No sleep, no sex, no entertainment: Many tech workers in Chinese Silicon Valley are exhausted before the age of 30

A young man is "struggling" daily, concentrating his whole spirit and mentality in maintaining and developing his start-up company against big waves called 'competition' in the market. A computer engineer received a question whether she was willing to give up her lover in exchange for a job from an employer. A couple yearned for the laughter of their children but could not because they were completely exhausted, even feeling bored of going home after work.

This is what hundreds of thousands of young IT workers in China face every day, as is the case of Yu Haoran, a 26-year-old computer science expert, currently is the head of a startup company called Jisuanke, operating in the field of programming training (writing code) based in Zhongguancun hi-tech center, Beijing - considered the Silicon Valley of the land. the most populous country in the world.

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To be able to maintain and further develop his start-up, this guy stayed up for many nights to work, and even spent the weekend looking for a way to develop his business. . 'With a strong iron day,' Yu Haoran has initially achieved commendable successes as a company that is valued at 200 million Yuan ($ 29.8 million) by calling for capital. Venture capital with a start from just a group of 10 'anonymous' young developers. However, the price Yu and his colleagues paid was not cheap, it was chronic insomnia, so severe that he could only sleep about 2 hours a night, although this year only 26 years old - age is considered to be strong for a man.

'It sounds weird but I have never even really thought about living a normal life, that is, working, resting, entertaining and maintaining relationships with friends and relatives. These are all things that anyone wants, but because of work and career, I can't allow myself to stop trying for even a second, 'said young entrepreneur Yu Haoran.

Situation in China's high-tech industry: 'plow', 'plow' to exhaustion when you're young

Statistics in 2018 show a staggering figure, that is, every four weeks, there are 4 new billionaires recognized in the billion-dollar country, and many of them come from high-tech fields. In fact, high technology is a 'cradle' that creates a lot of new billionaires for China, just after the real estate industry.

After every miraculous success story, there are millions of Chinese people who hope they will become a name 'save history', the next Jack Ma - the most admired billionaire in China, who successfully built and steered the ship named Alibaba, the parent company of South China Morning Post, with a starting point from a 'household' scale to a giant empire in the field of electric commerce. death.

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The South China Morning Post has had the opportunity to chat with technology workers working in Zhongguancun and other key technology areas of Beijing to portray a vivid portrait of real life. in China Silicon Valley - the headquarters of information technology giants like Baidu, Meituan and ByteDance.

However, this painting is hard to draw with bright colors! In China's technology industry, young employees and entrepreneurs are struggling to work out, while never daring to stop worrying about issues such as wages and public positions. the most basic or advanced ability is the working environment.

Some people have finally realized that they need to achieve a more effective balance between work and private life, not only for their own health benefits, but also for the relationships needed. yes in life. While others are trying to find a way out of a world of technology that can give them fame and money, but also the exaggeration and the reversal of life values.

Employees at the major technology companies interviewed in this article asked not to publicize the identity and company name they were working with enough to see that these people were fully aware of the negative. that they are facing at work, and that negativity if publicized will be detrimental to not only them, but also the companies where they are 'giving'.

Once known as a famous graveyard for eunuchs in feudal China, Zhongguancun is a land located inside the northwest of Ring Road 4 - one of the major highways surrounding the capital. Beijing.

Beginning planned and oriented to become one of the key technology parks in China, in the past three decades, the region has witnessed the rise of many start-up companies in the industry. Chinese technology and internet sector, from Lenovo computer manufacturer to Sina portal and Didi Chuxing horse riding application. According to statistics from the local government, up to 80 tech startups are established in Zhongguancun every day.

Going back to the case of young entrepreneur Yu Haoran, his Jisuanke start-up is now based in a basement workspace of one of Zhongguancun's office buildings. In part to save costs, on the other hand, Yu could still easily recruit talents from top Chinese technology institutes located nearby such as Tsinghua University. In addition, Yu's apartment is also where he allows students to practice at the company for free on bunk beds.

In recent years, Zhongguancun has become crowded, cramped, as well as much more expensive, and this is the reason many large companies move their offices to more remote suburbs. and those places gradually become Beijing's new technology hub.

Here are the major technology areas in Beijing like Xierqi in the northwest of the city, which is the 'stationary' location of billion-dollar companies including Baidu, Sina, NetEase and Didi. Another technology park, Wangjing, has also formed at the northeastern edge of the Chinese capital. This is where the giant giant Meituan Dianping is headquartered, Momo dating app and Alibaba Group.

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The emergence of technology centers located in many different areas of the city has led to a corollary, which is travel difficulties for workers who move to work daily, and next door That is the traffic situation of the whole city.

