When Jeffrey Wang posted on X on Monday asking if anyone wanted to join in on purchasing affordable yet luxurious office nap pods, he didn’t anticipate the post going viral. According to Wang, the demand was so high that he could have ordered over 100 units.
“I had way too many people than I could handle,” said Wang, cofounder of AI research startup Exa Labs, in an interview with Truth Voices. “I wanted to order two nap pods for ourselves to see how they turned out. I had 100-plus demand.”
I'm buying Japanese capsule beds as nap pods for our new SF office. If you want to bulk order with me, they should be something like $1000/bed.
Please DM me if interested!
Comparable products sold in the US cost like $15K pic.twitter.com/eker5y4LfZ
— Jeffrey Wang (@wangzjeff) May 13, 2024
Wang’s original tweet read: “I’m buying Japanese capsule beds as nap pods for our new SF office. If you want to bulk order with me, they should be something like $1000/bed. Please DM me if interested! Comparable products sold in the US cost like $15K.”
The post resonated with many X users who fancied the idea of napping at work. Yet, it also sparked conversations about the hygiene of communal beds in an office setting. One user remarked, “The last thing I want to do is share bedsheets with my software developer coworkers.”
Many users admired the unique features of these nap pods and supported the concept of office napping. As one user commented, “every modern office should have one no different than napping on a 15 hour flight some tasks require the better inference that rem sleep gets you [sic].”
However, some questioned the logic behind expecting employees to sleep at work rather than going home. One responder pointed out, “Nothing is a bigger red flag that [sic] a potential employer showing off their ‘nap pods.’ I’d be outta there.”
The resurgence of Silicon Valley startup hustle culture offers an explanation. This culture is especially prevalent in Cerebral Valley, a San Francisco neighborhood home to numerous early-stage AI startups staffed by young professionals deeply dedicated to their work. During the post-pandemic years, hustle culture waned as people moved away from offices and San Francisco.
However, hacker houses in San Francisco are now gaining popularity once again. Cerebral Valley has become a cultural phenomenon, where AI enthusiasts and skeptics alike live in these houses and attend the same social events.
For Exa Labs, the decision to get nap pods follows naturally from its roots in a hacker house. The startup, which has a team of 10, operated out of a house until recently, where two bedrooms were converted into a communal office space for up to nine people.
“We worked out of our house, converted two bedrooms into a big office, and everyone worked, hung out, and ate together,” Wang recalled.
In Wang’s view, nap pods allow employees to take necessary breaks for rest, rather than implying that “employees are slaves.” He emphasized, “We live in a world where you don’t always get perfect sleep. As much as you prioritize it, sometimes you get a bad night. If people are tired, they should be able to take a nap. Sleep is basic for productivity.”
Wang also acknowledged that startup life demands a significant commitment. “Startup life is not for everyone. My co-founder and I went to Harvard and experienced really, really hard grueling semesters,” Wang said. “But this startup thing is, like, way harder than I ever anticipated.”
Exa Labs, a Y Combinator graduate, specializes in training LLM models for search functions requiring data or internet access. It currently serves around 100 paying customers and tens of thousands of developers, from other AI startups to researchers and AI labs.
Wang mentioned that employees at Exa Labs are well-compensated and hold equity in the company. “If you’re not in, you’re out,” he stated. “Maybe at some startups, it’s okay for the company to not be your main priority in life, but definitely not at a high-growth one.”
This translates into long working hours and, if not living at the office, at least napping there. As the saying goes, “Code, sleep, repeat.”
Reflecting on hustle culture in growing startups, it often needs to be reined in as the company scales. At a certain point, what may appear as hustle culture becomes poor project and employee management.
Wang assured that cleanliness in Exa’s nap pods wouldn’t be an issue. “We had a toga party to celebrate a rebrand and we bought 30-40 sheets. We have plenty of sheets,” he said.
