Work-life balance has become the holy grail of modern employment. It’s the non-negotiable perk that trumps salary and title—with Gen Z and millennial workers willing to walk away from jobs that don’t deliver it in abundance.
But what if instead of walking out on jobs that don’t provide balance, they should leave the jobs that make them crave it instead? That’s because, according to Lucy Guo, the 30-year-old billionaire cofounder of Scale AI, the need to clock off at 5 p.m. on the dot to unwind might signal that you’re in the wrong job altogether.
Guo, who dropped out of college and built her fortune in the tech industry, says her grueling daily schedule—waking up at 5:30 am and working until midnight—doesn’t feel like work to her at all.
“I probably don’t have work-life balance,” Guo tells Fortune. “For me, work doesn’t really feel like work. I love doing my job.”
“I would say that if you feel the need for work-life balance, maybe you’re not in the right work.”
That doesn’t mean she’s completely ignorant to life outside the office.
The uber successful millennial, just dethroned Taylor Swift as the youngest self-made woman on the planet, according to Forbes’ latest rankings. The 5% stake she held on to when she left her post at Scale AI is now worth an estimated $1.2 billion. Now, she’s busy running another venture, the creator community platform Passes.
Yet even when working “90-hour workweeks,” she says she still finds “one to two hours” to squeeze in family and friends. “You should always find time for that, regardless of how busy you are.”
That, she suggests, is about making time for life—not running from your work.
Lucy Guo’s daily routine
5:30 a.m.: Wake up
On the morning of our interview in London, LA-based Guo says was up all night: “I’m so jet lagged.” But she typically wakes up at around 5:30 and does two to three high-intensity workouts at Barry’s every day.
9 a.m. onwards: In the office
“Every day looks very different,” Guo says. “Some days, I am doing more marketing pushes. I’m talking to our PR, I’m doing podcasts, etc. Other days I am more product-focused… Reviewing designs, giving user experience feedback.”
She has her daily black coffee hit and lunch al desko.
Midnight: Bedtime
The founder says she’s typically working until 12 a.m.—when she finally will shut the laptop and go to sleep.
The thing keeping her up so late? Keeping a beady eye on the customer support inbox. She gives her team just five minutes to respond to their customers before responding to them herself.
“Having that white glove customer service is what makes startups stand out from big tech,” Guo explains. “While you have less customers, it’s very possible for the CEO to answer everything which makes people more loyal. It’s impossible for like the Uber CEO to do this nowadays. So that’s the kind of mentality I have.”
“If you want to grow, your reputation is everything, and the best thing you do for your reputation is, offering the best, support to your customers. So I’m constantly doing that.”
Founders and CEOs are bringing China’s 996 to the West
While Guo’s routine may sound extreme to the regular worker, for founders, it’s the new norm. Entrepreneurs have been taking to LinkedIn and claiming that the only way to succeed in the current climate is by copying China’s 996 model. That is, working 9 am to 9 pm, six days a week.
Harry Stebbings, founder of the 20VC fund, ignited the latest debate at the start of the month when he said Silicon Valley had “turned up the intensity,” and European founders needed to take notice.
“7 days a week is the required velocity to win right now. There is no room for slip up,” Stebbings wrote on LinkedIn. “You aren’t competing against random company in Germany etc but the best in the world.”
“Forget 9 to 5, 996 is the new startup standard,” Martin Mignot, partner at Index Ventures echoed on the networking platform.
“Back in 2018, Michael Moritz introduced the West to China’s “996” work schedule… At the time, the piece was controversial. Now? That same schedule has quietly become the norm across tech,” Mignot added. “And founders are no longer apologizing for it.”
But it’s not just startup chiefs that are having to put in overtime to get ahead, CEOs admitted to Fortune at our recent Most Powerful Women Summit in Riyadh that they work well beyond the 40-hour benchmark.
“I don’t know that I finish work psychologically,” Leah Cotterill CEO of Cigna Healthcare Middle East and Africa revealed, adding that she fully immerses herself into work all day and night “Monday through Thursday” but tries to “ease that off” on Friday for the weekend.
Others put a number on the hours they work, from up to 12 a day to 80 a week.
But like Guo, many said they do it—not in reaction to the current market conditions, but because they’re passionate about what they do. “I’m always working 24/7 I’m a workaholic, so I don’t stop working because I enjoy what I do,” Princess Noura bint Faisal Al Saud, Culture House’s CEO added.
And the next generation of workers probably needs to take note. Unfortunately for work-life balance-loving young people, experts have stressed that 40-hour workweeks aren’t enough if they want to climb the corporate ladder. In a leaked memo to Google’s AI workers, Sergey Brin suggested that 60 hours a week is the ‘sweet spot’.
