I come to bury Burning Man, not to praise it, but this précis of the San Francisco zeitgeist is so bleak. sfstandard.com/2025/08/30/b...
![Daksh Gupta, the 23-year-old cofounder of AI code review Greptile, said Burning Man hasn’t really been part of the zeitgeist since he moved to San Francisco in 2023. Gupta, who has become a poster child of AI boom’s grindcore culture, summarized the current mood among young tech workers in San Francisco as incompatible with the Burner sensibility: “The current vibe is no drinking, no drugs, 9-9-6 [work from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., six days a week], lift heavy, run far, marry early, track sleep, eat steak and eggs.”](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:ty2kxmxjmtealqi2kc7f4pww/bafkreiamigsnbq4fnkrnvs52ayxvdq7375n3ps2qyd75rtnhavvkr2avwy@jpeg)
Replies
He's lived here for two years spent most of his waking hours working and he thinks he has a fucking clue about the San Francisco zeitgeist? I enjoy buying giant TVs and expensive furniture dirt cheap from every new crop of these tech bro ass clowns who have to pack a U-Haul when their bubble bursts.
sep 3, 2025, 2:09 am • 11 0 • view
It stands out to me that one of the things he lists is “marry early.” Because if you’re going to work 72 hours a week and never be home, you’re going to need someone to do all the things to maintain your life without having to show them attention because they’re legally obligated to you now.
sep 3, 2025, 12:17 am • 140 6 • view
marry early become online divorced dad early
sep 3, 2025, 12:41 am • 15 1 • view
Cheaper than a personal assistant!
sep 3, 2025, 12:30 am • 8 0 • view
i would definitely advise young women especially to never marry somebody who would voluntarily work 9-9-6
sep 3, 2025, 12:42 am • 59 1 • view
Or young men
sep 3, 2025, 1:21 am • 15 0 • view
My dad was a workaholic, still is. Don’t have a very close relationship with him. Not tryna be like that high-key
sep 3, 2025, 5:15 pm • 0 0 • view
These kids are all high on the fumes of fitness/wellness influences from tiktok and instagram. Crazy to read about a real example of a person who thinks the healthiest diet imaginable is just steak & eggs eaten directly off a wooden cutting board.
sep 3, 2025, 5:27 pm • 7 0 • view
1. He already assumed all the tech workers are men 2. Since they don't do anything fun, they need wives to satisfy their "needs".
sep 4, 2025, 12:50 am • 0 0 • view
But the more salient question is, if you're going to work 72 hours a week, where are you expecting to locate a wife?
sep 3, 2025, 6:11 pm • 1 0 • view
That's just pathetic
sep 3, 2025, 12:51 am • 1 0 • view
That fuckin fool doesn’t realize that his kind was the exact reason for its downfall.
sep 3, 2025, 1:53 am • 1 0 • view
Why would you want to marry somebody who was working 9-9-6?
sep 3, 2025, 1:32 am • 13 0 • view
well probably a blessing not to spend too much time with the person described
sep 3, 2025, 1:33 am • 1 0 • view
Dudes 23 in a start up. No paycheck guaranteed. A year ago, green card would be my guess. Now, no good reason
sep 3, 2025, 3:00 am • 6 0 • view
Unless what you were looking for was a sperm donor and sizeable paycheck with minimal interaction with the man providing both.
sep 3, 2025, 1:41 am • 4 0 • view
Yeah, but if you've lived in Silicon Valley for more than, let's say, six months, you should be well aware that marrying a guy with a startup is not a guarantee of riches; he might go bust, and there you are with no relationship and no money.
sep 3, 2025, 2:37 am • 9 0 • view
No relationship is the good outcome. At least that means escape.
sep 3, 2025, 4:04 am • 3 0 • view
Given that startups are somewhat famously a hits business, he almost certainly *will* go bust, and, well
sep 3, 2025, 4:01 am • 1 0 • view
Been there, debugging my life choices since 2018.
sep 3, 2025, 3:17 am • 6 0 • view
Especially annoyed at the appropriation of the word grindcore.
sep 3, 2025, 1:17 am • 21 0 • view
Yeah, the correct term is grindset. The writer comes across as someone who would be unfamiliar with grindcore.
sep 3, 2025, 1:20 am • 11 0 • view
I myself have become a poster child of the AI boom’s sludgemetal culture.
sep 3, 2025, 2:25 am • 3 0 • view
What really kills me about these dorks working 80 hour weeks with barely a weekend is they're not creating anything remotely cool or revolutionary. Is some enterprise tool that makes code reviews faster really worth all of this?
sep 3, 2025, 1:07 am • 17 0 • view
One consequence of them working all the time is I never see or really even hear them.
sep 3, 2025, 7:18 pm • 5 0 • view
Correct, it also kind of definitional prevents this from being the “San Francisco zeitgeist”
sep 3, 2025, 8:28 pm • 1 0 • view
There are so very, very many San Francisco zeitgeisten. Some people believe there are no children here, for instance. There are, but you won't notice unless you have one.
sep 3, 2025, 8:34 pm • 2 0 • view
Man, I believed a lot of stupid things when I was in my 20s in San Francisco, but I never believed anything this fucking stupid.
sep 3, 2025, 12:23 am • 49 0 • view
Same
sep 3, 2025, 2:41 am • 0 0 • view
Working like that on art is fine. Working like that with your friends for a few weeks on a passion project, is fine. The second money is involved—WTAF is wrong with these people?!?!! I do love to lift heavy, though.
