"There was the one about the founder who hadn't taken a weekend off in more than six months. The woman who joked that she'd given up her social life to work at a prestigious AI company. Or the employees who had started taking their shoes off in the office because, well, if you were going to be there for at least 12 hours a day, six days a week, wouldn't you rather be wearing slippers?"
"His startup's founders live and work in this apartment from 9am until as late as 3am, breaking only to DoorDash meals or to sleep, and leaving the building only to take cigarette breaks. The employee (who asked not to use his name, since he still works for this company) described the situation as horrendous. I'd heard about 996, but these guys don't even do 996, he says. They're working 16-hour days."
Startups in San Francisco, central to the artificial intelligence economy, often expect extreme work hours and intense hustle culture. Founders and early employees routinely skip weekends and sacrifice social lives to chase growth. Some workers report 12-hour-plus days and living in makeshift offices, with teams staying at apartments from morning until as late as 3am, eating DoorDash and taking cigarette breaks. Co-founders sometimes work seven days a week and code entire days, acknowledging a lack of work-life balance. The current AI startup environment repeats patterns from prior startup waves, emphasizing high-octane effort and growth at all costs.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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