Amen! Having kids is already like having two additional jobs. One to keep them alive two to figure out which app to open so you know how late you’re going to be dropping them off at practice.
thank you for calling this out, too many founders glorify the grind and this 996 bullshit mentality. we do not need to overwork ourselves and miss out on life in order to succeed. appreciate this article!
I just walked from a really cool VP of Sales opportunity at a company I truly admire. The 5 days a week in office and 996 expectations is unhealthy and not sustainable. As a global enterprise leader, it becomes very difficult to recruit top talent in this model.
AI is the latest technology renaissance. I’ve lived through several. AI enables us to be more efficient and effective with our time. Time we can spend with our customers, with our friends, and family. That’s the point. Work smarter, not harder and longer.
So well stated. Especially love this and its customer focus:
"If you’re a parent who’s excited about AI but worried about the culture, I wouldn’t write off the industry. We need more experienced people with different perspectives and responsibilities building these products, not fewer. But I’d be very deliberate about choosing where you work, understanding what you’re signing up for, and being upfront about your non-negotiables."
I'm not a parent yet, but I am better at my job when I have a full and happy life outside of work. When I spend too much time at work, I am.. not great lol. Balance is key!
(also, there are a lot of execs in non-tech industries who have significant projects outside of their day jobs. You can bring things from those commitments into your main role!)
Loved the article! Burn out has always been an issue in the tech industry and the 996 definitely accelerates that issue. Plus, it feels like we're experiencing a FOMO issue as well that compels us to keep staying up-to-date, which is not necessary.
I don't disagree that i am privileged given where I am in my career - i say so in the article. But I also want to lead by example, so hopefully it propagates all the way :)
Elena, I agree with your refusal to make sacrificing the rest of one’s life a condition of participating in AI. I also appreciate that you explicitly acknowledge your privileged position and insist that junior employees should have the same freedom. That acknowledgment matters. My concern is whether the changes you advocate can become durable and widely available under the economic conditions driving this industry.
From a Critical Theory perspective, the fundamental issue is who controls the purposes of technological progress. AI’s capacity to save labor does not automatically give workers the power to claim the time it saves. Productivity gains can become shorter working hours, higher wages, greater profits, reduced headcount, or simply higher expectations. Technology makes these outcomes possible; ownership, bargaining power, and institutions help determine which ones prevail.
This is also why I would push beyond the business case against 996. Excessive hours can damage workers and still benefit a particular employer, especially when the company captures the immediate gains while workers and their families absorb much of the eventual cost. You identify that transfer clearly. Its implication is uncomfortable: humane working conditions need protection even when respecting them is commercially inconvenient. Otherwise, their legitimacy remains conditional on management believing they improve performance.
The wider employment situation makes this harder. Weak hiring and uncertainty about AI’s effects on future employment can influence workers’ behavior before large-scale displacement actually occurs. Someone who fears that their profession is losing value may understand perfectly well that their working conditions are unreasonable and still conclude that accepting them is the least damaging option.
Meanwhile, the concentration of investment in AI can make employment inside the industry appear to offer protection from the disruption it is expected to produce elsewhere. An AI job may seem to provide income, relevant skills, and continued access to the organizations shaping future opportunities. Under those assumptions, protecting one’s position becomes a way of protecting one’s future employability. Excessive hours become a price some workers feel compelled to pay to remain economically relevant.
That does not mean AI jobs are objectively safe, or that every AI worker lacks leverage. Scarce specialists can command extraordinary bargaining power. But their position cannot serve as the model for everyone else. Class consciousness matters precisely here: it means recognizing how ownership, control, financial security, and dependence on continued employment distribute the consequences of saying no.
Financial expectations add another pressure. The extraordinary scale of AI investment and valuations reflects expectations of future returns; it does not establish that those returns have already been secured. Rapid revenue growth and uncertainty about sustainable profitability can coexist. When management must justify valuations premised on exceptional growth, those expectations can reach employees as compressed deadlines, expanding workloads, and permanent urgency.
The same anticipated future can therefore have very different meanings across the employment relationship. Where investors expect profits from substituting technology for labor, workers may see a threat to their future income. The prospect that supports an asset’s valuation can also weaken an employee’s confidence in their alternatives.
