996

Having worked at several startups, I’ll say that 996 is a lie. The best startups were ones that worked HARD for 8 to 10 hours, 5 days per week. What I always found at companies “working” 996 (or something close) was that mostly everyone was hanging out in the break room playing foosball or video games (or watching someone else do it). Sure, they were “in the office,” but the productivity of those hours beyond 8 was really low. Everyone would have been better off going home and coming back in fresh tomorrow after a good night’s sleep and having spent some time with friends and family. In fact a startup CEO friend of mine told me that he considered it a win to get 2 to 4 really productive hours per day. He found the rest of his time was typically wasted in meetings that could have been handled via email and in minutia that someone else should have dealt with. If somebody’s telegraphing crazy work hours in a job post, just walk away.

Agreed. I work at a highly successful small company with a reputation for being grindy, and what that looks like in reality is probably 55 hours a week of largely focused productive work: typical core hours are 9-6:45ish, and you work longer a day or two a week and put in the odd evening or weekend hour. It’s hard to imagine working 9-9 every day

If you're doing R&D and you're actually into the problem, you're probably devoting the majority of your waking hours to "working" regardless. This is a different 996 than stitching shoe welts 996. Hanging around and passively considering the problem with others can be good, productive work.

If someone who actually like this kind of thing freely enters into it, well, best of luck to you. I think the shouting "996" thing is just stirring up attention.

Yea, sometimes you need to take a break and walk outside for a bit, noodling on an issue. I get it. That’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about people hanging around the office to be seen at the office.

55 hours is still insane. I could only do it in a highly growing startup as an early engineer, with the expectation I'm out in few years.

That’s not 996 at all. 996 is an explicit number of hours mandated from above, not “shit this problem is cool I can’t stop thinking about it”

Right. That's what I'm saying. The posts cited in the article are from leaders in those hype companies essentially rebranding a term and using it to recruit. One is explicitly inviting employees that are about to be assimilated into Atlassian, and he's betting that some are not thrilled about going into traditional corporate.

Really? Ive yet to encounter a job that expected less than 55hr as general minimum.

That’s the thing about 996; it’s not just a culture of overwork, it’s a culture of lying

I don't really like the comment I'm about to write but get a life and set foot outside that bubble.

It's also cringe how this kind of comments on "how long one works" come from north americans. It's not cool.

Yeah your comment says a lot about what kind of person you are. Not a good one.

I've not had much choice in life as to what kind of work I can get. I was not born with rich parents and could only afford a non prestigious Uni. I absolutely hate that this kind of exploitation is common (in USA).

Its nice that some people like you have a spoiled life and can dump on the less fortunate though.