant Kameswaran — who are my co-founders, also felt the same. So, all three of us started working on the projects together.

Tell us more about Greptile

In March 2022 when I — along with Soohoon and Vaishant — started working on different IT projects, billionaire Christopher Klaus (also a Georgia Tech alumnus) wrote us a cheque for $100,000 while we were still in college. The project we started aimed to scrape product reviews from Reddit to help buyers make better buying decisions.

Later we discontinued that project to shift our energies to programming AI tools for software engineers in July 2023. That time, it was known as ‘Onboard AI’ and we changed the name to Greptile in January this year. So far, we have raised $5.3 million. We are currently a five-member team and will get two more members by next month.

Is it considered cool to be the CEO of an AI start-up? Do you earn a lot of money as a start-up founder?

CEO of an early-age start-up is typically the lowest paid in the company. Engineers at Greptile earn more than me. Most founders are typically cash-poor. But it’s still okay. I live in a safe neighbourhood and stay in a shared accommodation. So, I live comfortably.

What do you think about India as a start-up hub?

It’s quite exciting here. It’s the fastest growing alongside the US. A number of my friends are based in Bangalore. There is an enormous amount of technical talent in India. Start-ups like Zepto are among the fastest-growing companies in the country.