“When you’re in that tough situation, you need to survive": Airwallex CEO who works 80–100 hrs a week, says burnout never crossed his mind

Jack Zhang has spent most of his life working at a pace many would deem unsustainable. Yet for the co-founder and CEO of global payments platform Airwallex, now valued at $8 billion, the concept of burnout has never quite registered.

Why burnout was not even a concern for this CEO

“I never understand that terminology (burnout) to be honest,” Zhang told CNBC Make It. “I’ve worked 100 hours a week from [the] age of 16 for 20 plus years.”

For Zhang, relentless work was not a badge of ambition but a condition of survival.

That mindset was forged early. At just 15, Zhang left Qingdao, China, and moved alone to Melbourne, Australia, with limited English skills and parents facing financial hardship.

Determined to stay, he took responsibility for funding his computer science degree at the University of Melbourne and his living expenses. His days and nights were consumed by physically demanding jobs—washing dishes, bartending, working overnight shifts at a petrol station, and packing lemons during summer breaks.

“When you’re in that tough situation, you need to survive,” Zhang said. “You’re not really thinking about burnout. Either you survive or not.”

After graduating in 2007, Zhang built a successful career as a software engineer before moving into banking. Financially secure and already a millionaire, he found himself unexpectedly unfulfilled. The turning point came at age 30 with the birth of his daughter.

“I remember I just looked at her, and I felt like I hadn’t done anything to make her feel proud,” he recalled. That realization pushed him to leave stable employment and focus entirely on building something meaningful. “Money alone doesn’t bring the highest level of happiness,” he said.

That search for purpose led to Airwallex. While importing coffee beans with future co-founder Max Li, Zhang encountered persistent issues moving money internationally.

“We thought, why can’t we build a payment system in parallel to SWIFT and fundamentally change how money moves around the world?” he said.

Today, in his late 40s, Zhang still works around 80 hours a week, driven not by exhaustion, but by conviction.

Also read: “Defies every age by turning fear into confidence”: Meet ‘Driver Amma’, Kerala’s 74-YO saree-clad woman who drives Rolls-Royce in Dubai (startuppedia.in)