Alibaba Founder Defends Overtime Work Culture As 'Huge Blessing' (reuters.com) 132
Alibaba founder and billionaire Jack Ma has defended the grueling overtime work culture at many of China's tech companies, calling it a "huge blessing" for young workers. Reuters reports: The e-commerce magnate weighed into a debate about work-life balance and the overtime hours demanded by some companies as the sector slows after years of breakneck growth. In a speech to Alibaba employees, Ma defended the industry's "996" work schedule, which refers to the 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. workday, six days a week. "I personally think that being able to work 996 is a huge blessing," he said in remarks posted on the company's WeChat account. "Many companies and many people don't have the opportunity to work 996," Ma said. "If you don't work 996 when you are young, when can you ever work 996?"
"In this world, everyone wants success, wants a nice life, wants to be respected," Ma said. "Let me ask everyone, if you don't put out more time and energy than others, how can you achieve the success you want?" Ma referred to the tech industry today where some people are without jobs, or working at companies in search of revenue or facing closure. "Compared to them, up to this day, I still feel lucky, I don't regret (working 12 hour days), I would never change this part of me," he said. On Thursday, an unnamed author published an opinion piece in a state newspaper, arguing that 996 violates China's Labor Law, which stipulates that average work hours cannot exceed 40 hours a week. "Creating a corporate culture of 'encouraged overtime' will not only not help a business' core competitiveness, it might inhibit and damage a company's ability to innovate," the author wrote.
"In this world, everyone wants success, wants a nice life, wants to be respected," Ma said. "Let me ask everyone, if you don't put out more time and energy than others, how can you achieve the success you want?" Ma referred to the tech industry today where some people are without jobs, or working at companies in search of revenue or facing closure. "Compared to them, up to this day, I still feel lucky, I don't regret (working 12 hour days), I would never change this part of me," he said. On Thursday, an unnamed author published an opinion piece in a state newspaper, arguing that 996 violates China's Labor Law, which stipulates that average work hours cannot exceed 40 hours a week. "Creating a corporate culture of 'encouraged overtime' will not only not help a business' core competitiveness, it might inhibit and damage a company's ability to innovate," the author wrote.
There is a name for this .., (Score:5, Insightful)
Exploitation.
Talk about a complete lack of respect for people's time, space, mind, and health.
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"Slavery is a blessing" Chinese proverb
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When the alternative is starving to death, yes, 996 is a blessing.
When the alternative is 955, then 996 is a curse.
It is all relative.
Re:There is a name for this .., (Score:4, Insightful)
It is even worse: The productivity you get this way is wayyyy lower than with a 40h week. I can only think it is some idea that the underclass has to be tortured and a tiny number of those that take the torture without complaining and ask for more can be lifted up.
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It is even worse: The productivity you get this way is wayyyy lower than with a 40h week. I can only think it is some idea that the underclass has to be tortured and a tiny number of those that take the torture without complaining and ask for more can be lifted up.
Productivity per hour goes down, and you eventually burn out or piss off employees entirely until they just quit, but at least for that stretch productivity will be way up.
That's one of the reason you need labour laws and/or unions. Employees compete with each other, so they'll feel pressured to outwork the other, and it's profitable for management to encourage this, meaning you'll get eventually reach a "996" workplace culture.
The big issue I see is 996 is crazy enough that you don't actually have a person
Re:There is a name for this .., (Score:4, Insightful)
I work less now than I ever have, and I'm vastly more productive than I've ever been.
This is for a couple of reasons.
1) I can take public transportation, and triage emails before I get in in the morning, and take care of a few things after I leave so there's less built up in the morning. I show up with a list of what needs to be done, and no need to waste 20 minutes filtering.
2) My shit is organized. I put a lot of time and effort into that, and I offload a lot of mental energy by not having to remember a lot of things. That means I've got a lot more mental energy to spend on what I really need to be thinking about.
3) When I'm not productive I leave. Ass in the seat doesn't produce results just because that's happening. A rested brain can do awesome shit. The trick is making sure that it gets rest, and you don't just assume that more thinking time will produce awesome results. It won't.
