This has been discussed far and wide on HN.

The basic consensus is that she mentioned this once to a journalist, and her 130 hour workweek was likely a once in a lifetime kind of thing.

But journalists like to spin things up and the media is often just a game of telephone; and boom, you end up reading in articles all over that Marissa Mayer pulls 130 hours work week every week.

One thing that I've learned living in Silicon Valley and meeting "famous" people regularly is that they're almost never as smart, brilliant, hard-working, etc. as the press makes them up to be. Sure, there are a lot of hard-working talented people here, but the image that the worldwide press builds of them is just plain exaggerated (and I guess it's their job to do so).

((7 * 24) - 130) / 7 = 5.43, actually. I suppose it's possible, although if I were to seriously contemplate such a thing, I'd want a supply of modafinil or amphetamines laid in...

It is possible. I did it in college for a week. Couple of days is easy, but after six days you feel that is messing with your system. Like another comment mentioned it was a once in a lifetime kind of thing. I don't recommend it to anybody.

Now assuming that she commutes, takes showers, eats, bathroom breaks, then that means that she was sleeping even less than that.

Only Americans believe that 130 hours in the office constitutes a 130 hour working week. Which is why the French work 35 hours a week, yet Airbus is as productive as Boeing.

French don't work 35 hours a week, we work much more than that. Only basic employees do that. I probably have around a 50 hours work week.

But then you have extra vacation days...

You mean as outsourced as Boeing?

I slept under my desk and showered at the office gym once for two weeks and pulled about if not more than that. Not sustainable, but not unnatural either - I don't drink coffee and think I had a Red Bull once or twice.

Yes, I have done this. A few times. I think for not more than one week at a time.

I did this for one month for my master exams - I had to catch up on a lot of things due to working in a startup ;-)

I was a wreck in the end.