{"id":6197,"date":"2026-08-28T15:11:38","date_gmt":"2026-08-28T15:11:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/crosscountrymovingteams.com\/?p=6197"},"modified":"2026-08-28T15:11:38","modified_gmt":"2026-08-28T15:11:38","slug":"billionaire-panda-express-co-ceo-says-he-never-got-burned-out-even-after-years-of-working-12-hour-days-thats-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/crosscountrymovingteams.com\/?p=6197","title":{"rendered":"Billionaire Panda Express co-CEO says he never got burned out\u2014even after years of working 12-hour days: \u2018That\u2019s life\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p>Even at 78, the self-made billionaire restaurateur has long embraced the demanding schedules and relentless work ethic that helped him build the largest Asian-American restaurant chain in the U.S.<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/crosscountrymovingteams.com\/?p=6195\">DeSantis administration diverted $10 million meant to help poor children, Florida grand jury finds<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt was hard when I had no business, there was no income,\u201d he said after recently being asked by <em>NBC News <\/em>on how to avoid burnout. \u201cBut even then, I wasn\u2019t burned out because, you just work, go to work, and [if] you have a like a 12-hour day, you go home, you sleep well\u2014I mean that\u2019s life.\u201d<\/p>\n<div>\n<div>\n<div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>And that mindset helped him and his wife, Peggy, turn a single family-run restaurant into a nearly $7 billion-a-year global chain over five decades. It has also helped propel their net worths to an estimated $6.6 billion collectively.<\/p>\n<h2>How two immigrants turned $60,000 into an empire serving 148 million pounds of orange chicken a year<\/h2>\n<p>Andrew Cherng was born in Yangzhou, China, in 1948. When he was 5, his family fled to Taiwan, and eight years later, they moved again, this time to Japan.<\/p>\n<p>He eventually made his way to the U.S., enrolling at Baker University in Kansas to study mathematics. There, he met his future wife, Peggy, who was Burmese-born and would go on to become his business partner and now serves as Panda Express\u2019 co-CEO. The couple later earned master\u2019s degrees from the University of Missouri.<\/p>\n<div>\n<div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>\u201cEvery holiday I had, I worked in New York, waiting tables in a restaurant,\u201d Andrew recalled to <em>Fortune<\/em> in 2013. \u201cMy father was a chef but hadn\u2019t owned his own business. I didn\u2019t like that. In my heart of hearts, I knew I wanted to be in business.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Peggy went on to pursue her PhD and work a brief career as an engineer for McDonnell Douglas and Comtal (acquired by 3M), while Andrew began pursuing his own path in the restaurant industry. He moved to California to work for his cousin, putting in seven days a week at the restaurant for $800 a month.<\/p>\n<div>\n<div>\n<div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>After a year, Andrew decided to strike out on his own with his parents. Together, the family scraped together $60,000 from savings and a Small Business Administration loan and opened Panda Inn in Pasadena, California, in 1973.<\/p>\n<div>\n<div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>\u201cThe whole family\u2014my parents, a brother and sister\u2014all worked at the restaurant for free,\u201d he recalled. \u201cWe lived in a two-bedroom apartment in San Gabriel and didn\u2019t have any money. Peggy would come to visit, and we got married in 1975.\u201d<\/p>\n<div>\n<div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>The restaurant\u2019s expansion was slow at first, but by 1983, the first Panda Express was opened in a shopping male in Glendale, California, and the concept gradually exploded. In 1985, Panda grew from five locations to nine in a single year.<\/p>\n<p>Today, Panda has more than 2,600 locations around the world and employs over 55,000 people. In 2025 alone, the chain served up 148 million pounds of its signature orange chicken. But perhaps more remarkably, the Cherngs built the empire without ever taking money from outside investors.<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/crosscountrymovingteams.com\/?p=6193\">Current price of Bitcoin for August 28, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n<div>\n<div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<h2>Work-life balance is rejected by many of the world\u2019s top founders<\/h2>\n<p>The Cherngs aren\u2019t the only business leaders who have embraced an all-consuming approach to work\u2014and credited that commitment with helping fuel their success.<\/p>\n<div>\n<div>\n<div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>Nvidia co-founder and CEO Jensen Huang has similarly said that work-life balance is essentially nonexistent for him. Huang is constantly thinking about his chip-making business.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI work from the moment I wake up to the moment I go to sleep. I work seven days a week,\u201d Huang said in a 2024 interview with Stripe CEO Patrick Collison.<\/p>\n<div>\n<div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>That relentless focus has helped transform Nvidia from a computer graphics company first conceived at a Denny\u2019s into one of the world\u2019s most valuable companies, with a market capitalization of more than $5.5 trillion. Huang\u2019s personal net worth is estimated at nearly $190 billion.<\/p>\n<p>Huffington Post founder Arianna Huffington recently echoed that sentiment to <em>Fortune<\/em>, saying that she doesn\u2019t believe people with truly engaging jobs can simply shut their laptops at 5 p.m.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI don\u2019t think there is anybody with an interesting job who can do that,\u201d Huffington said. \u201cFor you, or me, or most people with interesting jobs, there is never a time when you have a natural ending to the day.\u201d<\/p>\n<div>\n<div>\n<div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>The same idea extends beyond core business. Will.i.am, the Grammy Award-winning music artist previously shared with <em>Fortune<\/em> that if Gen Z want to aspire for success, they should forget about work-life balance.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf you\u2019re trying to build something that doesn\u2019t exist, it\u2019s about dream-reality balance,\u201d he said. \u201cWork-life balance means that you\u2019re working for somebody else\u2019s dream. You just have a job supporting somebody else\u2019s dream, and you want to balance your work and your life.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBut if it\u2019s dream-reality balance, then it\u2019s not work,\u201d Will.i.am added. \u201cIt\u2019s a dream that you\u2019re trying to put into reality, and you\u2019re ignoring your current reality.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/crosscountrymovingteams.com\/?p=6191\">Trump looks at Republican midterm hopes and has a message for voters: \u2018Pretend, please, that I\u2019m on the ballot\u2019<\/a><\/p>\n<div>\n<div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Panda Express billionaire Andrew Cherng says hard work\u2014not work-life balance\u2014helped build his and his wife\u2019s $7 billion orange chicken empire.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6196,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6197","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-careers"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.7 - 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