Ethnic Studies Professor Carolyn Chen was interviewed for the KQED Forum podcast.
According to San Francisco workers, the hustle culture of the pre-pandemic days has returned in the form of long working days and weekends at the office. So called “996 work”, which originates from China’s tech scene, is a work schedule that starts at 9 a.m. and ends at 9 p.m., six days a week. The hustle isn’t new to Silicon Valley, but the hyper-competitive AI tech race and the fact that some employers are making 996 mandatory for its staff, or using it as a recruitment filter, could lead to uncharted territory. We talk about the origins of 996, the grind culture of Silicon Valley, and whether or not this trend is going to stick.
Guests:
Carolyn Chen, professor of Ethnic Studies at UC Berkeley; co-director, Berkeley Center for the Study of Religion - she is the author of "Work Pray Code: When Work Becomes Religion in Silicon Valley"
Lora Kelley, journalist and writer covering tech and work
Ara Kharazian, economist at Ramp, a tech company focused on financial automation
This partial transcript was computer-generated. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.
Alexis Madrigal: Welcome to Forum. I’m Alexis Madrigal. There was a time when Silicon Valley was known for maniacal work schedules as teams raced to get products out the door — and that time was the 1970s at our local chipmakers. It was also the startup world of the aughts, with their all-night hackathons. Or maybe it’s also right now, as artificial intelligence startups burn cash — and the midnight oil.
All this to say, the tech world has had multiple periods where working around the clock was considered the right way to have a career. There have been other moments, but right now, we’re back in the grind. And we’re going to talk about the newest version of it, which is called “996.”
Joining us to talk about what’s happening, we’ve got Laura Kelly, a journalist and writer covering tech, work, and books. Her article “Would You Work 996? The Hustle Culture Trend Is Taking Hold in Silicon Valley” was published in The New York Times. Welcome, Laura.
Lora Kelley: Thank you so much for having me. It’s great to be here.
Alexis Madrigal: We have Carolyn Chen, professor of ethnic studies at UC Berkeley, co-director of the Berkeley Center for the Study of Religion, and the author of Work Pray Code. Welcome.
Carolyn Chen: Thank you. Happy to be here.
Madrigal: And we have Ara Kharazian, economist at the fintech company Ramp. Welcome.
Ara Kharazian: Thank you, Alexis. Happy to be here.
Madrigal: So Laura, just give us the basics. What is 996 work, and why do you think we’re talking about it right now?
Lora Kelley: Yeah, absolutely. So, 996 basically stands for working 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., six days a week — this sort of idea of hustling around the clock. The term is pretty new to Silicon Valley, but it originated in China’s hard-charging tech scene.
In the 2010s, a lot of Chinese tech firms were trying to compete with Silicon Valley companies, and their leadership encouraged this idea of working around the clock. There was some backlash starting around 2019, and a Chinese high court actually barred employers from compelling workers to do this schedule in 2021. But that hasn’t stopped some in Silicon Valley from fixating on the idea — either actually working these hours or posting a lot to signal that they’re working really hard right now.
Alexis Madrigal: Laura, do you fully believe this is a real thing? Like, is it just a bunch of twenty-somethings talking about how hard they’re working because it’s their first job? Or do you think this is being pushed from the top — that there are companies where literally everyone is working like this?
Lora Kelley: It’s a really good question. I definitely think some of it is posturing and signaling, and I think that’s for two big reasons.
First, tech in general is in a moment of insecurity. It’s been a challenging few years — tons of layoffs, a pullback in perks tech workers had come to enjoy. So I think there’s this mindset of wanting to prove you’re working hard, that you deserve the money you’re getting.
And second, some people see this as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to get in on the AI gold rush — to grab some of that sweet venture capital flowing to AI startups. So some of this is ambitious young people signaling to investors that they’re serious players, or to potential hires that they’re working at a place worth joining. A lot of it is signaling and posturing — showing you’re grinding, that you’re all in.
Alexis Madrigal: Ara, your company works with a lot of tech firms, and you’re one of the few places that might actually have some data to let us peer into this world — to cross-check whether there are, in fact, more San Francisco tech workers working on Saturdays. What have you found?
Ara Kharazian: Yeah, I share your question — is this a real thing? Because that’s one of the questions I get often: What can we see in business-spend data? It’s pretty rare to see significant shifts in how people live their lives. People forget how stable our day-to-day tends to be.
But this idea came from a founder in Silicon Valley who’d noticed the trend himself and knew that Ramp, as a corporate card platform, might be able to see changes in habits through spend data. And sure enough, that’s what we saw.
We saw the share of spend happening on weekends — for example, restaurant delivery and takeout — skyrocket on Saturdays and Sundays. So we’re seeing a shift in when people are spending their money. We’re also seeing the share of employees spending that money increase. Still pretty modest, but we estimate maybe about 40,000 to 60,000 new workers in San Francisco are now working weekends, based on when they’re ordering takeout and delivery on their corporate cards through Ramp.
Alexis Madrigal: That is not nothing. Forty to sixty thousand new people working on the weekend feels like quite a substantial change.
Ara Kharazian: Yeah, I think it is — but it’s also something that’s localized right now to San Francisco. We haven’t seen this in Miami, New York, Seattle, or other tech hubs. People often ask: “Is this going to come to my workplace?” And my answer is: it’s pretty localized right now, staying in Silicon Valley, staying in SF — and not only in tech firms, but in the kinds of fast-growth companies that have adopted tech-company culture.
Alexis Madrigal: We’re talking about the new Silicon Valley — or San Francisco — grind: the 996 workweek. We want to hear from you. Would you work 996? Do you work in tech now? How are you thinking about work-life balance? If you’ve been through a previous boom in this city, how did you work in those days, and what do you think about that time at the office now?
Carolyn Chen, I wanted to come to you about the historical basis of this. Your book “Work Pray Code” is about the way work can take on a kind of religious purpose and meaning for people. What do you make of this latest round of hustle culture?
Carolyn Chen: Yeah, I mean, there are a few things that are new. It’s a new kind of technology, and there seems to be a shift from the pandemic — when people were really questioning whether they should be working so hard and seemed more concerned about work-life balance.
I think there was an easing up then, but that’s changed. And I don’t think it’s just AI. Starting around 2023, with the mass layoffs, there’s been a real shift in tech work culture — much more emphasis on efficiency, belt-tightening. I hear this word a lot: “scrappy.” Doing more with less.
But this idea of working really, really hard — of work being your life — that’s not new to Silicon Valley. It’s always been part of the playbook, especially in startup culture. A 12-hour workday, a 70-plus-hour workweek, the idea that there are no boundaries between work and life.