Why China’s 996 Work Culture Won’t Win The Future Of Work

Initially published on Forbes August 08, 2025

Some U.S. tech companies are now hiring for “996,” a schedule imported from China’s startup scene that means working 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., six days a week. The idea is to compete harder, move faster, and win the AI race. That’s an odd pairing. AI represents the future, while a 996 work culture — like return-to-office mandates — belongs firmly in the past. It’s a symptom of a deeper misunderstanding about what the future of work is really about.

More Hours Don’t Equal More Innovation

Let’s be clear: there’s nothing inherently wrong with working long hours. Some of the most passionate, high-performing people work more than 60 hours a week. But they don’t do it because someone told them when to show up. Not for 9-to-5, not for four-day workweeks, and certainly not for 996.

You can’t manufacture commitment through structure. Today’s best workers don’t thrive on hours. They thrive on alignment. They’ll give you their time — even a lot of it — when their work helps them accomplish what matters to them: purpose, learning, growth, or financial security. That’s not idealism. That’s strategy. Your best people, the ones you most want to keep, are the ones who have options. And those people measure work in value, not hours.

Stop Measuring Time. Start Measuring Trust.

996 doesn’t allow for that. Neither does return-to-office. Even well-meaning models like four-day work weeks still focus on presence over impact. These are systems built for factories, not for knowledge workers solving complex problems in an ever-accelerating future.

When leaders fixate on hours, they signal the wrong priorities. They manage for control rather than commitment. They assume performance can be engineered through pressure. But the math doesn’t hold up when people burn out, disengage, or simply walk away. Gen Z and millennials are already demanding work that’s humane, flexible, and values-aligned. They’ve watched their parents sacrifice everything for companies that gave nothing back. They won’t repeat the pattern.

If your message to them is that working for you means trading away autonomy, agency, or health — essentially giving up control over their lives — they won’t just quit. They won’t apply.

What Actually Drives Performance

In a recent episode of The Future of Less Work, I spoke with Tamara Myles and Wes Adams, authors of Meaningful Work and researchers at the University of Pennsylvania. Their research, based on thousands of workers across 25 industries, found that nearly half of our experience of meaning at work comes down to what leaders do.

As Myles put it, “If you think about meaningful work less as what you do and more as how you experience what you do, leaders have a huge role in shaping that experience.” Building on that, Adams emphasized that meaning isn’t reserved for a select few in purpose-driven careers. “Your job doesn’t have to be your life’s calling for your work to feel worthwhile,” he said. “Meaning actually comes from these discrete moments of community, contribution, and challenge that can happen in any job, any day, if you know where to look.”

These three elements form the foundation of meaningful work:

• Community is about belonging, authenticity, and being seen. It can be as simple as asking someone about their weekend — and remembering to follow up.
• Contribution is about recognizing the impact of your work, whether that recognition comes from a customer, a colleague, or a team leader.
• Challenge means having the opportunity to grow in an environment where high expectations are matched with high support.

These are levers every manager can pull. They don’t require a budget or a policy change. But they do determine whether people bring their full selves to work — or quietly check out. As Adams noted, citing Gallup and Workhuman research, “One thank-you once a week is enough to cut disengagement and burnout in half.” That’s the lever. Not longer hours.

You Can’t Fit the Future Into an Old-Timecard

So what does 996 really say? That work is defined by presence. That commitment is demonstrated by time. That performance is forced, not chosen. And that’s the biggest mistake of all.

If you’re enforcing hours to drive output, you’re measuring the wrong thing. And you’re sending the wrong message — especially to Gen Z and millennial workers who already lived through a pandemic that taught them time is finite. Every workday is a day they won’t get back. If that day isn’t meaningful, they won’t stay.

The old social contract assumed life began where work ended. The new one recognizes that people want integration, not balance. They want control. They want their work to reflect their values, not consume them.

Here’s the irony. While some companies are doubling down on control in the name of the AI race, AI is removing routine tasks allowing people to focus on creativity, resilience, and innovation — the very things automation can’t replicate. But only if leaders design for that — and a 996 work culture doesn’t. You don’t win the future by working like it’s 1996. You win by building organizations that understand the world has changed. And that the people building the future want more than a paycheck or a performance review. They want a reason.

Your best people work not because they have to, not because you tell them to, and not because you measure them on it, but because they want to — because working for you is their way of achieving their purpose in life.