TJ Walker (YouTube video) discusses the spread of China’s "996" work culture (defined here as working 9am–9pm, six days a week) into Silicon Valley. He cites reporting (New York Times) and examples — job postings asking about willingness to work ~70-hour weeks, weekend corporate card use at Ramp, and executives/engineers posting on X/LinkedIn — and notes that China’s high court effectively outlawed 996 in 2021. Walker contrasts extreme work-as-grind claims (e.g., Elon Musk, Bill Gates) with research on creativity and effectiveness (citing Cal Newport’s idea that humans have ~4–5 peak creative hours per day) and historical figures (Charles Darwin, Woody Allen) who worked fewer focused hours. He warns that 996 often functions as performative, macho signaling, risks burnout, reduces creativity, and can be an excuse to avoid life responsibilities; he urges people to make long hours count toward demonstrable value (customers/products) rather than glorifying grind.
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Silicon Valley adopts China's 996 hustle culture. According to the New York Times, Silicon Valley's latest obsession isn't just artificial intelligence. It's a punishing work schedule. Imported from China, the 996 culture means working 9am to 9pm six days a week. Wow. Originally popularized in China's tech scene, it was out leveled there. That's right. They actually outlawed it in 2021 by a high court ruling. But in California, tech workers and executives are now embracing it, posting on X and LinkedIn about their long hours. Evidence is emerging in job postings and hiring interviews where companies ask candidates if they're willing to work 70 hour weeks. Ramp, a financial startup even tracked more weekend corporate card use In San Francisco this year. Assigned people are working on Saturdays. Historians note that Silicon Valley has always had a workaholic undercurrent beneath its casual image. But today's AI fueled boom and post layoff in securities are back, pushing hustle culture to the forefront. As one expert put it, the industry's priorities have shifted and hard tech now demands long, hard hours. Okay, what's the real message here of this so called 996 hustle culture? It's really about look at me, look at how tough I am, look how macho I am, look how strong I am. And for most people, most of the time does nothing but make them grumpy, crabby and uncreative. Be very careful. Let's go a little deeper here. I want to be careful here and not make blanket statements. Certainly it's been well documented that someone like a Bill Gates, he didn't work 70 hours a week when he started. He worked 23 hours a day. He famously says he took, I think it was five vacation days, including weekends, Christmas, Thanksgiving. Like his first 10 years of starting his business, he and his colleagues would work all night long, he would fall asleep and his face was on the keyboard and then he would wake up, continue coding. And you know what? It worked for Bill Gates. Here's the problem. You're not Bill Gates, I'm not Bill Gates. What works for one person, one extreme outlier, doesn't necessarily work for other people. Now there's been a tremendous amount of research done on effectiveness, creativity. My favorite expert on this field is Cal Newport. I would advise that you read any one of Cal Newport's books because what he shows is that human beings have a peak maximum amount of creativity in terms of hours where they can really focus. And it turns out it's about four to five hours a day. And Some of the most wildly effective, successful people in the history of the world had tremendous focus, like Charles Darwin. And they only worked for four or five hours a day. Charles Darwin had a very well known sort of relaxed atmosphere. Working in the morning, long walks, family time, exercise time, afternoon of answering correspondence, and then, you know, three o', clock, time to relax again. Look, am I saying you shouldn't work hard, especially early in your career? No, but it has to be about, about something. Bill Gates was creating the infrastructure that runs the entire world. Okay? You may love him, you may hate him, but you cannot discount the fact that he was creating something where historically all the pieces were aligning to make it so that the world could embrace computers and connect to other computers. And he was in a field where when he worked his butt off, it really created something of extreme value that could be replicated, that was scalable and could be used by people all over the world. And that's why it made him at one point the richest man in the world. He probably would be today if he weren't giving away all of his wealth trying to improve public health around the world. So it worked for Bill Gates. It doesn't work for many. I see countless entrepreneurs bragging about their long hours. Meanwhile, what do you have to show for it? What do you get? How many customers do you have? How many new products do you