Startups like OpenAI are adopting 996 work schedules\u2014grinding 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., six days a week\u2014even though China already ruled the practice illegal.<\/b>
\nSarah, a 28-year-old employee at one of San Francisco’s hottest startups, is beyond burned out. She’s working a 996 schedule\u20149 a.m. to 9 p.m., six days a week\u2014a 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 \u201cliterally 14 times, since one of us always has something come up,\u201d 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.
\u201cWhat we’re all thinking is, \u2018When does this level out?\u2019» 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?\u201dA ‘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 \u201cfocused\u201d and \u201cintroverted,\u201d but less \u201cextremely type A\u201d than other 996ers, many of whom she says are business school graduates and former consultants with a «work hard, play hard» mentality.
\u201cThey\u2019ll go out every night, to a concert and then the club, and then they\u2019re back at work,\u201d she says. \u201cI\u2019m like, \u2018How do you do that?\u2019 It\u2019s 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.\u201d
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. \u201cThey were like, \u2018You wouldn\u2019t believe the scale and the slope of these companies right now,\u2019\u201d she says. \u201cSo I was like, \u2018What am I doing here when I could be over there?\u2019\u201dAI Company Recruiters Hold the Power
When Sarah interviewed for her current role, the recruiter did not use the term 996. \u201cI just remember how many times they reiterated that they work hard in the interview process,\u201d 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 \u201c500%,\u201d 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\u2014just shy of the full 72\u2014on 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»\u2014implying that she wasn’t fully committed to the company’s mission\u2014so she backed down.
Even Intel CTO Sachin Katti relinquished his C-suite status last fall for a more minor position at OpenAI in \u201ccompute 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.
What in the bubble is going on here? To gain a sense of how the 996 trend might unfold in the US, we must start with its origins\u20147,000 miles away from San Francisco.Illegal in China, But Not Enforced
\u201cThe term [996] emerged in the 2010s, after China\u2019s tech industry really took off\u2014exploded, in fact», says Lijia Zhang, a former Chinese factory worker. «It became part of the so-called \u2018struggle culture\u2019 or \u2018wolf spirit\u2019 common in China\u2019s private sector.» 996 is also practiced in Taiwan at TSMC, the world\u2019s leading chip manufacturer, author Stephen Witt writes in The Thinking Machine.
Zhang performed repetitive tasks, such as greasing machine parts and testing tire pressure, from the ages of 16 to 26. It bored her \u201cto death,\u201d she says, so in her spare time, she learned English, and in 1990, quit her job to move to England. She’s been speaking out about China’s social and economic changes ever since, including in her book, «Socialism Is Great!»: A Worker’s Memoir of the New China and a 2021 op-ed on the «overwork culture» of 996.
A white-collar backlash against 996 quickly mounted in China, and in 2019, a group of programmers started a support group on GitHub called 996.ICU, a reference to the possibility that working such hours could put someone in the intensive care unit (ICU). At the same time, their CEOs were «openly promoting» 996, and even bragging about it, Zhang says. Jack Ma, founder of Alibaba, called 996 «a huge blessing.» Richard Liu of JD.com said, «Slackers are not my brothers!»
But by 2021, a string of deaths linked to the schedule forced China\u2019s high court to act, and it ruled 996 illegal, NPR reports. The fiercest public outcry centered on a 22-year-old woman who worked 996 at the e-commerce giant Pinduoduo. During the winter, she collapsed on the street while walking home from the office, and later died in the hospital.
\u201c996 has caused physical and mental suffering to millions of young people across China and has put enormous stress on society as a whole.»
However, many private tech companies in China still require 996 schedules due to \u201cpoor enforcement of labor laws,\u201d Zhang says. \u201cIt has caused physical and mental suffering to millions of young people across China and has put enormous stress on society as a whole. I had expected that America, as a democracy of sorts, would do better.\u201d
Baidu, one of China’s most well-known tech companies, still asks its employees to work 996 during intense periods and for high-profile projects. \u201cEveryone hates it,\u201d a marketing manager at the company tells me. The upside is that employees receive extra pay for every hour worked, which is not the case for the US-based tech workers we spoke to.
Silicon Valley has adopted a work-harder attitude amid increasing competition, both domestically and internationally\u2014especially with China. Former President Biden and President Trump have both flagged AI investments as key to helping the US win the latest cyber war. People like Sarah and Haley are the soldiers on the front lines.The Pro-996 Stance
«Let me know if you find someone who actually likes working 996», Sarah challenges us. We did. Meet Justin Lee, a 21-year-old founder from Australia, who sets his own hours, and tells us he is proud to work beyond 996. Lee dropped out of college when his pitch was accepted by Y Combinator, which offers $500,000 to seed new startups. During the three-month-long program in San Francisco, he was working up to 18 hours a day, a feat he documented in a time-lapse video he posted to LinkedIn.
