Jeffrey Wang didn’t anticipate the post going popular when he asked if anyone wanted to place an order for elegant but reasonably priced office nap pods on X on Monday. He claimed he could have ordered over 100 units because so many others wanted in.
According to Wang, cofounder of AI research startup Exa Labs, “I had way too many people than I could handle,” she told TechCrunch. “I wanted to get two nap pods so we could try them out for ourselves. I had about 100 requests.
Not only did the post appeal to other X users who wished they could take naps at work. There were jokes made about how unhygienic it is to share a bed with coworkers. “The last thing I want to do is share bedsheets with my software developer coworkers,” was the response from one person.
Many praised the concept of office napping altogether or the unique qualities of these sleep pods. Another said, “Every modern office should have one; it’s no different than napping on a fifteen-hour flight—some tasks require the better inference that rest brings you, [sic].”
A few raised the more straightforward query. Why would an employer want employees to stay awake at work rather than go home? Alternatively stated by a post respondent: “Nothing is
The answer is simple: Silicon Valley startup hustle culture is back, especially in Cerebral Valley, the Hayes Valley neighborhood of San Francisco that’s filled with early-stage AI startups, often founded and staffed with 20-somethings who make their companies their whole lives. Hustle culture went out of favor in the post pandemic years, when people had moved away from both their offices and San Francisco.
But Hacker houses in San Francisco are popular again. And Cerebral Valley is its own cultural phenom, where those who believe in the future of AI (or fear it) live in such houses and go the same parties
Given Exa Labs’ background as a hacker house, the company’s requirement for nap pods makes logical. Up until a few weeks ago, Exa, a 10-person startup, was housed in a similar building where employees of small businesses share a residence and work together.
We operated out of our home, just like plenty of other companies in that vicinity. We turned two bedrooms into a large office,” Wang remarked, noting that everyone shared a workspace, socialized, and shared meals. “And that grew to about nine folks.”
Hence, rather of perpetuating the notion that “employees are slaves,” he argued, the nap pods preserve workers’ freedom to quit working and go to bed.
We live in a world where restful sleep isn’t always guaranteed. Even if you give it top priority, occasionally a founder, startup life requires an all-in commitment.
“Life at a startup is not for everyone.” “My co-founder and I went to Harvard and had some really, really difficult and demanding semesters,” he remarked. But you know, this is something else entirely. It’s far harder than I ever imagined to launch a business.
The startup, which graduated from Y Combinator, trains LLM models to do searches when they need to access the internet or other data sources. About 100 paying customers and tens of thousands of developers—from researchers and AI laboratories to other AI startups—are using the offering, according to Wang.
Exa Labs employees have shares and are “well paid,” according to Wang. According to him, the company’s philosophy is “if you’re not in, you’re out.” Perhaps at some startups,
“Life at a startup is not for everyone.” “My co-founder and I went to Harvard and had some really, really difficult and demanding semesters,” he remarked. But you know, this is something else entirely. It’s far harder than I ever imagined to launch a business.
The startup, which graduated from Y Combinator, trains LLM models to do searches when they need to access the internet or other data sources. About 100 paying customers and tens of thousands of developers—from researchers and AI laboratories to other AI startups—are using the offering, according to Wang.
Exa Labs employees have shares and are “well paid,” according to Wang. According to him, the company’s philosophy is “if you’re not in, you’re out.” Perhaps at some startups,
