> Labeling people who demand reasonable work-life balance as "slackers" or lazy is utterly disgusting.
Worth clarifying that the "slackers" comment came from JD.com's founder Richard Liu, not Jack Ma.
edit: removed comments on whether he endorses it or not since it seems like there are contradicting statements from him. My current impression is that he disagrees with forced overtime but wants his employees to work similar hours voluntarily (although I suspect this is a common sentiment among business execs).
I actually read Jack Ma's initial memo on this matter in Chinese. His stance was pretty clear that he endorses 996. He later "clarified" that he disagrees with this sentiment after people became enraged by his words.
"My current impression is that he disagrees with forced overtime but wants his employees to work similar hours voluntarily"
If your boss says they want you to work overtime 'voluntarily', what do you do? Doesn't sound very voluntary, and middle managers actually doing the enforcement aren't going to treat it like that, especially when they get targets.
Worth clarifying that the "slackers" comment came from JD.com's founder Richard Liu, not Jack Ma.
edit: removed comments on whether he endorses it or not since it seems like there are contradicting statements from him. My current impression is that he disagrees with forced overtime but wants his employees to work similar hours voluntarily (although I suspect this is a common sentiment among business execs).