Jack Ma Again Endorses Extreme Overtime as Furor Rages On

The explanation is that Homo economicus, the economic optimizing agent, is a leaky abstraction on top of a killer ape. In the modern environment, it's easy to forget that our brains did not actually evolve to deal with money, let alone the high-tech infrastructure of a modern corporation. They evolved to dominate other apes on the African savanna.

But evolution does not document its handiwork. Our genes did not give our brains an explanation of game theory and the evolutionary utility function. They gave our brains a propensity to seek power and to feel pleasure when successfully wielding that power to hurt other people. That this behavior was adaptive in the ancestral environment is a historical fact, not represented anywhere in our neurons.

So yes, it's not about productivity, it's not about profit. It is, as Orwell put it, about the end goal of a boot trampling a human face, forever. That is the default fate of humanity unless that fate is actively and continually opposed.

All those people on 996 could fuck around for 5 hours a day doing nothing useful, and as long as a small percentage of them bring themselves to do 30 minutes work every now and then, it could still be a net win for the company.

Profit also doesn't scale proportionally to productivity. In some of these big business markets you probably just need to be a bit more productive than your competition to reap huge rewards. Most employers aren't going to throw their workforce under the bus for a 5% gain, but if that's all you need to corner an entire market or roll your next biggest rival, then suddenly it might look like a fine deal.

Kai-Fu Lee discusses this culture in the Founders Fund podcast Anatomy of Next. He suggests that many of the workers will be the only ones in their family who have high paid office jobs. The rest work in factories, farms and other manual labor. Thus, they see an opportunity to be successful and lift their family out of poverty.

That's actually what Jack Ma asked for in his original WeChat posts. You simply can't ask a passionate employee to work in a fixed schedule, because they prefer working MUCH LONGER than 996.

Most of those companies are not forcing their employees to work 996 on paper. But if you don't, then first, your team leader will give you some hint to ask you to stay longer. If you still don't, you will be fired for any number of reasons (KPI is too low for example).

Because of that, the company actually don't need to force it's employees. It just keep giving them tasks which cannot be finished without work 996, plus some peer pressures (One of it is "Boss's still here, you can't leave").

Jack Ma's "forcing staff to work overtime are ‘foolish’" statement is basically the same thing: You need to fight for your own future. On the surface, it's correct, but underneath it, he's trying to make you believe Personal strive === Overwork.

It worth notice that Jack Ma also said "If you love your job, 12 hours is not very long" (“如果你热爱（工作），其实12个小时不算太长”[0]) just days ago. Hit: If you don't work 12 hours a day, you don't love your job.

Some background: Jack Ma is a lair who also likes to pretend to be a Life Advisor, he will sometime throw out some bullshit to convince others to sacrifice for him. You need to read between lines.

> “Those who can stick to a 996 schedule are those who have found their passion beyond monetary gains,” Ma wrote.

You see what's going on here :)

[0] https://finance.sina.com.cn/china/gncj/2019-04-12/doc-ihvhie...

Edited to fix some grammar problem. Hope that will make it easier to read. Thanks for pointing out :)

Yes, I fixed it again.

Google news and other social media used to do this until they got pressured to "localize" the news and favor "authoritative" sources.

What is shocking is how the same event is covered so differently by different countries and media groups. But the only way you would know this is if you actively search for news which is getting more difficult and which hardly anyone does.

Most people think fake news is reporting false information. But nowadays it’s relatively easy to fact-check something. Much more onerous is selecting facts to report on so as to tell a story that fits an agenda. It’s harder to recognize, and hey—it’s facts! What could go wrong?

Oh wait, no. The other thing. The thing about never trusting anything you read, especially if it was written by someone who has something to gain by manipulating your emotions.

Others reports this:

“No one likes working at a company that forces you to do ‘996’. Not only is it inhumane, it’s unhealthy and even more unsustainable for long periods – plus workers, relatives and the law do not approve of it,” he said. “In the long term, even if you pay a higher salary, employees will all leave.”

https://www.techinasia.com/alibaba-founder-jack-ma-companies...

* https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-10-04/the-big-h...

Humans only work so many hours a day. Outlier humans who can work more won't waste their talent/superpower at an employer where their extra time isn't compensated.

We don't have much time on this planet. Why should he expect others to be droning slaves for him? People should enjoy what little life they have, not spend most of their time as cogs in a machine.

The Longer The Shifts For Hospital Nurses, The Higher The Levels Of Burnout And Patient Dissatisfaction

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3608421

Nurses seek to reduce long hours and fatigue

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2015/02/01/nurse-...

January 31, 2012 — State laws against mandatory overtime hours for nurses are effective, researchers reported in an article published online August 29, 2011, in Nursing Outlook.

"Nurses routinely work long shifts, often as long as 12 hours straight," said Carol Brewer, PhD, RN, FAAN, a professor at the School of Nursing, University at Buffalo, New York, in a news release. "These laws were intended to prevent hospitals from piling mandatory overtime on top of such shifts, a practice that research shows can increase the likelihood of mistakes."

https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/757834

They do work much longer hour as compared to most American companies (like Google, I worked at too), even longer than the average Chinese ones. However, 9-to-9 doesn't mean people work 12 hour straight and nobody forcing anyone to stay at work until 9. Chinese work schedule includes 30 minutes to 1 hour extra napping time at noon, and Alibaba has on-campus canteens and facilities so employees go gym/game after dinner then back to work a little longer before leaving.

