Overwork is so back

The big picture: Just a few years ago, a roaring labor market led employers to focus on making people happy and fostering work-life balance — while labor unions enjoyed a surge in organizing.

• That was then. Now the job market is shaky. The federal workforce isn't getting paid; union contracts broken. Offices are filling back up, and tech companies, particularly startups, aren't shy about demanding long hours.
• In San Francisco, workers are increasingly coming in on Saturdays, according to data from Ramp, which tracked a jump this year in corporate card transactions ordering takeout on the weekends.

Zoom in: A startup called Sonatic posted a job requiring on-site work, "7 days a week" earlier this year. It includes free housing and a subscription to Raya, an online dating service.

• "The chances of success increases when everyone is focused on the mission together," the firm's 21-year-old CEO told WaPost recently. Employees don't have to "struggle" with worrying about housing, food or access to dating.
• Other firms are similarly upfront about the need for long hours.

The intrigue: As companies fight to be the next OpenAI or be bought by the company, there are some in the Valley who say that 72 hour work week doesn't go far enough.

• The top AI researchers in tech are putting in 100-hour work weeks, the WSJ reports. They're joking about 0-0-2 — midnight to midnight with a 2-hour break on weekends.
• This kind of overwork appears limited to a certain coterie of very in-demand AI experts who are making a ton of money — some in the seven figures.
• "Some of them are now millionaires many times over, but several said they haven't had time to spend their new fortunes," the paper notes.

Between the lines: A lot of these founders are still in their twenties. There appears to be growing age gap in where the youngest are grinding it out, while their older peers are a bit more chill.

• "The current vibe is no drinking, no drugs, 9-9-6, lift heavy, run far, marry early, track sleep, eat steak and eggs," an AI cofounder told the SF Standard this summer.

Stunning stat: Mandatory 72-hour workweeks were ruled illegal in China more than four years ago, after several workers deaths were linked to the 12-hour day schedule.

Reality check: Overwork in tech isn't new — there's long been a propensity for long hours, sleeping in the office, etc.

• It often leads to burnout and stifles productivity.
• A regular 996 schedule is different from a burst of work — or a busy period.
• It's a regular mode of work — what computer science professor Cal Newport calls "pseudo-productivity," where productivity is measured not by work output but instead by the time workers spend in some kind of visible work activity — seated at a desk, logged into Slack, etc.
• In his book "Slow Productivity," Newport argues that "doing fewer things is the key to producing good work," citing a raft of examples from Sir Isaac Newton to Jane Austen to the idea behind the TV show CSI.

The bottom line: Overwork is back — at least until these engineers figure out a way to replace themselves with robots.