Do they do any research to prove 996 is really effective? I have a hard time imagining how one could stay productive for long in such working mode.
Sometimes I have some hard deadlines (like a lot of other developers I guess) that requires to work 10-12 hours/day to get things done in time, but that usually lasts for a week, maybe two. And it's _already_ very exhausting. I'm wondering how exhausting it could be to work in such mode all the time...
I think it works when you are copying things with lots of entry level developers at low cost, like most companies do. You know, they will find something that's working great in America and Europe and copy the whole thing very fast and launch new ones. This is how you guys have Google, we have Baidu; you have Uber, we have Didi; you have Periscope, we have over 100 mobile video live apps, etc.. But if you are inventing things, this won't work at all. I think this is one of the major reason why we lack of innovative products all these years.
This is a very common practice throughout the industry since about 2-3 years ago, and it's a very sad story every time I tell it.
Under this circumstances, I think hobby, family and every other thing that's not related to work is humanly possible. I curse the ones who started this for a long time in hell.