Lee admits that 996 is \u201cone of those terms that you can’t really say without your skin crawling a bit,\u201d but ultimately he finds it to be a positive: \u201cIf you find yourself working that much, it means you\u2019ve found something you genuinely care about.\u201d He thinks being able to work this hard is a \u201cprivilege,\u201d with big payout potential, and that it\u2019s not just happening in San Francisco.
He first heard of 996 in relation to Airwallex, one of Australia\u2019s biggest tech companies. Across the globe, UK-based venture capitalist Harry Stebbings has gained a following by arguing that European tech founders need to adopt the 996 work model to compete globally in the AI sector. Clearly, the rest of the world hasn’t yet caught on to what the Chinese (and researchers) already know.How Overwork Affects Our Brains
Overworking degrades your cognitive and emotional health and biologically alters your brain, according to a May 2025 study by Korean researchers. The team analyzed brain activity in individuals working more than 52 hours a week and found \u201csignificant changes in brain regions associated with executive function and emotional regulation.\u201d
For more context, we reached out to stress expert Daniela Kaufer, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, and the director of the Berkeley Neuro-AI Center for the Study of Resilience.
\u201cThere is a big difference between acute, energizing stress and chronic, unrelenting stress,\u201d she says. \u201cA 996 schedule falls squarely into the chronic category.\u201d Working so much does not leave room for adequate brain recovery, and keeps the mind’s stress-response systems activated \u201cfar longer than they\u2019re designed for,\u201d she says.
Over time, this can impair decision-making and memory, weaken metabolic function, cause inflammation, increase the risk of cardiovascular issues, and slow recovery from illness and injury. It can also make you grumpy (or, as Kaufer puts it, increase the risk of \u201cmood disorders\u201d), less effective at work, and more likely to burn out.
\u201cThis isn\u2019t hypothetical\u2014these changes are visible in both human and animal studies of chronic stress,\u201d Kaufer says. She wishes tech companies understood that \u201cstress is not a badge of honor, and it\u2019s not fuel.\u201dThe Naysayers: 996 Is Performative, Even Discriminatory
Some tech industry veterans have observed this firsthand. Andrios Robert, founder of AI database company hoop.dev and a current San Francisco resident, worked a 996 schedule during the pandemic, when he was founding his first company. He\u2019ll never go back after realizing that way of working is unproductive and caused him to drift away from friends and family.
\u201cI would work for 12 hours, but after eight, your brain just stops working,\u201d he says. \u201cI would waste four hours in front of the computer being stuck, just to get some sleep and then wake up and solve the problem in 10 minutes. That would happen to me all the time.\u201d
Such ineffectiveness is one reason many people think 996 is mostly performative. The debate surrounding it is \u201cjust the latest Silicon Valley culture war», and working that much is «a complete waste of time», as one founder puts it on Medium. Sarah thinks it\u2019s partially a «flex» for companies.
Others go further, calling it discriminatory, given that the inflexible hours are nearly impossible for most parents and caretakers to accommodate.
\u201c I think 996 is just a legal way to engage in employment discrimination, because if you say really loudly that people have to be in-office 996, you’re basically saying that parents can’t work at your company,\u201d says Steve Hind, a San Francisco-based co-founder of AI startup Lorikeet. \u201cYou’re probably also disproportionately discouraging women from joining, because they tend to end up carrying a greater load at home.\u201d
Sarah estimates three of her company\u2019s 200 employees are parents. Haley, who has two small children, had to seriously consider the demanding schedule before accepting the job. She’s giving herself some time to see how it goes, and if she can’t swing it, she’ll quit.Brutal, In-Office Culture\u2014Even on Sunday Morning
Sarah doesn\u2019t have kids, but her schedule is still grinding her down. \u201cI just can\u2019t do Sundays right now,\u201d she says. That\u2019s her company\u2019s preferred sixth day, with butts-in-seats at 9 a.m., although others choose Saturday. At the same time, she feels pressure to be there because of a \u201cculture that if you don’t go into the office on Sundays, you’re not fully bought in.\u201d
She has crafted her own schedule to stay afloat. Monday through Friday, she works more than the expected 12 hours a day. She uses this to justify doing just five hours on Sunday instead of a full 12. Notably, she still considers this not working a full Sunday\u2014at least not to the same extent as her coworkers.
Her job consists of constant meetings and delivering projects as fast as possible, while enduring constant, blunt feedback on her performance. \u201cThis is Thick Skin University for me,\u201d she says. \u201cI\u2019m like, \u2018I’m doing bad at this and this and this and this and this.\u2019\u201d But she takes it as proof she\u2019s learning, and a sign that she\u2019s \u201cmaking huge strides\u201d in her career.
Sarah claims to be happy where she is now and is actively hiring more \u201chigh-caliber\u201d candidates for her team, all of whom will be expected to work 996. But how much longer can she work herself this hard, I wonder? \u201cI ask myself that every single day of my life», she says with a sigh.<\/p>\n