{
  "id": 3987121,
  "title": "Billionaire Panda Express co-CEO says he never got burned out—even after years of working 12-hour days: ‘That’s life’",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/08/28/billionaire-panda-express-co-ceo-says-he-never-got-burned-out-even",
  "topic": "finance",
  "section": "Finance & Markets",
  "published": "2026-08-28T14:59:36.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "Fortune",
    "slug": "fortune",
    "url": "https://fortune.com/2026/08/28/panda-express-cofounder-andrew-cherng-work-life-balance-hard-work-created-seven-billion-dollar-asian-american-chain-career-success/"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "Panda Express co-founder Andrew Cherng, now 78, has never experienced burnout despite working 12-hour days for years. \"It was hard when I had no business, there was no income,\" he said, \"but even then, I wasn’t burned out because, you just work, go to work, and if you have a 12-hour day, you go home, you sleep well—I mean that’s life.\" Cherng and his wife Peggy, a former engineer, built the chain from a single family restaurant into a global empire worth an estimated $6.6 billion. Cherng, born in China and raised in Taiwan, Japan, and the U.S., opened Panda Inn in 1973 with $60,000 in savings and a SBA loan. Today, Panda Express has over 2,600 locations worldwide and employs more than 55,000 people.",
  "summary": "Panda Express billionaire Andrew Cherng says hard work—not work-life balance—helped build his and his wife’s $7 billion orange chicken empire.",
  "key_points": [],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}