have that people are excited about? And they're talking about, you know, I'm old enough to remember people were excited about computers. That was kind of a new, exciting thing. So what are you excited? What are you getting people excited about with all your long hours? Because otherwise it just becomes an escape. It's a way of saying, I don't have to deal with real life. I don't have to build a social. I don't have to find a man. Certainly if you're in your early 20s, starting out, it can be a way of delaying maturation. It's a way of saying, I don't really have to decorate my apartment. I'm never home. I don't really have to worry about how to have enough nerve to ask someone out on a date because I'm working all the time. It's an excuse. I don't have to worry about cultivating friendships. I'm working all the time. I have an excuse. Okay, but show me what you have. And I don't mean you have to become rich in a week or a year or overnight, but make sure it's working towards something. I remember one culture where I was basically forced to work the whole 996. It was for a member of Congress, and I could tell you she was one of the least productive members of Congress. But it was run like a cult. I'd be there at 9. You work not to 9pm, sometimes 11pm and it wasn't six days a week, it was seven days a week. And because you worked all the time, there was never a sense of, well, let me really finish this project so we can get out of here. It's like, let me kind of trudge along here. Your, your body, your brain goes into slow motion if you're working all the time. Again, there are so there are these rare, rare statistical anomalies. Like a Bill Gates who apparently could get by fine working four, five hours a night sleep and still be highly creative in how he figured out how, how to program computers and to create computer software. Again, you're not Bill Gates. I'm not Bill Gates for most people. And again, I'm looking at the research from people like Cal Newport and others. Our brains simply shut off. We've got a period, a time period, maybe four or five hours a day where we can be truly productive. And yeah, I understand everyone's got some email, some busy work, a meeting you have to go to. And there are other exceptions. If you aspire to be a partner at a senior law firm and you say, hey, I'm going to be more productive if I only work four hours a day, they're going to laugh at you as they are escorting you out the door and firing. That's just not how that business model works. But for most other business, your clients don't care how many hours you put in. All they care about is what did you do to value me? What did you do to give me value? What did you do to help my life, my business, Help me make money, help me be happier, help me be entertained. That's the only thing customers care about. So when you look at the most productive people in the world, it's certainly fine to say, well, Bill Gates was highly productive. I want to be like him. But I would urge you look at other people in our culture who are what, Study Charles Darwin? You want a more recent example? Look at someone like Woody Allen, the guy's mate. Or over 50 movies. He's had one of the most illustrious Hollywood careers, entertainment careers of anyone. He still has time for his hobbies. He has time to play the clarinet every Monday night in his jazz band. He has time to go to most nick games. He has time for all sorts of family commitments. So this idea that it's about grind, grind, grind, grind, grind is quite often as a prescription for burnout. It's quite often a way to shut your brain down and make you less creative. If you're less creative in the modern culture, you are less productive. So you can try it, but be very, very careful. It could be a trap. I don't have hard data on this, but I certainly perceive that for every person I encounter who talks about their, you know, working all the time and they're996, 99% of them are not really very successful in the long run. And in the short run, their lives are miserable because they have no life life. Let's check in with Janice from Unconventional Advice checks in. She says Kindle, Paperwhite, turning off the communication devices before slip before sleep. Thanks for the tips. So Janice, so much, thanks for joining us today. Would love your perspective on this growing culture of people in Hollywood saying or not Hollywood in Silicon Valley. It's easy to get those two confused now with, with people in both sides having agents. These people talking about this 996 culture. Part of this is being fueled by Elon Musk who famously works, he claims, you know, 20 hours a day, seven days a week and he has had some successes, there's no doubt about it. But he also seems like he's out of control and that he also seems like a lot of his hard work is fueled by drug use. Don't take my word for it. Look at investigative journalism from the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times on that one.
