The "hustle" culture of Silicon Valley, known for its demanding schedules and expectation of total dedication, is experiencing a clear surge.
Ethnic Studies Professor Carolyn Chen, a sociologist of religion, has been studying why this is happening now, pointing to factors ranging from the AI boom to the broader decline of religious affiliation in the U.S. In her book "Work Pray Code: When Work Becomes Religion in Silicon Valley," she explores how tech workers increasingly turn to their jobs for meaning, purpose and community.
Chen spoke with Berkeley Social Sciences about what makes Silicon Valley's "grind" different; how AI is intensifying it; and whether the "work-as-religion" mindset is actually changing or just evolving with the times. This interview has been edited for clarity.
How would you define the Silicon Valley "hustle" or "grind" culture, and what factors — including AI — have you seen driving its current resurgence?
Carolyn Chen: The Silicon Valley work culture is no different from other industry hustle cultures where workers are expected to prioritize their work over everything else, spend 50+ hours a week on work and work anytime and anywhere. What makes Silicon Valley distinct from other hustle cultures, however, is their magnified sense of purpose and significance in their own work. Silicon Valley thinks it is changing the world, and that its products are revolutionary and transformative.
The other difference is the potential payoff of enormous wealth attached to technological innovations such as AI. These two factors make participating in Silicon Valley's hustle culture different. This is a particular moment in tech, when tech companies are jostling for dominance in the AI market. Companies are asking more from their workers than usual, especially those working in AI. Tech workers in AI are expected to work startup hours, or "996" — 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., six days a week. And they are willing to do this because they feel like they are working on cutting-edge AI technology that is going to change the world, and also because of the potential financial payoff.
Tell us more about your book, "Work Pray Code: When Work Becomes Religion in Silicon Valley."
Carolyn Chen: "Work Pray Code" is a book about Silicon Valley work culture that is based on over 100 interviews with tech workers and over five years of ethnographic research conducted before the pandemic. The important thing to know is that I'm not a scholar of technology or business, but a sociologist of religion. And I stumbled my way into studying Silicon Valley to answer a question about the precipitous decline in American religious affiliation: what's taking religion's place now? In my book, I argue that work has replaced religion in Silicon Valley, a trend that we see among American professionals in general, but most acutely in Silicon Valley.
Tech professionals look to work to fulfill the need for meaning, belonging, purpose and transcendence — needs that Americans once looked to their religion to meet. And in the last 50 years, corporations have reconfigured work among their high-skilled employees, making work more demanding of time and energy from professionals, but also more rewarding and fulfilling by giving them more pay and autonomy and investing in their professional and personal development. They've curated company cultures that borrow from the language and practices of non-economic institutions like family and religion, where love and devotion have no bounds. So think about Steve Jobs's famous phrase, "do what you love," equating work not with labor in exchange for wages, but with a passion. Or consider how most companies translate what they do into a noble-sounding mission statement.
At the same time, we've witnessed a decline in religious affiliation and participation in the last 40 years. This is not an isolated trend, but part of a larger trend in the decline in civic participation — Americans withdrawing not only from religious communities, but things like neighborhood associations, sports leagues, political clubs and so on. Among these, religious organizations have always been the most popular.
As a result of the expansion of work and the decline of religion, many American professionals are looking to the institution of work to give them identity, belonging, meaning and fulfilment — social and spiritual benefits that Americans used to get from organizations outside of the company. And that's a big reason why professionals are so devoted to work today. It's evident in our language. We aren't joining churches and temples anymore, but we say we are "joining" companies. Because of this, I call companies the faith communities of the new economy.
In what ways does your book inform or explain the current resurgence of the Silicon Valley "grind"?
Carolyn Chen: I'm glad that you use the word "resurgence" because I don't think that today's Silicon Valley grind culture is new. The things that I'm hearing about the grind culture today are pretty much the same things the tech workers told me about startup work culture earlier — working 12-hour days and living a life confined to work and work colleagues. And that kind of total devotion is possible, and even energizing, because it's infused with a religious sense of purpose, mission and belonging that tech work provides. In my book, I compare the hippies who came to California during the 1960s and 70s counterculture to the young tech workers migrating to Silicon Valley today. I see Silicon Valley as an extension of the same impulse for meaning and belonging that countercultural hippies had, only today the communes have taken the form of startups.
In your opinion, is the "work-as-religion" mindset in Silicon Valley starting to change, or is this hustle culture simply adapting to new forms?
Carolyn Chen: This is a great question, because I thought that my book might become instantly outdated once the pandemic hit. In this short time frame of the last 10 years, we've seen different trends in work culture in Silicon Valley. Back during the pandemic, everyone was talking about "quiet quitting." As a result, there has been a greater emphasis everywhere, including Silicon Valley, on work-life balance. I also think that as tech companies opted for hybrid and remote arrangements, work became more "remote" and tech workers are less dependent on work for belonging and purpose.
But I think that Silicon Valley is undergoing a big cultural shift right now, where workers can no longer afford to "quietly quit." Tech workers are working harder than before, but for different reasons. The first is the austere, tightening-the-belt orientation of tech companies following the mass layoffs in 2023. Companies are pushing their workers to get by on less, regardless of if they are working on AI or not. The second group of tech workers are embracing the hustle culture because of the promise of AI. For these workers, the work-as-religion mindset is alive and thriving.