4) (2a) I kick off at quitting time even if I'm mid-flow. I just lay down some quick notes about where I'm at and what needs to happen next. I dump what it's in my head, and then walk away with a clear head, leaving that for tomorrow. Tomorrow 3 minutes of skimming and I'm not doing that shit, because somehow in the last 12 hrs my brain realized that's not what I should be doing, and I now know what I really should be doing. I swear, 2/3 of the time that I brain-dump and leave, I come back the next day knowing that that's not going to be productive.
I've dropped some 10s, and even a few 12s, and none of them were as productive as my regular 7s are.
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I work less now than I ever have, and I'm vastly more productive than I've ever been.
This is for a couple of reasons.
1) I can take public transportation, and triage emails before I get in in the morning, and take care of a few things after I leave so there's less built up in the morning. I show up with a list of what needs to be done, and no need to waste 20 minutes filtering.
You're still working, you just found a way to do some work during your commute.
2) My shit is organized. I put a lot of time and effort into that, and I offload a lot of mental energy by not having to remember a lot of things. That means I've got a lot more mental energy to spend on what I really need to be thinking about.
That's working more effectively, but it doesn't mean that you're more productive by working less.
3) When I'm not productive I leave. Ass in the seat doesn't produce results just because that's happening. A rested brain can do awesome shit. The trick is making sure that it gets rest, and you don't just assume that more thinking time will produce awesome results. It won't.
Some days my brain is done after 7 hours and I take off, though I have a bad habit of hanging around longer.
But some days my brain is still doing great after 10 or even 12, and I don't mind staying in it and getting extra stuff done.
4) (2a) I kick off at quitting time even if I'm mid-flow. I just lay down some quick notes about where I'm at and what needs to happen next. I dump what it's in my head, and then walk away with a clear head, leaving that for tomorrow. Tomorrow 3 minutes of skimming and I'm not doing that shit, because somehow in the last 12 hrs my brain realized that's not what I should be doing, and I now know what I really should be doing. I swear, 2/3 of the time that I brain-dump and leave, I come back the next day knowing that that's not going to be productive.
I've dropped some 10s, and even a few 12s, and none of them were as productive as my regular 7s are.
Obviously 996 is really broken, and everyone has a different threshold, but I'm not sure the strict 9-5
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I've dropped some 10s, and even a few 12s, and none of them were as productive as my regular 7s are.
I can do crunches and put in a bunch of 10s and 12s at a higher rate of productivity than my usual working days. The problem is that after a while my productivity nosedives to almost nothing. With luck that happens after the deadline, but not always. And then I need a long recovery period after when my productivity is very low.
It certainly doesn't average out to a net win.
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As I hinted at, one of the big things I've found working less is that I spend less time going down the unproductive rabbit-hole without noticing. That's something that's really easy to do, especially if you're mentally fatigued and "just trying to get it done so I can go home".
When it's quitting time I jot down some notes (often just drop a few lines to a paragraph of comments and/or pseudo code) and pack it up. The next day I often look at the direction I was intending to go and realize that it's not going
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Productivity is already "per hour". Output per hour, to be precise.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
No. Output might go up, but it'll likely do so less than proportionally to the hours worked. And it might even go down if people are so tired they're making errors that cost time to fix.
If you're making 1.5 times as much stuff but taking twice the time then productivity (at lea
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Productivity is already "per hour". Output per hour, to be precise.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
No. Output might go up, but it'll likely do so less than proportionally to the hours worked.
You're picking straws over terminology.
Productivity per hour will go down.
But productivity per employee will go up.
And it might even go down if people are so tired they're making errors that cost time to fix.
If you're making 1.5 times as much stuff but taking twice the time then productivity (at least if you use the word to mean what it actually does) falls by 25%. This has been known since forever.
Yes, that's a factor as well. It's like the Laffer curve [wikipedia.org], too little it's efficient but you get nothing, too much and you get diminishing returns.
There's no reason to think 40 hours is the magic number, it's going to vary by individuals and it's going to vary by jobs.
In some cases there's people who can see a substantial productivity increase going from 70 to 80 hour work weeks. On other cases
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Productivity per hour will go down.
But productivity per employee will go up.
It will not. You can get productivity up bu working overtime for about a week, with two weeks recovery time needed. After that week , you will get the same productivity you had before and a week later you will be below that. Unless you work hard enough to damage your health, then you can do this for a few weeks, but even then productivity will drop below what the 40h week gives you. And yes, obviously we are talking productivity per employee.
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Your comment is worthless. Obviously we are talking about productivity per individual, not per hour. That makes your comment completely bereft of insight.
