As for working from home, he would make an exception for software writers who “get up at three o’clock in the morning with some kind of brainstorm” and for the physically disabled.
But everyone else needs to start mixing in with their colleagues more, he argues, especially apprentices.
The problem is a lot of young people “just want to sit at home”, he says.
“I’m a great advocate of getting them back to work, because the only way an apprentice is going to learn, is from his colleagues.
“It’s small things, like interaction with your more mature colleagues, that will tell you how to do this, how to do that.
“That is lacking in this work-from-home, zoom culture.”
Lord Sugar’s comments come after Lord Stuart Rose, former chairman of Marks and Spencer, said earlier this month that working-from-home was “not proper work”.
Lord Sugar was hands on in business himself from an early age. At 12 he was getting up before school to boil beetroot for a local greengrocer.
He made his first million selling some of the earliest personal computers. He founded, then floated his firm, Amstrad, before moving on to other business ventures, before entering show business.
He has a current estimated personal wealth of over £1bn.
Despite his outspoken and wide-ranging views, the parallels with another [former] Apprentice presenter, are limited. He has no political ambitions.
“I have no intention of putting myself forward to be the Prime Minister, because it’s an untenable and thankless job,” he says.
