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Halligan: Modern Tech Founders Work Harder and Longer Than Past Generations

Brian Halligan · HubSpot Co-Founder Brian Halligan on How to Hire Great VPs and How M&A Really Works · Jan 3, 2025 · at 23:18

Brian Halligan, co-founder and chairman of HubSpot, compares the intensity of early HubSpot days to modern startup founders.

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“Founders today are tireless. There are a hundred, a lot of them are like, well, spend about 20 hours a week. I know I don't have any life, like they, and it's, and I think it's a lot of it's Elon. And he's like a new template for how you do this kind of thing. But I have noticed like a change in the intensity of the work. I'm not sure exactly how we think about it. I think that's what it takes. And almost all of them coming through these days have that. I've always thought obsession is a good feature in a founder, but like that obsession taking to a bunch of them I talk to are a 120 hours a week. It wasn't that way before. And so on the founder side, there's an intensity that is to me new in the last few years.”

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