{"id":393,"date":"2026-05-30T23:41:31","date_gmt":"2026-05-30T23:41:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/crosscountrymovingteams.com\/?p=393"},"modified":"2026-05-30T23:41:31","modified_gmt":"2026-05-30T23:41:31","slug":"ex-google-ceo-eric-schmidt-warns-u-s-tech-workers-competing-with-chinas-grueling-12-hour-workdays-means-sacrificing-work-life-balance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/crosscountrymovingteams.com\/?p=393","title":{"rendered":"Ex\u2013Google CEO Eric Schmidt warns U.S. tech workers: Competing with China\u2019s grueling 12-hour workdays means sacrificing work-life balance"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p>Eric Schmidt, who was top boss at Google for a decade in the early 2000s, said during a conference interview published by the <em>All-In<\/em> podcast in September 2025 that he doesn\u2019t believe in remote work, partly because it\u2019s not helping U.S. tech companies compete with China\u2019s cutthroat work culture.<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/crosscountrymovingteams.com\/?p=391\">Several musicians said they were misled about the \u2018Great American State Fair\u2019 and dropped out. So Trump is stepping in as the main act<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf you\u2019re going to be in tech and you\u2019re going to win, you\u2019re going to have to make some tradeoffs,\u201d Schmidt said. \u201cRemember, we\u2019re up against the Chinese; the Chinese work-life balance consists of 996, which is 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., six days a week.\u201d<\/p>\n<div>\n<div>\n<div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>Schmidt added working from home is especially harmful for young people who may be highly educated but have little or no experience in the workforce. Schmidt said he learned plenty in the early days of his career at Sun Microsystems (where he eventually became CTO) by just being present at the office and hearing his older coworkers argue in person.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHow do you re-create that in this new thing?\u201d he asked about remote work.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>A spokesperson for Schmidt declined to comment.<\/p>\n<h2>The 996 obsession<\/h2>\n<p>China\u2019s 996 work schedule was outlawed in 2021, but Schmidt insisted on the podcast all the Chinese tech companies still do it. This kind of work obsession is making its way to Silicon Valley as well. An increasing number of startups, and especially AI startups, in the Bay Area now expect employees to put in 72-hour weeks, according to <em>Wired.<\/em><\/p>\n<div>\n<div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>For some young diehards, the gradual Silicon Valley shift from nap-pods to sleeping at the office is welcome news. Many twentysomethings, raised on the Zuckerberg-inspired hustle culture made famous in the film <em>The Social Network, <\/em>happily swear off work-life balance for startup success, the <em>Wall Street Journal<\/em> reported. Fintech startup Ramp has also claimed its proprietary data shows a spike in work on Saturdays, showing that \u201c996 is real\u201d because \u201cSan Francisco\u2013based employees are increasingly working on Saturdays.\u201d On the other hand, the change in corporate card transactions for\u00a0restaurant,\u00a0delivery, and\u00a0takeout was a 0.4% increase, so that may not quite be statistically significant.<\/p>\n<p>Schmidt has previously criticized his former company, Google, for its somewhat lax policies on remote work and productivity. In a talk at Stanford University in 2024, he said: \u201cGoogle decided that work-life balance, and going home early, and working from home, was more important than winning.\u201d Stanford later deleted the video, and Schmidt took his comments back.<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/crosscountrymovingteams.com\/?p=389\">\u2018Don\u2019t be yourself\u2019 in the workplace, actually, Columbia professor says. Here\u2019s why authenticity is \u2018overrated\u2019<\/a><\/p>\n<div>\n<div>\n<div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>\u201cEric misspoke about Google and their work hours and regrets his error,\u201d a spokesperson for Schmidt said in a statement to <em>Business Insider.<\/em><\/p>\n<div>\n<div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>After implementing liberal work-from-home policies during the pandemic, Google has cut back on remote work and required some remote employees to come into the office three days a week. As the AI race heats up, Google\u2019s own Sergey Brin told employees working on its AI model Gemini to work from the office \u201cat least\u201d every weekday, and added that 60 hours a week was \u201cthe sweet spot of productivity,\u201d the <em>New York Times<\/em> reported.<\/p>\n<div>\n<div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>Schmidt, during the September interview, snuck a glance at David Sacks, the venture capitalist and now former White House AI and crypto czar David Sacks, as he joked work-life balance does have its place in at least one line of work.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m in favor of work-life balance, and that\u2019s why people work for the government,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/crosscountrymovingteams.com\/?p=387\">SoftBank plans up to \u20ac75 billion investment in French AI centers<\/a><\/p>\n<p><em>A version of this story was published on Fortune.com on Sept. 25, 2025.<\/em><\/p>\n<h2>More on tech:<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Costco CEO says AI is not stealing workers\u2019 jobs\u2014it\u2019s \u2018elevating\u2019 them<\/li>\n<li>Boos, AI-washing, and \u2018low-value human capital\u2019: The psychological traps CEOs are falling into when they botch their AI messaging<\/li>\n<li>As AI slashes white-collar jobs, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff says there\u2019s one department still hiring: sales<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Schmidt, who served as CEO from 2001 to 2011, has some thoughts on the China-style \u201c996\u201d work ethic.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":392,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[61],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-393","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-future-of-work"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.7 - 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