What’s Trending: 996 Work Culture

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Silicon Valley has been setting the pace for many industries since the late 2000s, continually evolving and creating new tools and expectations for the workplace. Some of the most interesting trends seem to have originated there, such as colorful, perk-filled offices and a work-life balance. However, that wasn’t the rule at the beginning, and with the rise of the 996 work culture, 72-hour work weeks seem to be the next thing on their agenda.

Explore what 996 is, where it originated, and what is behind this new trend in this mini.

New York Times

“What if you were paid to ditch your work-life balance and embrace hustle culture?” seems to be the question being asked at Silicon Valley, according to Lora Kelley’s article.

So, what is the 996 schedule? This is a relatively new term that has gained popularity in Silicon Valley, as indicated by LinkedIn and X posts. It means to work 9 am to 9 pm, six days a week. This type of work schedule originated in China, as the country adopted a tech culture aimed at completely reinventing itself.

Now, according to Margaret O’Mara, a historian at the University of Washington and the author of “The Code: Silicon Valley and the Remaking of America,” there’s a history of overworking at Silicon Valley. If once the in-office perks of bars, nap rooms, and more captured the eye of the general public, the idea behind them was for workers to stay longer hours at work.

“Though the term is relatively new in Silicon Valley, 996 is a ‘high-octane version of something that has been around in the tech industry for a while.’”

This hustle culture came under fire a couple of years ago, as the idea of staying longer tends to favor a “heroic masculine culture,” especially now with the gold rush expectations people have for AI. This means that people who generally might be underrepresented or have more duties, like caretaking, might find it harder to move up in this culture.

Entrepreneur

An article written by Sherin Shibu for Entrepreneur focuses more on the illegality of the 996 work schedule. Companies are outright rejecting work-life balance, but this is actually happening in violation of labor laws, including China’s.

The 996 work culture has been banned in China since 2021, but rumors persist that certain companies or individuals continue to promote it. Still, nothing official. If you ask top dogs in Silicon Valley, they assure that the 72-hour work week is now a necessity, to the point that it is reflected in Rilla’s job postings and Cognition’s leaked emails. Even public declarations from a former Google CEO support the idea that Silicon Valley should continue to push forward.

“‘Remember, we’re up against the Chinese,’ former Google CEO Eric Schmidt said. ‘The Chinese work-life balance consists of 996… By the way, the Chinese have clarified that this is illegal. However, they all do it.’”

Tech start-ups’ extreme work hours are pretty much ingrained in their DNA, but with the recent layoffs that shook big tech, there’s a cutthroat element that wasn’t there before.

NPR

In an interview with NPR, Margaret O’Mara spoke with Ayesha Rascoe about this trend and how it represents a “return to form” for Silicon Valley.

“The Valley has always had this California casual exterior and this workaholic interior.”

O’Mara argues that during the COVID-19 pandemic, tech businesses experienced unprecedented growth, which was then further propelled by OpenAI’s release of ChatGPT in November 2022. This led companies to hire more workers to capitalize on the influx of productivity, but now things are dire. AI is now a threat to many jobs, including coders.

The fear of the future includes rising to the top in their own fields to avoid redundancy, which means longer hours at the office. This has been reflected in the AI talent wars that have been happening, even with the top people at different companies. This is in line with the employer-driven culture that has been felt in different industries throughout the country.

The takeaway

996 is a banned work schedule in China, but that hasn’t stopped this practice from crossing over the Pacific. Economic uncertainties have workers pushing themselves to extremes in an effort to rise to the top of the AI wars. Still, the AI race affects everyone, from entry-level to those at the top, which has seen the rise of this toxic work culture.

Experts fear that the strides toward inclusion that had been made in the last few years are being walked back, not out of maliciousness, but by the delusions of grandeur that some people have of being a Prometheus with AI. If this kind of toxic culture continues, the US government might have to take actions to prevent it from becoming normalized, as China’s did.