If you think modern work culture means late starts, flexible hours and casual Zoom calls, you’re in for a surprise. Despite advances in AI and a growing global focus on work-life balance reform, more companies are now reverting to old-school routines: longer hours, stricter schedules and relentless output.
Bay Area startups are embracing extreme 996-style work hours
A growing number of U.S. organizations are taking cues from a controversial and trending work schedule called “996.” Originating in China’s tech and manufacturing sectors in the early 2010s, this demanding practice requires employees to work from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., six days a week, totaling 72 hours each week.
As China’s rapid economic growth accelerated through the mid-2010s, the 996 schedule became widespread, emphasizing extreme dedication and long hours as companies pushed to outpace competitors and scale quickly. For millions of workers in China, 996 became the norm.
China’s tech and manufacturing industries employ millions of people and drive some of the world’s largest companies, and to them, 996 style models are a replicable formula for productivity and progress. They argue that closing the innovation gap may demand a similar steadfast intensity.
According to a new Wired report, a growing number of Bay Area startups are already embracing work schedules that echo the foundations of the controversial 996 model. In Silicon Valley, this isn’t necessarily being driven by the same ambition or hustle culture, but rather by a harsh reality: survival. Particularly in artificial intelligence, many startups operate on razor-thin budgets with small teams, forcing employees into relentless cycles of overtime and burnout just to keep projects afloat and investors satisfied.
Although Chinese law sets a 44-hour workweek limit and requires overtime compensation, numerous companies flagrantly ignore these rules in practice, allowing the 996 culture to evolve into even harsher demands without compensation. Many workers now find themselves laboring nearly 72 hours a week with little respite. What was once meaningful work has, for millions in the nation, devolved into a punishing grind that erodes both health and morale.
In the U.S., labor laws such as the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) set clear limits on working hours and mandate overtime pay. Yet, despite these protections, many American workers, especially in tech startups and high-pressure industries, face unspoken pressures to work long hours without proper compensation or safeguards.
A leaked internal memo from March revealed that Google co-founder Sergey Brin encouraged employees working on the company’s AI projects, particularly Gemini and DeepMind, to commit to 60-hour workweeks and return to the office five days a week.
Brin described this schedule as the “sweet spot of productivity,” warning that those working fewer hours risked slowing down the team and hindering growth. His stance echoes similar sentiments regularly echoed by Alibaba co-founder Jack Ma, who once described 72-hour working weeks as a “blessing” for young professionals, a view that has since sparked significant backlash and debate in China and beyond.
Burnout and breakdown: The dangerous toll of pushing yourself to the limit
Extreme work hours don’t just wear people down—they wear them out. Studies have long shown that working more than 55 hours a week may put people at higher risk of heart attacks and strokes. Across the world, thousands of lives are lost each year due, at least in part, to the physical consequences of overwork.
When you’re running on empty, your brain struggles to concentrate and make smart decisions, which can lead to serious and sometimes deadly mistakes at work. Even the World Health Organization now officially recognizes burnout from overworking as a serious health phenomenon linked to anxiety, depression and “increased mental distance from one’s job.”
Think of your brain like a smartphone battery. Without adequate rest, it drains quickly. Burnout depletes your cognitive energy, and elevated cortisol levels make it harder to focus, retain information or manage emotions. In extreme exhaustion, even basic conversation can become mentally taxing.
Despite the clear risks and human costs, some U.S. companies admire how these grueling work schedules have fueled, in some part, China’s rapid economic rise. In Silicon Valley, several high-profile tech CEOs have increasingly praised the merits of raising the bar on workloads. Figures like Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg have been open about the value they place on intense focus and long hours, viewing relentless dedication as a key driver of innovation and growth.
Elon Musk exemplifies a new breed of tech CEO whose work ethic far surpasses even the demanding 996 culture prevalent in parts of the technology sector. Musk has claimed working as many as 120 hours a week, and close high-level members of his team do too, frequently sleeping overnight at Tesla and SpaceX facilities to maintain momentum on ambitious projects. Figures like these often glamorize a life of constant work, but it’s a far cry from what’s healthy or possible for the average person. Musk reportedly sometimes goes days without leaving his factory.
From 996 to beyond: Escalating demands on tech employees
At Tesla and SpaceX, the expectation is clear: Work takes precedence over all else. These companies instill in their employees a sense of mission so profound and urgent that dedicating the majority of one’s life to the job is not only normalized but valorized. The work is framed as groundbreaking and essential, inspiring a collective ethos where sacrifice and extraordinary focus are seen as the price of meaningful innovation.
Some former Tesla employees describe a very different reality to the company’s celebrated image. While many firms may experiment with the so-called 996 schedule, few fully commit to such demanding hours straight away, fearing it could undermine productivity and growth. Yet Tesla has made this intense work culture almost routine. Anonymous reports from staff detail instances of workers sleeping on factory floors after exhausting 12-hour shifts and even fainting due to fatigue.
With so much technical work to complete and so few hands to do it, executives say long hours feel less like a choice and more like a necessity. While critics and health experts warn of burnout and long-term damage, some startup leaders argue that, without extraordinary effort, they risk falling behind in an industry moving at lightning speed.
Photo by Roman Samborskyi/Shutterstock
