Startup founder’s sudden death prompts debate about China’s working culture

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China’s startup community is massive, and deaths are not uncommon. But the death of healthcare Q&A startup Chunyu Yisheng’s founder Zhang Rui earlier this month has gotten the attention of China’s tech community. Zhang, who was only 44, died of a heart attack, and many have speculated that stress from working on his startup was the ultimate cause. The discussion about China’s working culture that followed his passing has become front-page news on China’s tech portals.

To be clear, there’s no real evidence that Zhang’s heart attack was caused by work-related stress or being overworked. But his death nevertheless has led to a debate about China’s pedal-to-the-metal working culture. As one popular comment on Tencent Tech put it: “Got money, lost life. That’s China in a nutshell.”

What’s wrong with work in China

Having read through comment threads on several different articles, it seems to me that there are three main arguments being made.

One group of commenters is suggesting that China’s working culture has become all-consuming, requiring 70- or 80-hour work weeks just to keep up (especially in startups). Numerous commenters have pointed out that China’s older generation grew up working hard in the fields but seems to have enjoyed a much healthier work/life balance.

Another group of commenters is arguing that it’s not so much the hours themselves as it is the psychological obsession many people, especially startup founders, have with their jobs. They spend all of their time thinking about work, and none of their time thinking about their own health. “Pay attention to your body” is a common admonition in Chinese for people who seem to be neglecting their own health, and many comments suggested that startup founders and employees often get so focused that they stop paying attention.

Science suggests those insane work hours aren’t actually accomplishing anything.

Finally and most interestingly, there’s a group of commenters arguing that this tendency to work intensely and to put up with intense pressure is just an innate aspect of Chinese culture. This argument is well exemplified by a very popular Tencent Tech comment that, responding to a claim that China’s working culture needed to be rethought, replied: “Rethink? What is there to rethink? China is like this regardless of whatever school or industry you’re in […] From ancient times and up through the present, Chinese people have been peaceful and numb. It’s an innate ethnic characteristic. As long as we haven’t been killed, we will endure. And really there’s nothing wrong with that.”

It’s debatable whether Chinese business people in ancient times were pulling 80-hour work weeks, but there’s no doubt that the ability to endure suffering – called ren in Chinese – has long been considered a virtue in the Middle Kingdom.

The truth about “working hard”

Obviously, China’s work culture isn’t going to change overnight, and neither is the more global startup culture that also puts a premium on working long hours and making extreme personal sacrifices in the name of potential business success. But whether you’re a Chinese startup founder or a mid-level manager at some global conglomerate, it is definitely worth considering Zhang Rui’s case and re-assessing your own work habits.

And if Zhang Rui isn’t enough, consider that the weight of science suggests those insane work hours you’re keeping aren’t actually accomplishing anything. Studies have shown that working 80-hour weeks doesn’t actually make you any more productive than those working fewer hours. Plus, working all those extra hours leads to a variety of serious health problems, impairs your judgement and emotional abilities, and hurts your ability to see the bigger picture.

Also worth noting: while there are some people who really do function well without adequate sleep, you’re probably not one of them. Just one to three percent of the population has the ability to sleep just five or six hours a night without seeing a corresponding drop-off in performance. The Harvard Business Review says that for every 100 people who think they work well even on low sleep, only five are actually correct.

It almost sounds too good to be true, but it is nevertheless true: if you worked less and slept more, you’d probably be more, not less, productive at work. That’s a lesson that startups everywhere should consider carefully.

This post Startup founder’s sudden death prompts debate about China’s working culture appeared first on Tech in Asia.

from Tech in Asia https://www.techinasia.com/startup-founders-sudden-death-prompts-debate-chinas-working-culture
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