Is 996 quietly becoming the norm at AI Startups?
The AI gold rush feels like it rewards teams who ship fast. Many teams are working on a 9-9-6 (9am-9pm, 6 days a week) schedule to keep up with the state of the art breakthroughs and features. Does this give teams an edge against their competition or is this slowly burning teams out.
If you're building in the AI space, I would love to hear what your take is:
What works for your team and do you follow the 996 schedule?
Did following a 996 culture create more bugs or actually lead to breakthroughs and push you ahead of your competition?
How would you balance your life outside of work if you followed this schedule?
Making this post to raise awareness and ideally find a middle ground for teams that are currently growing and trying to keep up with the competition đ„
Replies
I don't believe we should make a case for counting the hours worked. You can work a lot of hours and accomplish nothing, or you can work a couple of hours and nail all your goals. In my case, I find it more productive to set weekly goals and adapt my work hours around that.