Who is Daksh Gupta, 23-year-old Indian-origin CEO going viral for 9-9-6 rule?
Daksh Gupta is the Indian-origin, United States-based co-founder and CEO of the AI startup Greptile.
Daksh Gupta, CEO and co-founder of Greptile, is no stranger to social media fame. Last year, he became the target of backlash after advocating for a 14-hour workday, and doubling down on his take despite strong opposition. More recently, Gupta made the news for claiming that most Silicon Valley techies like to work 12 hours a day, six days a week.

“The current vibe is no drinking, no drugs, 9-9-6 [work from 9 am to 9 pm, six days a week], lift heavy, run far, marry early, track sleep, eat steak and eggs,” Gupta told The San Francisco Standard while talking about the disconnect that youngsters may feel with the Burning Man festival.
The Standard piece described Indian-origin Gupta as the “poster child of AI boom’s grindcore culture”. His support for the 9-9-6 rule (working from 9 am to 9 pm, 6 days a week) has only strengthened his image as a tough taskmaster.
So who is Daksh Gupta?
Daksh Gupta is the Indian-origin, United States-based co-founder and CEO of the AI startup Greptile. He is 23 years old and based in San Francisco.
Gupta graduated from the prestigious Georgia Institute of Technology with a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science in 2019, according to his LinkedIn profile.
He has interned at Qualcomm and Amazon Web Services.
Since July 2023, Daksh Gupta has been working on Greptile – an AI startup that checks code for bugs. According to Gupta’s website, the startup is backed by Y Combinator, Initialized Capital, Paul Graham, SV Angel ++.
He does not believe in work-life balance and has been vocal about it. “Recently I started telling candidates right in the first interview that Greptile offers no work-life-balance, typical workdays start at 9am and end at 11pm, often later, and we work Saturdays, sometimes also Sundays,” Gupta wrote on X last year.
(Also read: No remote work, 12-hour days: Daksh Gupta reveals salaries at his Silicon Valley startup)
In a more recent job posting, Gupta also made it clear that Greptile employees are expected to work from the company office in San Francisco. Remote work is not acceptable.
ABOUT THE AUTHORSanya JainSanya Jain is an Assistant Editor with Hindustan Times Digital. She has nearly a decade of experience in covering offbeat stories that speak to the everyday experience - from viral videos to human interest copies that spark conversation. Her interests stretch across business, pop culture, social media trends, entertainment and global affairs. Before joining Hindustan Times, Sanya spent two years with Moneycontrol and five years with NDTV. She holds an undergraduate degree in English literature from St Stephen’s College, Delhi, and a master’s in journalism from the Xavier Institute of Communications, Mumbai. Sanya has a sharp eye for spotting emerging trends and looking for newsworthy angles to elevate viral posts into meaningful narratives. She was the first one, for example, to cover Narayana Murthy’s remark on 70-hour work weeks that sparked a national conversation. She is equally at ease writing about business leaders as about the common man, about issues of national importance and memes that amuse social media. Sanya enjoys speaking with content creators, newsmakers and entrepreneurs to transform everyday moments into engaging, slice-of-life stories that resonate with readers. When she is not working, Sanya can be found curled up with a good book. Born and raised in Lucknow, she has spent the last several years in Delhi. She is deeply interested in animal welfare and now spends a lot of her time running after her destructive orange cat.Read More

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