Does a Four Day Work Week Work?

**SPEAKER_1** (0:00)
You also champion a four week, a four day work week, right?

**SPEAKER_2** (0:03)
Yep.

**SPEAKER_1** (0:04)
So talk about that.

**SPEAKER_2** (0:08)
So, what I've realized is that we have a big problem in the typical workplace, which is that most of corporate America, at least what I've seen is that everyone is perpetually exhausted.
And so, they're working five days a week, they're in a bunch of monotonous meetings, they're doing work, they're not even sure is important. They have to catch up on work on the weekends while they take care of their families, and you know, no one can ever catch up.
And so, four day work week is tied in with a few concepts, but the underpinnings that I've tried to figure out in my companies is how to eliminate what I call work theater. And this is a phrase that most of the things I talk about, I've used for mothers, this is a phrase that I coined, work theater. Most of the work that people do doesn't matter. I'd say 90% is work theater, meaning it's work that just looks good, but doesn't actually accomplish anything, right? And so people are working so much, they're so exhausted, and they're getting nothing done for the company because they're consumed with red tape and bureaucracy. And so what I found is by shortening the work week, and say, no, you don't have five days to get everything done. You've got four days to get everything done. You can't schedule meetings Friday through Sunday. You need to expect people are going to be off. These four days, you're going to be present, focused.
This I took from Twitter is not mine. It's called work like a lion, not like a cow. I want my team to come in and work like lions for four days, as much as they can. And then I want them to go relax, be with their family, be with their friends, enjoy life, heal. So that they can come and work like lions. I think as human beings, we're supposed to go hunt, and then we're supposed to go relax. We spend too much time in this middle ground. So to me, I found much more productivity when we have these intense spurts of hunting, and then people have their own lives.

**SPEAKER_1** (2:43)
So all your employees work for four days?

**SPEAKER_2** (2:47)
Um, yes and no. Uh, we try to adhere to it with love, with Bolt.
It's been an experiment. So Bolt hasn't rolled out, but Bolt is later stage. Could maybe afford to do it a little bit more love. We're trying to do it, but we still end up working a lot of Fridays. So I can't say fully that we're doing it with love right now, but we're trying, we're being mindful of it.

**SPEAKER_1** (3:16)
And you champion remote work, right?

**SPEAKER_2** (3:19)
Yeah. All my companies are 100% remote. I never want to go back to an office again.
That's just a personal choice that I made. And other hubs. So some folks, there's a cluster in San Francisco or a cluster in New York or cluster in LA, and they meet up, they may have shared workspaces. So there's certain clusters that like to come together into my various companies and work. A Prism, another one of my companies, has a bonafide office, but they have a pretty kind of hardcore sales culture and it fits them. So one of my companies does have a bonafide office, but it's not something that I'm married to at all, and I typically prefer remote.

**SPEAKER_1** (4:06)
So you got, Bolt has 800 employees?

**SPEAKER_2** (4:10)
No, Bolt has gone down by quite a bit. We've just realized that with our narrow focus on going after the world's largest customers, we didn't need as many people and many head counts. So we actually completely removed our focus on SMB, which is small and medium sized businesses, to focus on big accounts. So we brought the company now, it's below 200

**SPEAKER_1** (4:37)
200, and how many you add love?

**SPEAKER_2** (4:40)
About 15

**SPEAKER_1** (4:41)
Right, and so you have that, but you also have the non-profit work.

**SPEAKER_2** (4:46)
Yes.

**SPEAKER_1** (4:46)
And I know that's very important to you. Talk about that.

**SPEAKER_2** (4:52)
I believe that spiritually we're supposed to give at least 10%, if not 20% of what you make back. This is my fundamental belief. I believe if you don't do that, you're hurting yourself because you're going to have, you're creating karma. And so selfishly, I want to stay healthy. I want to stay safe. I want my businesses to be successful. So, so I try to give back as much as I can, because I know spiritually you have to.