sep 3, 2025, 12:45 am • 11 0 • view
Genuinely the only thing in that list I agree with is steak and eggs.
sep 3, 2025, 12:46 am • 5 0 • view
I too like steak and eggs, but I’m concerned if that’s *all* they eat
sep 3, 2025, 12:49 am • 3 0 • view
I do sometimes miss what the kids are calling 9-9-6, but on huge Burning Man projects for friends scrambling, or on SRL projects. Something I honestly loved about the Bay Area. Yeah, we did work like that in masses—but on art. It was dangerous, stupid, but the community was real and we loved it.
sep 3, 2025, 12:51 am • 10 0 • view
Yeah, I mean, I am now a farmer, which means I work all the time. Hard work is great. Hard work “grinding” for some asshole tech company is something else entirely. Anyway, we agree.
sep 3, 2025, 12:54 am • 10 0 • view
And from your profile pic you are immeasurably richer than the grind core jerkoffs will ever attain before they die at age 29 from self inflicted work practices . Congrats to you finding your path and your joy and your hard work all in one. All for purpose. 🙏🏽
sep 3, 2025, 1:04 am • 3 0 • view
If you actually have some small but real chance of having your equity blow up into “fuck you money” and are young, grinding like that for a few years is totally fine. Plenty of people lose that time to finding out they have substance abuse issues, at least this way you get some 401k contributions.
sep 3, 2025, 8:31 pm • 0 0 • view
that's 100% the kind of guy who goes on reddit posting about how he can't get laid and seeing "inferior men" with women drives him insane
sep 3, 2025, 1:54 am • 7 0 • view
Yep. Definite incel vibes.
sep 3, 2025, 4:06 am • 0 0 • view
996, worse than 666.
sep 3, 2025, 7:23 am • 1 0 • view
Until I realised they were misusing the term I got very excited about a rise in grindcore culture, but sadly this doesn’t mean that everybody in SF is listening Napalm Death
sep 3, 2025, 11:16 am • 11 1 • view
That would be such an improvement!
sep 3, 2025, 8:21 pm • 1 0 • view
My main memories of San Francisco are visiting friends, walking up the most ridiculous hills, and drinking far too much but it was OK because I was younger and invincible. The SF they're describing sounds wretched and un-fun.
sep 3, 2025, 12:55 am • 10 0 • view
There's still fun to be had here. Affordability is the core issue.
sep 3, 2025, 1:04 am • 5 0 • view
Erika read the post - there's no fun in the 9-9-6 marry young grindcore red pill fantasy he's cooked up. And the only marry young he'll be doing is if it's arranged. These are the ravings of an incel.
sep 3, 2025, 1:55 pm • 3 0 • view
Has always been.
sep 4, 2025, 3:23 am • 0 0 • view
They're describing one particular industry, and bulk of that industry is not even in SF but south on along the Peninsula.
sep 4, 2025, 3:23 am • 0 0 • view
Christ that sounds awful.
sep 3, 2025, 6:25 pm • 1 0 • view
I find it really funny that he thinks he can diagnose the zeitgeist of a place two years after moving there and pursuing a maximalist work schedule the whole time
sep 3, 2025, 12:37 am • 44 0 • view
bigger problem is he's basically accurate to the influential class of the city
sep 3, 2025, 12:37 am • 7 0 • view
Wow, somehow it’s gotten worse since I left
sep 3, 2025, 12:20 am • 4 0 • view
Fuck 9-9-6
sep 3, 2025, 12:50 am • 7 0 • view
“Marry early…eat meat and eggs, heart attack early…”
sep 3, 2025, 6:12 pm • 1 0 • view
... why the fuck are we importing the 996 thing from China?
sep 3, 2025, 12:11 am • 8 0 • view
Because VCs and money
sep 3, 2025, 12:17 am • 15 0 • view
Also because of survivor bias. The only people who say 996 works are the ones who benefit from it, directly or indirectly.
sep 3, 2025, 12:21 am • 19 0 • view
As with everything about the present moment, notice that it’s more about the aesthetic than the results
sep 3, 2025, 12:22 am • 12 0 • view
Also my understanding is that the AI labs, who as the current poster children for the valley are currently setting a lot of culture in the valley, are very much working these kinds of hours and so that trickles down
sep 3, 2025, 12:23 am • 1 0 • view
Driven both by “scale wins, we have to go as fast as possible” (versus our competitors, US and otherwise) and “we have to beat China specifically” (who are doing 9-9-6)
sep 3, 2025, 12:25 am • 1 0 • view
Except that scale isn’t winning right now, and the rollouts get progressively worse in ways that remind me a lot of sleep-deprived presentations i gave in undergrad combined with ready access to a lying machine. But i digress
sep 3, 2025, 12:26 am • 5 0 • view
Because we don't have unions anymore
sep 3, 2025, 12:59 am • 5 0 • view
Respectfully, I don’t give a shit about what a 23 year old trust find baby thinks.
sep 3, 2025, 8:19 pm • 2 0 • view
This is all comical to me bc my first thought was that the an-cap Libertarians are fighting amongst themselves. Who goes to Burning Man? A middle aged Randroid who wants to see the Orgy Dome and say he regrets society existing? Then this loser like I work 9-9 for the magical hand of the free market.
sep 3, 2025, 7:40 am • 0 0 • view
Burning Man sucks, but that guy is so much worse.
sep 3, 2025, 1:12 am • 12 0 • view
Two sides of the same obnoxious Libertarian coin.
sep 3, 2025, 7:40 am • 2 0 • view