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I really wonder when it will be widely accepted that the optimal amount work hours for intellectual work (aka programming) is 6h a day, and probably over a course of a week, 4 days are optimum.
Intellectual workers, aka programmers, have several mental subprocesses anyway, that work all day and all night.
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It will happen when they realize that most programmers have negative productivity (it is more effort to clean up after them than to start from scratch) and when they start competing for the good ones.
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My last 20 years as a programmer were 90% clean up work ...
Re: There is a name for this .., (Score:1)
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It is even worse: The productivity you get this way is wayyyy lower than with a 40h week.
That depends on the nature of the work. For intellectual work, what you say is true (in the long run, anyway, the the short run productivity per hour can actually be higher due to increased focus), but for rote work productivity doesn't fall off that much.
I'm not suggesting that Alibaba's approach is good, just correcting your overbroad claim.
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You are wrong. Have a look into the literature. The 40h/work peak efficiency per worker is for _manual_ work.
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You are wrong. Have a look into the literature. The 40h/work peak efficiency per worker is for _manual_ work.
Manual rote work or manual dangerous work? As I recall, the reason early studies suggested more than 40 hours was too much was not because productivity fell off but because accidents got too high.
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No. Usually, individual employee productivity (total output) in a 72 hour workweek is higher than a 40 hour week. Not proportionally (80% higher), but certainly more than you'd normally get with a 40 hour workweek.
The problem lies with the waste this engenders within management -- they'd take a path, reverse it, have you to do meaningless crap reports, ignore inefficiencies and problems because "you're on it", basically for free, etc.
As a result, the productivity of the entire system goes down.
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It is not. It is _lower_. Have a look into the scientific literature before you claim nonsense next time.
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(Shrug). Can't find it. Here's what I did find... What's going on with the managerial class.
http://www.ccl.org/leadership/... [ccl.org]
Slave drivers tend to make more money - upto a point - the more they drive their slaves. What you seem to be talking of is productivity _per hour_ worked, which is a different topic.
Do you have a time versus output curve?
Re: There is a name for this .., (Score:1)
996, the neighbor of the beast... (Score:1)
Working 996 sounds like hell to me. How good do you expect people's work to be after they've been at the same thing for so many hours and so many days of the week?
Re: 996, the neighbor of the beast... (Score:2)
Medical and surgical residents and fellows in the US often work anywhere from 786 to 596 by this naming scheme, depending on specialty... for years... at about 2x minimum wage or less. And then newspapers write articles like "the problem with doctor salaries".
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News stories have also reported how medical residents make frequent medical mistakes, as they're often too tired to think properly.
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I wonder if it would take an entire week to lose your job, or just a couple of days.
Stuff like this (Score:5, Interesting)
Stuff like this reminds me of old white supremacists quacking on about how slavery in the old South was a boon to the slaves.
Re: Stuff like this (Score:5, Informative)
It's not rewriting history, it's understanding history.
The Republican party as you know it came about it when Barry Goldwater pulled conservatives to the Republican party, mostly over anger over the of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965.
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Why as AC? Now nobody will read the one comment in the whole thread that's actually insightful.
Or were you afraid to tarnish your name with a posting that is actually not only on topic but also informative? I know, it doesn't belong here anymore , that could easily ruin your karma...
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You must not understand history. The Conservative Democrats all dumped their party in protest of the Civil Rights Act and became Conservative Republicans as a part of Nixon's Southern strategy. This created the strange bedfellows between a fiscal conservative pro-business wing with the social conservative rural wing. The GOP today is *not* the Party of Lincoln since it still courts the segregationists.
Don't just rehash debunked talking points from the far right, learn something for yourself for a change.
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Or not: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com] Specifically, 20 out of 21 Southern Democrats stayed Democrat after the Civil Rights Act. Republicans still weren't able to dominate the south until a whole generation after the beginning of the Southern strategy.
It's very interesting to me that the Klan and it's supporters were highly supportive of abortion to keep the numbers of blacks low, but modern 'racists' are pro-life, which if their policy goals were implemented would increase the number of blacks much fast
see what happens when you don't have a union? (Score:4, Interesting)
see what happens when you don't have a union?
