China's grueling ‘996' work culture is being debated by European startups — 7 founders and VCs on why they are resisting

CNBC

5 hours ago

The European startup scene was recently shaken by a LinkedIn debate with some venture capitalists applying pressure on founders to embrace a culture of overwork to compete on a global stage.
The "996" work culture reigns supreme in China and has been adopted by various tech giants including Jack Ma's Alibaba and Bytedance's TikTok, but the system has also been the subject of much protest in recent years. Tech workers in Europe told CNBC in 2021 that they're turning down job offers, rejecting interviews, or even quitting their roles, upon learning of TikTok's 996 work culture.
Sebastian Becker, general partner at Switzerland-based VC company Redalpine added to the debate on LinkedIn by addressing the new German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, who has called for removal of the legal work limit of eight hours per day in Germany in a bid to increase efficiency, while keeping the 40-hour week.
Becker said Merz' proposal doesn't go far enough, as "40 hours a week won't cut it."
"In Silicon Valley, 60-70 hour weeks aren't the exception — they even have a term for it: 996 — 9am to 9pm, six days a week... we can have the same amount of smart, ambitious people, but if we're consistently being outworked, we won't win," Becker said.
Index Ventures Partner Martin Mignot in London explained on LinkedIn that 996 originated in China and has "quietly become the norm" at startups internationally.
Part of the reason behind this most recent push is that there's a persistent view that Europe's tech and startup scene is lagging behind the U.S. and China, both of which have produced tech giants and are known for intense work cultures.
However, Suranga Chandratillake, general partner at Balderton Capital, told CNBC Make It that these views are outdated as Europe has produced deca-corns in recent years— companies worth more than $10 billion including Klarna, Revolut, Wise, and Checkout.com. The continent has yet to produce a trillion-dollar tech firm like Nvidia.
"The European tech market and ecosystem is keeping up today with the U.S. and Asia... back in the 1980s the European tech scene was behind the tech scene on the West Coast of the US, but that's not the case now," Chandratillake said in an interview.
The calls for Europe to adopt the 996 work culture sparked a wave of backlash. CNBC spoke with seven European startup founders and VCs on why they disagree.
The obsession with China's 996 or Silicon Valley's 24/7 work culture emerges from a glorification of hustle culture in the startup landscape, founders and VCs said.
"It's about a fetishization of overwork rather than smart work…it's a myth," Chandratillake said. "California is very good at telling stories and there's a lot of mythmaking around the concept of what startups look like…. there is hard work involved but if you really spend time in that ecosystem, you will discover that lots of people work really hard, but there are also periods where they don't work."
Nina Mohanty, a Silicon Valley native and founder of London-based Bloom Money, said there are actually "lasting effects and unintended consequences" to adopting an aggressive overwork culture,
"You only have to think about Revolut and the culture that they have is probably the closest that we've seen in Europe to the 996 culture, and they struggled," Mohanty told CNBC. "Their churn rate was incredibly high within their team, and they even struggled to get their banking license, and their culture was actually cited as one of those reasons."
For its part, Revolut told CNBC it operates in a "high-growth, high-performance environment."
"In line with this, we've evolved how we support our people: through value-based behaviours, structured development, and a culture that's collaborative, challenging, and built for scale," a spokesperson from Revolut said.
Noa Khamallah, general partner at Don't Quit Ventures, pointed out that there's "no need for 996" and that these values are often at odds with both the European mindset and regulation.
"Europe's most successful companies — from Spotify to SAP to ASML — didn't achieve dominance through overwork but through sustainable innovation cultures," Khamallah said.
He offered the examples of Silicon Valley's Uber and Meta, both companies that expanded into Europe and faced massive regulatory pushback.
"These examples reveal how Silicon Valley's 'move fast and break things' ethos often breaks against European values around worker rights, privacy, and sustainable business practices," Khamallah said.
An always-on culture decreases retention and creates a revolving door of talent, Sarah Wernér, co-founder of Husmus, told CNBC.
"Overwork today is a productivity crisis tomorrow," Wernér said. "Personally, I hope my competitors are doing 996. It makes poaching great people a lot easier when they decide they've had enough."
Dama Sathianathan, a senior partner at Bethnal Green Ventures said it's unhelpful to "prescribe" working hours, especially if it means putting workers' wellbeing at risk.
"Optimizing labor doesn't always lead to better productivity, or help with differentiating from other companies long-term, if you've made work devoid of meaning," Sathianathan explained.
Meanwhile, the youngest generation at work are less likely to put up with overworking and tend to prioritize work-life balance.
Jas Schembri-Stothart, founder of Luna, a health and wellness app for teen girls, said 996 will drive young talent away from European startups.
"People may tolerate overwork for a while, but eventually it leads to churn and even resentment, especially with Gen Z and younger millennials, there's much less tolerance for toxic hustle cultures," Schembri-Stothart said.
Founders insist that instead of increasing working hours, startups need more funding and resources to position themselves as key players in the global startup scene.
"What Europe really needs isn't more hustle-porn it's more aggressive funding," Wernér said. "With the right level of capital, our startups can hire enough talent to work intensely without breaking themselves. If a team of 10 is burning out to keep up with a 50-person U.S. VC or Chinese government-backed startup, the problem isn't their stamina, it's their cap table."
In fact, since 2015 Europe's tech startups have missed out on nearly $375 billion in growth-stage funding, with founders losing out on a potential $300 billion in European investments, according to Atomico's State of European Tech report published in 2024. Additionally, one in two companies raising funding turn to the U.S. for capital rather than Europe.
"What European startups really need is access to the right resources — funding, talent, and support — to grow, innovate quickly, and scale effectively," Schembri-Stothart said. "The venture landscape in the U.S. is a different ballgame altogether, and it's tough to compete with that without a stronger ecosystem here.
Founders acknowledged that the startup life requires intense hustle and grind, but it's a more nuanced picture than just adopting 996.
Timothy Armoo, co-founder and former CEO of Fanbytes, an influencer marketing firm that he sold for eight figures in 2022, told CNBC that he's a "huge supporter" of this new 996 push, but admitted that timing is key.
"I think there are seasons but I also think that if you are a first-time founder or if your primary goal is basically wealth creation, I'll be very candid, if this is your season, and you're stepping back, then you're not serious about it," he said.
Armoo said there are no excuses because AI allows entrepreneurs to be maximally efficient as it can reduce certain time-consuming manual tasks.
Meanwhile, Bloom Money's Mohanty, said that when she's not sleeping, she's working. "I think early stage teams tend to almost unknowingly or without actually saying it, work the 996 life, because when you are early stage, you just have to hustle harder with less, and especially if you're the founder, you're always on and always working, and it can be very, very difficult to turn off."
Schembri-Stothart draws the line at exploiting her team to produce more work. "It's my choice to work at the weekend, but I'd never expect that on my team, it's definitely not glorified to push your teams to breaking point.
Silicon Valley tech exec Dion McKenzie warned that expectations of a 996 culture could make VC funding even more out of reach for early-stage startups.
"My fear is that as these new norms and trends become the status quo and benchmarks for getting funded, it excludes so many brilliant founders that value their mental health and/or can't commit to a 996 due to caregiving responsibilities or being a parent," Mckenzie said.