An AI exec is stepping down, citing workload and stress. Here's how 10 business leaders stave off burnout.
Thinking Machines cofounder Lilian Weng resigned Tuesday, citing illness worsened by startup stress.Leaders from Bezos to Huffington have long shared how they keep burnout at bay.Their strategies range from protected Sundays to making it home for family dinner.Burnout stalks even the most accomplished operators.On Tuesday, Lilian Weng, a cofounder of Thinking Machines Lab and former OpenAI safety executive, announced her resignation from her role.In a note to colleagues, later shared on X, she wrote that seven months of recurring illness, made worse by the relentless pace of startup life, had left her unable to give the job the full effort she felt it demanded."After thinking about it for several months, I ultimately have to admit that the amount of consistent stress and workload have pushed me beyond what my health can sustain physically," Weng wrote. She said she hopes to return in a more scoped role at a calmer workplace.Here's how 10 other business leaders have said they keep burnout at bay.Evan Spiegel, Michael Dell, and Jamie Siminoff: build guardrails into the grindSome leaders keep grinding but fence off pieces of their lives.Snap CEO Evan Spiegel, who calls his seven-day-a-week schedule "completely insane," says Sundays are non-negotiable: church, brunch, and an afternoon with his four kids.Michael Dell's guardrail is levity.
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Thinking Machines cofounder Lilian Weng resigned Tuesday, citing illness worsened by startup stress.Leaders from Bezos to Huffington have long shared how they keep burnout at bay.Their strategies range from protected Sundays to making it home for family dinner.Burnout stalks even the most accomplished operators.On Tuesday, Lilian Weng, a cofounder of Thinking Machines Lab and former OpenAI safety executive, announced her resignation from her role.In a note to colleagues, later shared on X, she wrote that seven months of recurring illness, made worse by the relentless pace of startup life, had left her unable to give the job the full effort she felt it demanded."After thinking about it for several months, I ultimately have to admit that the amount of consistent stress and workload have pushed me beyond what my health can sustain physically," Weng wrote. She said she hopes to return in a more scoped role at a calmer workplace.Here's how 10 other business leaders have said they keep burnout at bay.Evan Spiegel, Michael Dell, and Jamie Siminoff: build guardrails into the grindSome leaders keep grinding but fence off pieces of their lives.Snap CEO Evan Spiegel, who calls his seven-day-a-week schedule "completely insane," says Sundays are non-negotiable: church, brunch, and an afternoon with his four kids.Michael Dell's guardrail is levity. The Dell Technologies founder has said there's a diminishing return on hours worked in a day, and anyone in it for the long haul needs a mix of working, playing, and relaxing.Ring founder Jamie Siminoff opts for what he calls "work-life fusion," folding family into the job, for example, by bringing them along on business trips.Arianna Huffington and Jeff Bezos: Treat rest as an assetOthers treat rest itself as the strategy.Two years after founding The Huffington Post, Arianna Huffington collapsed from exhaustion at her desk, breaking her cheekbone. She said in a LinkedIn post in 2014 that the fall convinced her that equating success with burnout is a "collective delusion." She later set up a company, Thrive Global, focused on well-being.Jeff Bezos frames rest as a fiduciary duty.
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- What's the story?
- Thinking Machines cofounder Lilian Weng resigned Tuesday, citing illness worsened by startup stress.Leaders from Bezos to Huffington have long shared how they keep burnout at bay.Their strategies range from protected Sundays to making it home for family dinner.Burnout stalks even the most accomplished operators.On Tuesday, Lilian Weng, a cofounder of Thinking Machines Lab and former OpenAI safety executive, announced her resignation from her role.In a note to colleagues, later shared on X, she wrote that seven months of recurring illness, made worse by the relentless pace of startup life, had left her unable to give the job the full effort she felt it demanded."After thinking about it for several months, I ultimately have to admit that the amount of consistent stress and workload have pushed me beyond what my health can sustain physically," Weng wrote. She said she hopes to return in a more scoped role at a calmer workplace.Here's how 10 other business leaders have said they keep burnout at bay.Evan Spiegel, Michael Dell, and Jamie Siminoff: build guardrails into the grindSome leaders keep grinding but fence off pieces of their lives.Snap CEO Evan Spiegel, who calls his seven-day-a-week schedule "completely insane," says Sundays are non-negotiable: church, brunch, and an afternoon with his four kids.Michael Dell's guardrail is levity.
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An AI exec is stepping down, citing workload and stress. Here's how 10 business leaders stave off burnout.
Sources1TypeCoverageBusiness Insider