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You're both right and wrong here. China does have unions but they are part of the Chinese Communist Party and just enforce it's decisions. The logic here is: Communism is for the people and there is a union. If you are exploited, then either turn to the existing union or stfu, because Communism is supposed to be a workers' paradise! And forming unions that don't belong to the party isn't allowed because of that logic. Note that Jack Ma is a fairly important member of the CCP sitting in its national committe
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They are communist in name only, unless you want to use your argument for declaring north korea as a democracy.
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You only need a union if the government is at the mercy of the corporations. In many developed nations we don't need unions as the government is still for the people.
The one lucky guy among the millions... (Score:5, Insightful)
Just like the nonsense that sports celebrities speak when inspiring the youth to follow their example - while they should know that most just become wrecks, not highly paid professionals.
Re:The one lucky guy among the millions... (Score:4, Interesting)
It is even worse than that: Preaching hard work will get _him_ less money, because individual productivity peaks at around 40h/week and drops above that. This guy mast have gotten really lucky, because he does not even understand the basics of work. Not that different from the average CEO, though.
Re: The one lucky guy among the millions... (Score:1)
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Nah. For the high performers, the extra hours will be productive
They are not. This myth is pervasive though.
"Success" (Score:5, Insightful)
"Let me ask everyone, if you don't put out more time and energy than others, how can you achieve the success you want?"
Not everyone dreams of becoming a sociopathic executive when they grow up. Most just want to live relatively comfortably, have the means to raise a family, be able to afford a few indulgences now and then, and have a good work-life balance.
Civilization is not a zero-sum game.
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Indeed. And not everybody has so little to offer as a person that they need "success" to be able to feel they are somebody.
The wrong question (Score:2)
This is asking the wrong question. The question is not "when can you ever work 996?", it's "should you ever work 996?" There are plenty of studies that show working overtime is only effective in the short term. The extra hours give extra time to get work done, but they also wear people out. Tired workers are less productive than well rested ones, so the amount of work done on the day someone works overtime is less than expected based o
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Indeed. This stupidity constantly amazes me. The 40h work week goes back to Henry Ford, as far as I know, and he was certainly not under any suspicion of wanting to do anything nice for his workers. The plain unadorned fact is that at 40h/week work, productivity peaks for manual workers and it is even lower for mental workers. Work more, be _less_ productive and less valuable to your employer.
You want to live, right? (Score:1)
"In this world, everyone wants success, wants a nice life, wants to be respected," Ma said. "Let me ask everyone, if you don't put out more time and energy than others, how can you achieve the success you want?"
50% of people are below average. Most of them know they're below average. Success to them means working enough to have a decent life outside of work, not finding excuses to work many more hours in the hope that by incompetence they'll be put in a position of substantial pay for relatively little wo
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If you put all your energy into work, you are not living, plain and simple. Any imagined "success" you work towards is meaningless.
Productivity (Score:3)
Re:Productivity (Score:5, Interesting)
There are some very old studied done by Henry Ford and others. They wanted to optimize worker efficiency. They found that the best outcome is at 8h per day, 5 days a week for manual work and 6h per day, 5 days a week for mental work. Work more and your productivity drops due to mistakes, sick-days (even if uncompensated, you are still not working) and other effects.
Of course, the US has forgotten that and China has probably never found out. In both cases, the mistaken thinking is that the more you exploit your workers, the better the profits. That is patently untrue, but requires dropping greed and the superiority complex of the average capitalist and rationally looking at facts instead. Few people with money or a deep desire for money are capable of that.
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He did not care for anything but maximizing his profits.
Here is some starting-point with lots of references for you if you really find yourself google-challenged: https://www.askspoke.com/blog/... [askspoke.com]
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The high amount of work hours keeps the people exhausted and ready to drink and do other recreational drugs and keep them away from critical thinking and pushing reforms or a true change or a revolution, that is all what it is about.
Work slaves who drink themselves into sleep to get up next morning early, have no time to think about revolting ...
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That, a bit generalized, is basically the only real explanation for keeping people working so long. It certainly is not profit optimization.
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I guess nobody would call Henry Ford a bleeding heart socialist, but he was the one that doubled worker's pay in his factories and introduced 8/5 work weeks.
And considering his success, he must have known something that got lost in the time since.
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It is pretty clear Ford wanted to optimize his profits. Hence both the work-time reduction and the better wages must have been beneficial to his profits. And they were.
