By Emily Forlini
Publication Date: 2026-02-01 14:48:00
Sarah, a 28-year-old employee at one of San Francisco’s hottest startups, is completely burned out. She works a 996-hour schedule — 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., six days a week — a phenomenon that swept Silicon Valley last year amid the AI boom.
Sarah, who asked that we refer to her by a pseudonym to avoid backlash from her employer, is trapped in a work cycle from breakfast to bedtime. Meanwhile, her personal to-do list spirals out of control as her wife takes on almost all of the household chores. Her friends, many of whom have similar work schedules, often postpone dinner in the group chat “literally 14 times because one of us is always thinking of something,” she says. “We basically never hang out.”
The practice of 996 originated over a decade ago in China, where it has since been declared illegal (though it still quietly persists). In Silicon Valley, engineers like Sarah and others we spoke with are working longer hours and taking on more shifts…
