Updated
Updated · Business Insider · Aug 17
Business Insider Tracks 3 Young Startup Founders' Sleep Over 4 Days as Silicon Valley Splits on Rest
Updated
Updated · Business Insider · Aug 17

Business Insider Tracks 3 Young Startup Founders' Sleep Over 4 Days as Silicon Valley Splits on Rest

2 articles · Updated · Business Insider · Aug 17

Summary

  • Four days of sleep logs from three young founders showed sharply different routines, from AI founder Lance Yan’s 3-hour night to ed-tech cofounder Kavitta Ghai’s steady 7-plus hours.
  • The tracking underscored Silicon Valley’s split between biohackers who treat sleep as performance fuel and hustlers who work through the night on 996-style schedules.
  • Yan, 19, said he often gets only 5 to 6 hours, works late and doomscrolls in bed; his diary ranged from 3 to 6.5 hours and he linked poor sleep to skipped meals and low water intake.
  • Ghai, 29, refuses all-nighters and structures work around a 3 a.m. bedtime and 11 a.m. meeting start, while Boris Skurikhin, 26, also protected sleep, logging roughly 7 to 8.7 hours despite late-night videos.
  • Together, the diaries suggest young founders are not converging on one sleep model: some still grind through exhaustion, while others build schedules and workplaces around rest.

Insights

Is the ultimate startup flex now about how much you sleep rather than how long you stay awake?
Do venture capitalists secretly prefer funding the sleep-deprived hustler over the well-rested biohacker?