Jack Ma defends the 'blessing' of a 12-hour working day | Hacker News Reader

Jack Ma defends the 'blessing' of a 12-hour working day

bbc.co.uk

21 pointscmsefton17 comments

Today it's 996 and there will probably be bonuses and rewards when it initially is introduced for those working more. However give it a few years, those rewards go away, 996 is the norm. Then give it a few more years and they are asking for 997, or 8-10 7 days a week.

Normalizing this behavior is the short term goal, the longer term goal is returning to indentured servitude.

I guess family life doesn't matter to Jack Ma. It matters to me. I'm not going to miss my kids growing up to the benefit of your company.

It works when you are the founder or super passionate, if you want to. It doesn't work as an expectation for every employee.

It's called cognitive dissonance.

And basically it's a prerequisite someone who wants to be both a billionaire and a member of the local Communist Party.

Pretty easy to justify long working hours when the payoff is $40 billion.

Yeah, it's a blessing for him, he's the guy on top. Related news: Thugs see jackboots as a 'blessing'.

That's the craziest thing I've read today.

I've worked 12 hour shifts. By the time you eat, shower and commute you have no free time at all. It's horrible.

Same. I worked them as 3-3-4-4 (3 on, 3 off, 4 on, 4 off) and even still, it was taxing. You get extra-long weekends all the time, which are basically mandatory, because you spend that entire first day recovering from the previous 12-hour shifts.

Though it also switched between days and nights, so you'd end up spending your last day adjusting yourself to the upcoming "time switch", which further worsened it. The company had all kinds of research indicating that it was great for morale and productivity and such, and they had a strong union that didn't seem to hate it, but I always had a hard time adapting.

I can't imagine doing it for 6 days straight.

Thought he was talking about a 12-hour working week. Thought it was a bit extreme. We do live in a tech bubble.

Previously: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19663317.

Thanks, missed this discussion.

Jack Ma is saying "9-9-6" which means working from 9am-9pm, 6 days per week.

He says if you love what you do then you enjoy the hours.

Come be my indentured servant and work 24/7. What I’m saying is that if you love what you do then you enjoy the hours.

I love doing more than one thing, though

Work less, do more. That should be the optimization loop.

this guy is going to have a workers revolt on his hands

How long is his commute home?

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