Develop infrastructure and growth of technology companies

Chinese people often joke online that the billionaire's real bottleneck in internet development is the traffic jam in Houchang Village Road, a four-lane road that surrounds the vast campuses of public companies. Large technology at the edge of Xierqi technology center. This is the place that shows the relationship between the rapid growth of technology companies with the infrastructure in general and the traffic in particular.

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Remember that in the middle of last year, a typical summer shower in Beijing turned the streets of Xierqi into a river, making the transportation network in this area almost paralyzed and affected and damaged. Significant for businesses based in this area. A famous photo of a man sitting on a trash can looking for a way out of a flooded road has been widely spread online and received by many people.

So the weather in Xierqi is so bad when the weather is very cold. Yang, a 33-year-old Beijing man, lives with his wife and parents, working as a product manager in an internet company in Xierqi, saying he has to wake up every day before 6 am to prepare for work and It takes two and a half hours, taking two different subway lines and shuttle buses to reach the company. And by the end of the afternoon, this journey is repeated. Thus, on average, Yang lost up to 5 hours a day to move to work place - a 'waste' of time is not small. And especially Yang's daily journey is not pleasant at all. "As long as there is a seat, I can sleep no matter how bumpy, bumpy or crowded," he shared.

Of course, the 'nightmare' with this travel name can also be removed if you pay more for rent near the workplace. Bu, a marketing expert who just turned 20, recently moved to a dozen-year-old complex in Xierqi, a 10-minute walk from her workplace.

Although it is an old residential area, Bu still does not have enough money to rent his own apartment. To save costs, she had to share a three-bedroom apartment with two other women who also worked in the Xierqi area, each paying up to 4,000 yuan (US $ 598) a month to cover. rent. Because of the high demand, the rent here is even more expensive than the total amount that Bu had paid to rent an apartment in the central area of ​​the city in Beijing's lavish Chaoyang District.

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Another trade-off that Bu must accept is that she no longer has enough money and it is important to be able to regularly go to beautiful cafes, luxurious restaurants and famous art exhibitions. - all the things she loves while living in the city center. "I feel like I am being exiled from Beijing," Bu said sadly.

Schedule time 996

Technology companies in China often expect their employees to work long hours every day to prove their dedication. Since then, a timetable called 996 has formed, ie work from 9 am to 9 pm, 6 days a week.

ByteDance, a billion-dollar enterprise based in Zhongguancun, the company that created the famous TikTok app, found that the timetable was somewhat 'stuffy', and so they adjusted it a bit. By offering a "big / small week" policy, that means that ByteDance's 6,000 employees will work alternately for a week of 5 days and the next 6 days, repeating it like that.

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Yang's wife, 29, is in charge of product management at the Wangjing technology park (known as Koreatown), and when the couple came home after a long day of work, the watch was also points near midnight.

The couple said they had tried for months to have children, but failed. Not because of illness, but because they feel tired every time they come home from work and are so stressed that they don't want to have sex. 'Maybe we will have to spend time seriously talking about this issue, even going to the psychiatrist,' Yang said with concern as his wife was about to turn 30, and his wife. The older you get, the harder it will be to become pregnant.

In fact, the line between work and private life in the technology sector in China is increasingly eroded by the privileges that the company provides its employees like free meals, shuttle, on-site gym, barber shop, as well as a variety of entertainment and entertainment options . all for the whole-hearted staff to devote to their work. And while some global tech companies like Silicon Valley like Google and Facebook offer similar benefits, some Chinese tech workers say they still feel they are actually be taken advantage of.

'It seems that the ultimate purpose of these services is just to focus more on your work, not to think about anything else,' said Wang, a 26-year-old employee who is managing a business. big in Xierqi said.

Contrary to the wishes of business users, such "benefits" cannot help their employees stick with the company longer. According to Maimai's statistics (a recruitment company similar to LinkedIn), the average working time of each employee in a technology in Silicon Valley (USA) is 3.65 years. Meanwhile, in Chinese technology companies, if not including state-owned telecom operators, this number is less than 2.6 years.

More seriously, estimates also show that the rate of overwork deaths by young technology workers in China is also significantly higher than that of most other countries in the world. In 2015, Li Junming, a social media developer, Tencent, had a stroke and died while walking with his pregnant wife, and the cause was thought to be a weakness. overwork and lack of sleep for a long time.

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A year later, Jin Bo, 34, the deputy editor of Tianya online forum, suffered a serious heart attack at a subway station in Beijing. And last year, a 25-year-old employee at Shenzhen-based DJI drone maker also died of the same cause. A DJI spokesperson said the company had no comment to keep respect for the deceased's family's request to keep the issue private. Tencent and Tianya have also refused to respond to press requests for comment. These are just a few of the typical cases of deaths from overwork in the world's most populous country.