When I was working there I usually leave right after dinner so the actual work hour was around 8.5-9 hours a day. And our team never work on weekends (except for around 11.11 the annual shopping craze). However I do work at night and weekends at home, voluntarily.

They do pay well though.

The point is not to offer a "sustainable worklife". The whole point is to chew through fresh graduates as fast as you can. They are fuel for the fire. And China has many, many hungry and young graduates.

It's kinda fair to say this out loud. People know what they are getting into. Some people actually enjoy this and thrive in such a high strain environment. The losers are the people who think they have to do this to "prove themselves" and just suffer and burn out.

Those who survive get promoted, and perpetuate the culture.

The only pathology I see is that if people think this is the only way to run a technology company and start aping the practice - which is a likely outcome.

Worth clarifying that the "slackers" comment came from JD.com's founder Richard Liu, not Jack Ma.

edit: removed comments on whether he endorses it or not since it seems like there are contradicting statements from him. My current impression is that he disagrees with forced overtime but wants his employees to work similar hours voluntarily (although I suspect this is a common sentiment among business execs).

It has one of the biggest tech workforce in China, but they can't make Taobao frontpage work moderately well. It is almost as if they felt "giving up" on that.

Having worked with them on their DC project in 2016, I can attest that the rest of the company is not different.

They are constantly loosing managerial cadres, and almost all Alibabers I knew can attest of the company feeling "ungoverned" and "in state of Brownian motion"

Also as much employee or employers claim that they are developing and maintaining a hugely complex systems. Most of it are age old 3-tier applications. Employers can easily replace most of the grunt workers with another lot. Average employees know this and that's why they put up with these demands. It is not like companies are lining up to hire run of the mill CRUD devs in these countries. I personally know many folks once they are laid off it would take anywhere between 3-12 month to get next job.

So what remains are few exceptional developers/engineers who can negotiate better benefits and working hours independently with companies. Companies absolutely do not feel any need to extend same level of respect and perks to everyone.

When the excuse is feeble, it's because it isn't an excuse, it's just an expression of indifference

After that they typically begin to "check on me" regularly to make sure I'm not "slacking." This would go on long-term.

I have never worked anywhere where this didn't happen.

I think it's a mistake to force people to stay in the office and work for this long. Even if it isn't 100% productive work hours, it still deprives them of opportunities to do other things with their lives such as family, hobbies and fitness activities.

It's as if he doesn't realize he's doing tangible harm to thousands of lives.

I also find it strange that someone that is currently retired at the early age of 54 can demand that other people (earning salaries) work 996. If working is so great and virtuous then why did Jack Ma retire early?

These laws don't require that anyone forced anyone to do it - the manager is literally responsible to make sure people don't work too much. Obviously this will happen occasionally anyway, but now it is at least llegal.

Yes, the richest self-made man in China will soon be lectured by a random commenter on the Internet about how he got it all wrong.

Unpaid labor performing most of the factory's value-added activities, along similar lines to how the cotton was raised agriculturally on nearby plantations.

Company accountant complains about "$9,800 of total labor cost" for the year, which is about $800 more than it was the year before. "When is it going to end?" is often heard, even though the actual workers recieve no payment and never have, there is still a fundamental cost of labor even in a pure slavery situation.

Another year comes & goes, the Civil War ends, slaves are emancipated, and the factory is then required to actually divert some cash directly to the newly christened "employees" for the first time, in the form of a regular paycheck.

The accountant has never been so grumpy. "Looks like we're going to have over $15,000 in labor costs this year, thanks to the plumb fool Yankees."

And life goes on.

When is it going to end?

Anyway, I prefer to work a 12-hour day because I get more accomplished than would otherwise be accomplished over two 8-hour days. Relatively speaking, someone else's 16-hour project which takes them two workdays and completes no sooner than 34 hours after assignment, can often be completed in only 12 hours after assignment if all energy is directed continuously until completion.

For those that do not have that much ability to focus, I understand.

It was massively effective. I wrote a ton of great code. I made enough money to quit working for several years and do a startup. When you're young, moderately fit, and ambitious you can crank out a ton of code.

However, the important point is that it was my choice to do that. You can't ignore the ethics because that's what makes it wrong - asking people to do it while (even silently) implying bad things will happen if they don't is deeply unethical.

If there are a lot of people in the company doing 996 every day I think they're probably spending most of their time doing mindless busywork.

It is not like you can do the same project twice, one crunching and one not and see what the results are?

In terms of health, definitely not good.

Also from economics, makes no sense if you are not a founder.

> No-one's putting a gun to my head to work these hours.

That's true, and so you can stop doing it or change what you're doing on your off time whenever you like and have no ill consequence for it. For these workers, they don't have that option. Either be at the keyboard, dedicated to the employer, for the requisite time or be fired.

We see a lesser version of this in the US IT industry a lot. People are nominally employed for 40 hours per week but management only puts a priority or good focus on the people who do the "above and beyond." Sure, you might officially only be paid for 40 hours most of the time (special circumstances excepted), but when management only gives raises and promotions to the people who are consistently e-mailing at 9:30 at night and slinging code on Sunday, the real rules stand out very quickly.