Narayana Murthy’s Time Machine
The founder of Infosys is a true visionary: with his 72-hour work culture push, he’s laying the foundations of a time machine.
Growing up, all I saw was my parents working hard.
Really hard.
For a single child, most of my yonder days were spent waiting for my parents to come home. Although I did enjoy the period of freedom after coming back from school, the loneliness would slowly start to eat me. Especially so when my parents would be running late while the night swallowed daylight.
The hard work they did, however, set up a relatively comfortable future for me. A future that was already looking good, thanks to the introduction of computers—the miracle machines of efficiency.
Growing up, we were sold the idea of smart work.
Really smart work.
For a single child whose parents were coming to terms with computers invading their government offices, these machines were the gateway to new possibilities. Although most of my childhood was spent playing video games on the old family desktop PC, my parents never barred me (apart from playing for hours on end) from experimenting and messing it up.
The freedom they gave me, however, was the fertile foundation for giving birth to my multipolar dreams and ambitions. A new dawn was coming, of passion and play.
Growing up, we were asked to dream big.
Really big.
For a single child of hard-working parents, most of my childhood was spent skipping on extended family events, friendly night stays, or even simple moments of bonding with my family. Although they earned well, I never got to grow close with my cousins, who lived away, or even entertain the idea of a sibling, because of how busy my parents were.
Their savings, however, ensured that I could pursue my dreams—finding a job that fuelled my passions to funnel my ambitions. The future was indeed looking like it was my generation’s for the taking—to work smart, dream big, and live life to the fullest.
But then I found my first steps on the doorframe of adulthood. My foot latched on the crevice of the threshold, and I stumbled stepping through it.
All because its gatekeepers, like Narayana Murthy, were the only people reserved to find time in life to work, dream, and live the future.
The ever-elitist, tech evangelist, and unabashedly controversial Murthy, in his recent confession of comorbid capitalism, contributed his cynical worldview under the thin veil of competing with China:
“There is a saying in China, 9, 9, 6. You know what it means? 9 am to 9 pm, 6 days a week. And that is a 72-hour work week.”
Clearly, this is another attempt by this 79-year-old billionaire has-been to lobby for a capitalist-centric working timeframe and stay relevant in a world that’s ready to forget him.
But that’s Murthy’s colonial mindset.
Slavery of the Digital Front
Born on the cusp of India’s independence, Narayana Murthy grew up in an India that was trying to find its footing in geopolitics and geoeconomics. Undoubtedly—what with Murthy belonging to the generation before my parents—he had to work hard. Which he clearly did. I won’t take away the credit for his biggest achievement: setting up a company like Infosys.
But when you shift to a capitalist mindset, you can’t help but forget that others in society have an uphill struggle in life. You see, Infosys is, at its core, an outsourcing company. Its services are geared to help other companies, mostly those outside of India, who don’t want to pay their regional workforce higher wages. If you try to read between the lines, you’ll find that it is. essentially, digital slavery.
Here’s a report from Infosys’ Q2 FY26 financials. For June 30, 2025, the revenue sits at ₹42,279 crore ($4,941 million), and the net profit at ₹6,921 crore ($809 million).
Another report by Business Today gives us information on how these Q2 earnings translate into dividends for stakeholders, particularly Narayana Murthy and his family. I took these figures and compared them with the highest and lowest packages at Infosys, as per Glassdoor and AmbitionBox.
The results are in front of you.
Even if you were to factor in dividends for employees with a stake in the shares, you’ll notice that their earnings will always be a tiny blip in an otherwise highly impressive payout for members of the Murty household. What’s worse is that Murthy’s 18-month-old grandson, Ekagrah, earns far more than the highest-paid employees. While the chart above is based on projections from Business Today, a Hindustan Times report chalks his earnings to ₹6.5 crores.
Clearly, Infosys’ profits do not trickle down to its workforce.
You’d notice none of this matches the title—Murthy’s Time Machine. Allow me to build that bridge.
You see, Murthy’s unwavering push for a 70- or 80-hour workweek has got nothing to do with India’s growth or competing with China—the latter a prospect that’s nigh impossible given China’s headstart and our over-reliance on its exports.
The truth behind this vision is to increase the hours of work employees put in, especially for his company, which outsources digital slavery to international corporations. Infosys employees are already slaving away their souls for meagre capital benefits and no life outside the corporate campus, as detailed in this report of an employee whose monthly salary before quitting after nine years of work was just ₹35,000 ($394.09).
But that’s Murthy’s genius.
The more time people spend working for Infosys’ clients, the more his company clocks in to corporates overseas, thereby increasing Infosys’ profits multifold. Time is, of course, money, as the old adage goes. His futurist outlook will ensure that his grandson will be a billionaire by the time he comes of age to work. In a country where job markets are on a decline and freshers are finding it hard to land their first gigs, Ekagrah Murty will have enough financial freedom to retire.
China is just a ruse. Narayana Murthy is building a financial time machine for his progeny’s progeny.
Life After Work Death
Let’s take a look at China’s 9-9-6 work culture, shall we?
Now, Murthy already provides a definition to us in his remarks quoted above: working 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., for 6 days a week. Twelve hours round the clock. Despite the country’s labour laws limiting working hours to just 44 a week.
But this worked like a charm for capitalists in China, like Jack Ma. You know, the ilk of billionaires cut out from the same cloth as Murthy.
However, the results were unsavoury for the employees. A decline in physical and mental health was the golden standard everyone suffered from, with several high-profile deaths bringing the issue to national attention.
China’s high courts had to step in—mostly because they failed to enforce their laws strictly from the get-go.
This work culture, however, has started to seep into the U.S., particularly its many ambitious AI startups. And as time has always shown, Indians love to borrow work and lifestyle cues from the States, whether poor, middle-class, or elitist C-suite executives.
The result is overworked employees, teetering on the edge of work, sometimes even wasting away without a lick of life that was promised to them in the digital age.
Try to argue, and you’ll find pushback from tech and business leaders of the nation. How can overworking oneself ever be beneficial for the country? If my threadbare understanding of economics is right, the cycle of expenditure depends on improved wages and livelihoods. If people earn and live well, they’ll spend well. But if they don’t have time to live, perhaps the only industry apart from businesses to benefit will be pharmaceuticals.
In a fair world, I’d say that proponents of unnecessary hard work, like Murthy, would be put on a month-long trial to put their words to the test. You know, leaders leading by example and all that shit. You’d have them freeze themselves in front of a computer and waste away twelve hours for six days a week.
Then, perhaps, we’d have a better understanding of work-life balance, high wages, healthy employees, and true economic growth.
But you and I don’t even have time or money to fight, propose, or contemplate such experiments of social and economic equality. Better work and clock out before the grind starts again at sunrise.
