Startups like OpenAI are adopting 996 work schedules—grinding 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., six days a week—even though China already ruled the practice illegal.
Sarah, a 28-year-old employee at one of San Francisco’s hottest startups, is beyond burned out. She’s working a 996 schedule—9 a.m. to 9 p.m., six days a week—a phenomenon that’s swept Silicon Valley over the past year amid the AI boom.
Sarah, whose asked that we refer to her by a pseudonym to avoid backlash from her employer, is trapped in a cycle of working from breakfast to bedtime. Meanwhile, her personal to-do list is spiraling out of control as her wife bears nearly the full burden of household chores. Her friends, many of whom work similar hours, often reschedule dinner in the group chat “literally 14 times, since one of us always has something come up,” she says. „We basically never hang out.“
The practice of 996 originated in China over a decade ago, where it has since been ruled illegal (although it still persists quietly). In Silicon Valley, tech workers like Sarah and others we spoke with are working longer hours and taking on more shifts for less pay in the hopes of securing valuable early equity. However, experts warn that this schedule can have a detrimental impact on the mind and body, raising questions about whether 996 is merely a performative trend or a genuinely effective way to stay ahead of the competition.
“What we’re all thinking is, ‘When does this level out?’“ Sarah says of herself and others in the AI industry who work 996. „We’re putting this time in with the understanding that it’s not going to be like this forever, right? Or is that just a dream?”A ‚Work Hard, Play Hard‘ Culture
Sarah was an Ivy League athlete and subsequently worked as a trader on Wall Street, another industry with a long history of brutal hours. Her current 996 schedule is a continuation of a lifestyle of hard work and high performance. She describes herself as very “focused” and “introverted,” but less “extremely type A” than other 996ers, many of whom she says are business school graduates and former consultants with a „work hard, play hard“ mentality.
“They’ll go out every night, to a concert and then the club, and then they’re back at work,” she says. “I’m like, ‘How do you do that?’ It’s a really fast-paced culture within the office, too. But then there are the normal people, like me. I need to actually sleep for eight hours.”
Sarah, who previously worked at another tech company in San Francisco, joined her current employer last year after speaking with friends who worked at Anthropic and OpenAI. “They were like, ‘You wouldn’t believe the scale and the slope of these companies right now,’” she says. “So I was like, ‘What am I doing here when I could be over there?’”AI Company Recruiters Hold the Power
When Sarah interviewed for her current role, the recruiter did not use the term 996. “I just remember how many times they reiterated that they work hard in the interview process,” she says. Meanwhile, Haley, a fellow San Francisco AI worker who also asked that her real name not be used, says that her recruiter made it clear that she would need to give “500%,” and on some nights, sent her emails after 10 p.m.
The expectation of working 996 is usually implied, they tell us, although we found at least one example of an AI company that is up-front, listing 70-hour workweeks—just shy of the full 72—on a current job description.
Sarah landed exactly where she wanted, at an AI company with over $1 billion in funding that has expanded from 60 to 200 employees in under a year. More established Big Tech firms, such as Google or Meta, would pay her a higher salary for fewer hours, she figures, but they lack the novelty and early stock options that her current company offers.
When Haley tried to negotiate for a higher salary, the recruiter told her that the move was a „red flag“, so she backed down.
Haley also took a pay cut to work 996 at a company with a similar upward trajectory. Not only that, she now has a longer commute and more days in the office. When she tried to negotiate for a higher salary, the recruiter told her the move was a „red flag“—implying that she wasn’t fully committed to the company’s mission—so she backed down.
Even Intel CTO Sachin Katti relinquished his C-suite status last fall for a more minor position at OpenAI in “compute infrastructure.“ Two of our sources confirm that several teams at OpenAI work 996 schedules. The company is planning an IPO with a valuation of up to $1 trillion, which would be the largest in history, according to Reuters.