Competition reinforces these pressures. Lower barriers to building some AI applications increase the fear of rapid imitation, while frontier development involves enormous financial commitments. In the US, competition with China adds the language of national necessity. But geopolitical rivalry does not establish that sacrificing employees’ lives is necessary or justified. Chinese workers have themselves resisted 996; workers across borders can share interests that the rhetoric of national competition obscures.
Game theory helps explain why recognizing these problems may still fail to change behavior. An employee can reasonably fear losing ground if colleagues remain constantly available. A company can fear losing ground if competitors accelerate. Individually defensible responses can sustain a collectively destructive arrangement. Asking people to choose differently leaves the consequences of unilateral refusal intact.
This is where an accelerationist ideology becomes consequential. Speed and expansion acquire moral authority, while limits grounded in human needs appear as obstacles to the future. Even leaders who reject that ideology can remain subject to the competitive and financial pressures it legitimizes.
Your example demonstrates that refusal is possible in some circumstances. Making that freedom available to ordinary workers requires mechanisms that survive a different manager, a disappointing quarter, or a competitor’s breakthrough: collective bargaining, enforceable protections, credible safeguards against retaliation, realistic staffing, and agreements about how productivity gains will be shared.
“I’m not doing 996” is a necessary declaration. The harder political and economic task is ensuring that people can say it without gambling their livelihoods—and that they retain that freedom precisely when respecting it becomes costly.
Thanks for the perspective and standing up to say what the industry needs!
I've been a huge advocate for a "semi-pilled kind of life" -- we can enjoy the AI pill, but remember that we're here to live life, not solely build AI
Amen! Having kids is already like having two additional jobs. One to keep them alive two to figure out which app to open so you know how late you’re going to be dropping them off at practice.
yours are only 2 additional jobs? mine are at least 10 haha
thank you for calling this out, too many founders glorify the grind and this 996 bullshit mentality. we do not need to overwork ourselves and miss out on life in order to succeed. appreciate this article!
I just walked from a really cool VP of Sales opportunity at a company I truly admire. The 5 days a week in office and 996 expectations is unhealthy and not sustainable. As a global enterprise leader, it becomes very difficult to recruit top talent in this model.
AI is the latest technology renaissance. I’ve lived through several. AI enables us to be more efficient and effective with our time. Time we can spend with our customers, with our friends, and family. That’s the point. Work smarter, not harder and longer.
Becoming a father gave me so much perspective, and the biggest one is that being a great Dad is what I want my biggest accomplishment to be.
So well stated. Especially love this and its customer focus:
"If you’re a parent who’s excited about AI but worried about the culture, I wouldn’t write off the industry. We need more experienced people with different perspectives and responsibilities building these products, not fewer. But I’d be very deliberate about choosing where you work, understanding what you’re signing up for, and being upfront about your non-negotiables."
Just when I thought you couldn’t be any cooler!!! (Or actually, I never thought that, but you know what I mean. Hopefully!)
I'll tell it to my 12 year old daughter. She doesn't think i'm cool at all.
😂😂
“And the irony is that this is happening in the very industry that’s supposed to be making all of us oh so very much more productive.”
this is so true. isn’t the point that we can work AND raise kids AND be healthy in this new world?
or simply... to raise that next generation that we are building generational products for???
Great piece!
I'm not a parent yet, but I am better at my job when I have a full and happy life outside of work. When I spend too much time at work, I am.. not great lol. Balance is key!
(also, there are a lot of execs in non-tech industries who have significant projects outside of their day jobs. You can bring things from those commitments into your main role!)
I’ll probably print out this newsletter and turn it into wallpaper to sell for the meeting rooms of a bunch of companies I know.
Loved the article! Burn out has always been an issue in the tech industry and the 996 definitely accelerates that issue. Plus, it feels like we're experiencing a FOMO issue as well that compels us to keep staying up-to-date, which is not necessary.
With all due respect, it's easy to say when you are an expert in your domain and companies literally beg you to be their interim leader for growth.
