I worked as a software engineer Amazon for my first job, and had a lot of Chinese coworkers, some of whom told me about the 996 culture in Chinese tech companies. It became obvious, in the end, why so many of Amazon's Australian software engineers were from China - they expected long hours, but not 72 hours a week, so for the Chinese engineers, it was like a holiday. Since they couldn't legally demand I work a ton of overtime, I dealt with this by simply not doing it. Eventually I was put on a performance improvement plan for failing to meet deadlines, so I jumped ship to a government job. Now I work 35-hour weeks and get flex days so I work 9-day fortnights. I went from the worst member of the team to a star performer once I was working the same hours as everyone else. I took a pay cut, but it was totally worth it - I still have more money than I can spend, and it only pushed back my retirement date by a year or two. Now I exercise more, learn life skills, contemplate my place in the world, cook more, and have time to spend with wonderful people that enrich my life. Best decision I ever made. I wouldn't work for a company like Tiktok either, even if they offered me twice what I'm making now.