What got lost is very basic things and they did not get lost. There are just ignored by the current failures we have as "industry leaders". Ford war a real capitalist. He had no problem doing things that benefited his workers as long as long as they benefited his profits. Modern employers usually claim to be capitalists, but they do not even
Re: Productivity (Score:2)
At least if youâ(TM)re busy working you have fewer hours to commit social media crimes in China.
996 is a "blessing" (Score:2)
Also creates social "peace" (Score:2)
True, it is the peace of the grave and of people too exhausted to even think about what kind of country they live in and how that is pretty bad, but it certainly works. Exhausted workers start no riots.
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There are so many more layers to his "challenge"/speech; competition, national pride, youthful exuberance (and pride), etc...
All of it carefully crafted to keep costs low and productivity high. Full stop.
Clever monster...
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Actually, not that clever. Productivity with this schedule is massively lower than with a 40h work-week and costs are massively higher. Unless the actual benefits outweigh that...
Sociopathic Monster (Score:2)
This is Rick acting like a god and telling his microverse inhabitants that they can only be truly happy by working for his betterment.
Fucking monster.
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And before you answer, we mean work. Not sit in "dinner meetings" or have "golf meetings".
Extended (Score:2)
THE BEATINGS WILL CONTINUE.. (Score:2)
"I personally think that being able to work 996 is a huge blessing," he said in remarks posted on the company's WeChat account. "Many companies and many people don't have the opportunity to work 996," Ma said. "If you don't work 996 when you are young, when can you ever work 996?"
No shit, I read this and thought "this bastard sounds like an internet troll". What a total piece of shit this guy is. No wonder workers in China commit suicide, who wouldn't being treated that way?
Calculate Your Hourly Rate (Score:2)
If you work for a company with a 40 hour week policy and in the US are exempt, 10 extra hours is an effective 20% reduction in your effective pay per hour.
Granted, I'm not familiar with Chinese labor regulations or Foxconns policies.
Anyway, time worked over your company's policy, over a period of time (once in a while is fine, circumstances), is a clear sign of under staffing. Unless you get a bonus consummate to the extra time. Or are paid hourly (the contractors).
Congratulations (Score:1)
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Idle hands allow you to raise the head, take a look around and ponder for a moment whether what you do actually gets you anywhere.
And that's dangerous for those that benefit from you not doing so. Because you might notice that you're better off without them.
Why not 997? (Score:2)
Wage slavery is all the rage in China. Jack Ma should export that idea!
Tom Sawyer (Score:3)
It's not every day you get to whitewash a social ill, eh?
hard work and effort always translates into succes (Score:2)
It must be true because Jack Ma told us. You are always rewarded 100% of the time for your efforts and promotions are 100% based on merit. There is no arbitrary decisions made by management. There is no luck or chance in the system. And special treatment is absolutely impossible and never occurs ever.
Overtime. (Score:2)
No wife. No kids.
Overtime is the reason I own 7 motorcycles.
Fuck all you fat video game faggots.
Overtime FTW!
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Or you could have my job, no overtime but better pay. I own a couple apartment houses which, unlike your motorcycles, generate additional revenue.
I literally make money while playing video games. Try that with your motorcycles.
I believe anything a C-Level says (Score:2)
as soon as he subjects himself to whatever he considers a boon, blessing or huge advantage to those affected. Then we can talk. Before that, he's just doing what he's best at: Bullshitting people.
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I don't consider sitting in "business dinners" and at "golf meetings" working.
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It most certainly is a blessing...... (Score:2)
He does make valid points though. There can be a time and place for 996, like when one forms their own new business. And indeed it is easier to do when you're young, healthy, and unencumbered by spouse / kid obligations.
Of course working those hours doesn't guarantee anything. There are multiple paths to success and multiple ways to evaluate when you get there.
Jack Ma is an anti-capitalist (Score:2)
The median businessman has no idea how capitalism works, and the 90% percentile is actively opposed to capitalism.
Marginal productivity eventually declines as work day increases, yet this guy still pays the same marginal wage. He's be better off setting a quarter of his money on fire, he could at least cook some dinner with it.
VINDICATES (Score:1)
"Behind every great fortune there is crime" --Balzac
change.org/p/13002798
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I can't help but think of them as I do of philatelists. They collect stamps, appraise them, trade them, buy and sell them...
Philantropists probably collect humans. Appraise them...