I don't disagree that i am privileged given where I am in my career - i say so in the article. But I also want to lead by example, so hopefully it propagates all the way :)
Elena, I agree with your refusal to make sacrificing the rest of one’s life a condition of participating in AI. I also appreciate that you explicitly acknowledge your privileged position and insist that junior employees should have the same freedom. That acknowledgment matters. My concern is whether the changes you advocate can become durable and widely available under the economic conditions driving this industry.
From a Critical Theory perspective, the fundamental issue is who controls the purposes of technological progress. AI’s capacity to save labor does not automatically give workers the power to claim the time it saves. Productivity gains can become shorter working hours, higher wages, greater profits, reduced headcount, or simply higher expectations. Technology makes these outcomes possible; ownership, bargaining power, and institutions help determine which ones prevail.
This is also why I would push beyond the business case against 996. Excessive hours can damage workers and still benefit a particular employer, especially when the company captures the immediate gains while workers and their families absorb much of the eventual cost. You identify that transfer clearly. Its implication is uncomfortable: humane working conditions need protection even when respecting them is commercially inconvenient. Otherwise, their legitimacy remains conditional on management believing they improve performance.
The wider employment situation makes this harder. Weak hiring and uncertainty about AI’s effects on future employment can influence workers’ behavior before large-scale displacement actually occurs. Someone who fears that their profession is losing value may understand perfectly well that their working conditions are unreasonable and still conclude that accepting them is the least damaging option.
Meanwhile, the concentration of investment in AI can make employment inside the industry appear to offer protection from the disruption it is expected to produce elsewhere. An AI job may seem to provide income, relevant skills, and continued access to the organizations shaping future opportunities. Under those assumptions, protecting one’s position becomes a way of protecting one’s future employability. Excessive hours become a price some workers feel compelled to pay to remain economically relevant.
That does not mean AI jobs are objectively safe, or that every AI worker lacks leverage. Scarce specialists can command extraordinary bargaining power. But their position cannot serve as the model for everyone else. Class consciousness matters precisely here: it means recognizing how ownership, control, financial security, and dependence on continued employment distribute the consequences of saying no.
Financial expectations add another pressure. The extraordinary scale of AI investment and valuations reflects expectations of future returns; it does not establish that those returns have already been secured. Rapid revenue growth and uncertainty about sustainable profitability can coexist. When management must justify valuations premised on exceptional growth, those expectations can reach employees as compressed deadlines, expanding workloads, and permanent urgency.
The same anticipated future can therefore have very different meanings across the employment relationship. Where investors expect profits from substituting technology for labor, workers may see a threat to their future income. The prospect that supports an asset’s valuation can also weaken an employee’s confidence in their alternatives.
Competition reinforces these pressures. Lower barriers to building some AI applications increase the fear of rapid imitation, while frontier development involves enormous financial commitments. In the US, competition with China adds the language of national necessity. But geopolitical rivalry does not establish that sacrificing employees’ lives is necessary or justified. Chinese workers have themselves resisted 996; workers across borders can share interests that the rhetoric of national competition obscures.
Game theory helps explain why recognizing these problems may still fail to change behavior. An employee can reasonably fear losing ground if colleagues remain constantly available. A company can fear losing ground if competitors accelerate. Individually defensible responses can sustain a collectively destructive arrangement. Asking people to choose differently leaves the consequences of unilateral refusal intact.
This is where an accelerationist ideology becomes consequential. Speed and expansion acquire moral authority, while limits grounded in human needs appear as obstacles to the future. Even leaders who reject that ideology can remain subject to the competitive and financial pressures it legitimizes.
Your example demonstrates that refusal is possible in some circumstances. Making that freedom available to ordinary workers requires mechanisms that survive a different manager, a disappointing quarter, or a competitor’s breakthrough: collective bargaining, enforceable protections, credible safeguards against retaliation, realistic staffing, and agreements about how productivity gains will be shared.
“I’m not doing 996” is a necessary declaration. The harder political and economic task is ensuring that people can say it without gambling their livelihoods—and that they retain that freedom precisely when respecting it becomes costly.
Cow for slaughter - or not be a cow ?