AI Gold Rush is Resurrecting China's Infamous 72-hour Work Week - in US
5 92The AI boom has revived a workplace philosophy that China's own regulators cracked down on years ago: the 72-hour work week, known as 996 for its 9am-to-9pm, six-days-a-week cadence. US startups flush with venture capital are now openly advertising it as a feature, not a bug. Rilla, a New York-based AI company that monitors sales reps in the field, warns applicants on its careers page to expect roughly 70-hour weeks. Browser-Use, a seven-person startup building tools for AI-to-browser interaction, operates out of a shared "hacker house" where the line between living and working barely exists.
In a market where dozens of startups are racing to ship similar AI products, founders believe longer hours buy them a competitive edge. But the research disagrees. A WHO and ILO analysis tied 55-plus-hour weeks to 745,000 deaths from stroke and heart disease globally in 2016 alone. Michigan State University found that an employee working 70 hours produces nearly the same output as one working 50.
5 comments
Re:a 7-man AI startup works long hours (Score: 5, Insightful)
by grahamsz ( 150076 ) on Monday February 09, 2026 @11:09AM (#65977732)
> Now would I want to do this for salary and long term, no....but often that old saying "make hay while the sun is shining " is apt advice!!
Yeah I'd have jumped at that when i was younger. If there was a chance to pull in several times my then-salary (+stock options i presume) by working double the hours then I'd totally do it. Honestly at 45 I'd probably still do it for a year for triple my current salary - that'd be enough to pay off my mortgage.
I have my doubts about the efficiency of it all - in the rare instances where I've put in a 70 hour week I notice the precipitous drop in my productivity much about 50, but as the employee that wouldn't be my problem.
Nonsense (Score: 5, Insightful)
by Errol backfiring ( 1280012 ) on Monday February 09, 2026 @10:29AM (#65977634)
founders believe longer hours buy them a competitive edge.
This is such nonsense. Overtime works for incidental cases, not structurally. If you work one or two days overtime, it might help with completing a job that could otherwise not be done. After that, the productivity falls back to normal due to fatigue creeping in. After a week, a 70 our week is as productive as a 40 hour one, at best.
There is also a big difference between the workday (Score: 5, Interesting)
by Hasaf ( 3744357 ) on Monday February 09, 2026 @10:30AM (#65977638)
Something I always had trouble adapting to, when I lived in China, was the long lunch. It is normal for the Chinese to take a three-hour lunch. This allows time to eat and socialise and, quite importantly, to take a long nap.
It is viewed as improper, even for a workplace supervisor, to interfere with the nap time.
Sweatshop (Score: 5, Insightful)
by bradley13 ( 1118935 ) on Monday February 09, 2026 @10:45AM (#65977676)
I've worked, at least tangentially, with IT folk from various cultures. The 996 is for sweatshop work. I remember one place where people sat at their desks entering code, or whatever. Walking around behind them was the boss, who would go from person to person, telling them *exactly* what to do. All the way down to telling one person to put a CD back into its case. The people were barely even code monkeys - more like typists. Probably you can do that 996 without losing productivity. No idea how the boss functioned. Maybe he swapped out with someone else?
When I was studying for my first master's degree, there was a brief time where I had coursework as well as my thesis. To get everything done, I worked highly structured 80 hour weeks. That was only possible, because it was only for a few weeks - there was an end in sight. That sort of schedule cannot be maintained. Anyone who thinks it can be is spending a lot of time staring into space / talking at the water cooler / something else non-productive.
Great way to... (Score: 5, Informative)
by ambrandt12 ( 6486220 ) on Monday February 09, 2026 @11:34AM (#65977792)
develop severe insomnia.
12-hours home for six days, then 1 full day off... for those six days, that's barely enough to unwind, maybe have a few beers or couple drinks, shower, eat dinner (or cook it if you live alone), and get to bed for a decent night's sleep... and that full-day off is gonna throw off your whole schedule.
Insomnia sucks... I developed it while working third shift at Electrolux (I was foam head operator)... 11PM Sunday to 7AM Monday, five days a week, Saturday was the only day fully off (when it wasn't mandatory OT) which became grocery day, and Sunday would be laundry day... the whiplash from having Saturday off to flipping back to regular schedule resulted in me developing primary insomnia (working there ended in 2012, I still have it to this day... up to 80mg Trazodone nightly).
How the hell are you supposed to have a family life (or any life at all) working like that? Or, is it just 'sign your life over to the company, and only exist for the company' until they wheel your corpse out?