It can be said that the culture of this kind of "incarnation" in China originates from the trend of establishing a start-up company. Accordingly, venture capital funds will not regret pouring large sums of money into a fledgling but promising enterprise, and of course, investors also want to get results as quickly as possible.

However, the situation seems to be changing a bit at the moment. By the end of 2018, many technology companies in China have announced plans to cut profits, bonuses and labor in the context of China's economy facing the worst recession in three decades. The last century was due to the commercial war with the US.

According to statistics from market research company Zero2IPO, as of January 2019, Chinese venture capital transactions totaled only $ 4.3 billion, or nearly 70% lower than the same period last year.

'Exhaustion' is the cause of 8% failure in starting a business

The beautiful days, when the 'easy-to-earn' currency for Chinese technology companies is gradually passing away, a good example is the company specializing in providing bike sharing services called Ofo. Founded in 2014 in Zhongguancun, this startup company immediately went 'as a wind' when it called for $ 2.2 billion in investment after 9 rounds of funding with a period of just in less than 4 years. However, this potential company is currently facing a serious cash crisis after thousands of users demand money back, forcing them to cut operations amid fierce competition. paralysis.

'If you only look at the technology situation in China according to the lens of an' outsider ', you will find that the local government is extremely favorable to start-up businesses and to provide money. for them to expand their business, and each city has its own incubation facilities as well as its own technology centers, but whether these things are really good or effective is still a question mark. Great, 'said Jelte Wingender, senior manager at Innoway,' a technology incubator 'supported by the government at Zhongguancun. In addition, according to the manager, in the future, China should have fewer entrepreneurs, instead improving the feasibility and success of each start-up.

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"One thing the heads of the Unicorns (billion-dollar start-up companies) in China have not figured out is that besides scaling up, how to make their" little daughter "become a business. If you continue to work 10, 12 hours a day for 10 years, people will no longer have a personal life, they will not have children, they will be stuck, suffocated to life, and then, society will belong to 'rice-run robots', not human beings anymore, 'said Mr. Wingender.

Returning to the 33-year-old manager Yang, he is currently seriously considering his future. With more than 10 years of experience, he now holds a mid-level position at a leading internet company but has reached the ceiling in his career. Yang compares himself to a construction worker and realizes that it is a type of career that can earn a lot of money thanks to the high work intensity but also makes it easy for you to lose your job by another younger worker. , with cheaper remuneration.

Yang is thinking of running a home business so he can spend more time with his family and children in the future. "I am willing to step back and fully support my wife's career and take care of my family," he said.

In a recent study conducted recently, CB Insights has discovered that "exhaustion" is one of the main causes of the failure of 8% of 101 startups. "The ability to cut losses when necessary and reorient the efforts of businesses when they realize that a dead end is considered to be two particularly important factors to help a startup succeed and avoid exhaustion." , the report said.

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Unlike Yang, those who choose to stay in the technology field will also face their own tough battles.

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Andy Xu Kaiqiang, a programmer who just switched to COO (Operations Manager) at the Wangjing-based robotics startup, is learning how to become a broader, group leader. is a better business leader. But instead of soft knowledge or skills, what Andy Xu Kaiqiang found to be the first to change is his appearance. After dieting and signing up for a Tango dance class every week, the 24-year-old fell 20 kg (44 pounds) after just 6 months. 'As a manager, I have to create a good image for the company, and looks are important in this case,' he said.

Everything becomes even more difficult for female employees working in technology. For example, the models of programmers in the eyes of people are often stereotyped as clumsy, clumsy guys, glasses with plastic frames .

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There are many slang-like slang words for software developers in China, such as manong, which literally means "code-writing farmer," and chengxuyuan, a play on words that means "gibbon." program".

Ren, a 24-year-old female programmer working in an Xierqi-based company, said she denied the opportunity from companies requesting compliance with 996 schedule, and also said no to those. The job the employer poses questions like: "Is it too hard for a girl to become a programmer?" and "Are you willing to break up with your boyfriend yet to spend time on work?".

Blatant sexism in the Chinese technology world is even reflected in male-dominated job postings or worse than men. Or the emergence of discriminatory marketing campaigns for women - often occurring in Chinese technology companies, though there have been many changes in recent years. .

For Yu Haoran, a 26-year-old entrepreneur at the beginning of the story, the founder of education startup Jisuanke is beginning to take small steps in his lifestyle, like exercising more and cook breakfast at home every day. A few days ago Yu bought himself the first set of clothes after years, a navy blue shirt from Japanese brand Uniqlo that he enjoyed. It seems that this guy is starting to feel his life more, he plans to buy an extra skateboard to save time on the way to work.

There must be more people like Yu Haoran in the Chinese technology world. Young programmers, try once seriously thinking about your choice as well as your real needs so that you can reconcile the best way between your personal life and your work.