--- title: Elena’s Growth Scoop | daily.dev description: AI companies increasingly treat '996' (9am to 9pm, six days a week) as a badge of honor, and Elena Verna, who works at Lovable, says she refuses to do it. She... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/elena-s-growth-scoop-puiwvyp6e twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: Elena’s Growth Scoop | daily.dev og:description: AI companies increasingly treat '996' (9am to 9pm, six days a week) as a badge of honor, and Elena Verna, who works at Lovable, says she refuses to do it. She... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/elena-s-growth-scoop-puiwvyp6e og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/pUIWvyP6e.png og:image:alt: Elena’s Growth Scoop og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Elena’s Growth Scoop **[Elena's Growth Scoop](https://daily.dev/sources/elenaverna)** · 16 min read · 1 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary AI companies increasingly treat '996' (9am to 9pm, six days a week) as a badge of honor, and Elena Verna, who works at Lovable, says she refuses to do it. She argues 996 doesn't create competitive advantage, it just borrows against employees' future health and relationships. Despite Lovable's fast pace, she keeps nights and weekends for her kids and gym. She offers three principles: stop chasing perfect work-life balance, use a '5-year regret test' to weigh decisions, and state boundaries out loud instead of hiding them. She also argues leaders set real norms through their own behavior, not policy documents. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Questions this post answers ### What is '996' work culture and why is it becoming common at AI companies? 996 means working 9am to 9pm, six days a week. It is increasingly worn as a badge of honor at AI companies, where competitive pressure and compressed timelines push people to treat long hours as a proxy for ambition and commitment, even though it mainly represents borrowing against employees' future health and relationships rather than a real competitive advantage. _Developers weighing an AI company's culture before joining can compare takes like this on daily.dev._ ### How can I decide between a work commitment and a personal obligation when both feel urgent? Use a '5-year regret test': mentally step outside the immediate situation and ask which choice you're more likely to regret in five years. Work is good at manufacturing urgency through deadlines and rewards, while personal moments like a kid's soccer game feel postponable but often aren't; most work emergencies stop feeling urgent the moment you leave the room. _Anyone navigating ambition versus burnout can find more perspectives like this through daily.dev._ ### Does enforcing personal boundaries at work hurt your career or make you a worse employee? No, having outside constraints can make someone a better operator, not a worse one. A hard stop time, like needing to leave at 5:30, forces faster prioritization of which meetings matter and what can be delegated, since unlimited availability removes the discipline that real limits create. _Engineers balancing career growth with personal limits can track more takes like this via daily.dev._ ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [Never Enough](https://daily.dev/posts/never-enough-caehjh2lo) · Hacker News · 1 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#career](https://daily.dev/tags/career), [#company-culture](https://daily.dev/tags/company-culture), [#work-life-balance](https://daily.dev/tags/work-life-balance), [#lovable](https://daily.dev/tags/lovable) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/elena-s-growth-scoop-puiwvyp6e) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"Elena’s Growth Scoop","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/elena-s-growth-scoop-puiwvyp6e","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/elena-s-growth-scoop-puiwvyp6e"},"datePublished":"2026-10-22T19:28:13.749Z","dateModified":"2026-10-22T21:13:50.240Z","description":"AI companies increasingly treat '996' (9am to 9pm, six days a week) as a badge of honor, and Elena Verna, who works at Lovable, says she refuses to do it. 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