“Salute the strivers”: China’s Internet giant founders and the discursive construction of overwork

Abstract

Scholarly inquiry into labor issues in the digital industry has primarily centered on workers, with less attention devoted to employers, or entrepreneurs. Turning the scrutiny toward tech entrepreneurs, this article reports the results from a critical discourse analysis of how China’s Internet giant founders are participating in the construction of a long-hours culture through discourse practices. It uncovers that the default assumptions related to tech work, tech workers, and tech firms are carefully designed, taught, and cultivated by tech founders to sustain the exploitative and unsustainable mode of technical production. Situated at the historical juncture of China’s “great reversal” since late 2020, this research examines the dynamic and uneven triangular relationship among the state, entrepreneurs, and workers in technical production. It enriches the analysis of entrepreneurial discourse in the digital industry beyond the Euro-American context and reflects on entrepreneurs’ ambivalent power in late-developing nations.