BrewDog founder James Watt says work-life balance invented by those who hate their jobs

The founder and former boss of BrewDog, James Watt, believes that the concept of a work-life balance is one invented by those unhappy with their own careers and says people should instead aim to achieve “work-life integration”.

Watt stepped down from the day-to-day running of the beer-brewing company last year after 17 years, though retains his shareholding in the organisation and has a non-executive role of “captain and co-founder”.

At the time of his departure he said he planned to “take a bit of time off, to travel, to spend more time with my family and friends”, while also saying he was aiming to “dedicate some more time to my other business interests”.

Prior to his departure, a number of former staff members had jointly signed a letter over “toxic attitudes” in the workplace and a “culture of fear” through Watt and co-founder Martin Dickie. BrewDog accepted and apologised for the incident and pledged to learn from the matter, though last year they were then criticised for backtracking on a pledge to pay real living wages.

“I think the whole concept of work-life balance was invented by people who hate the work that they do. If you love what you do, you don’t need work-life balance, you need work-life integration,” he said on a now-deleted Instagram post alongside actor and businesswoman fiancee Georgia Toffolo.

“It’s so true, when I met James I was quite taken aback at how aligned we are in the important stuff and one of those things was a lack of work-life balance in a really beautiful way,” Toffolo added.

“Work knows no bounds. Constantly in our home, we are working but we do things we find incredibly fulfilling and we also have a supportive other half that loves that high octane obsession with what we do.

“I’ve always known I would end up with someone like James because it would not work otherwise. If someone was saying ‘you need to knock off now’ I would be thinking ‘what, do you not like my business? Do you not believe in me? Are we not striving towards the same thing?’”

While Watt deleted the original posting, he did re-post it on Instagram with the clarification that he had removed the first video as a result of offensive or abusive messages.

“I’m always up for respectful discussion—but there is, after all, only so many times you can be called a gay Scottish egg-headed c**t in one day,” he wrote on the replacement post.

To “add context” to his first video, he noted that his content was intended to be directed towards entrepreneurs and those aiming to “push their careers forward” and was merely his own (and Toffolo’s, seemingly) views on the matter.

In December, Watt suggested he could delay his marriage to Toffolo for several years for tax relief, while he also announced plans to launch an influencer marketplace soon after departing BrewDog.