VLIW directed Power Management is described. In accordance with described techniques, a program is compiled to generate instructions for execution by a very long instruction word machine. During the compiling, power configurations for the very long instruction word machine to execute the instructions are determined, and fields of the instructions are populated with the power configurations. In one or more implementations, an instruction that includes a power configuration for the very long instruction word machine and operations for execution by the very long instruction word machine is obtained. A power setting of the very long instruction word machine is adjusted based on the power configuration of the instruction, and the operations of the instruction are executed by the very long instruction word machine.