Some AI startups in Silicon Valley are taking hustle culture to a whole new level, openly embracing six- and even seven-day workweeks as part of their company culture.
Arrowster, an AI education startup helping students apply to study abroad, is one of the companies that doesn’t hold back.
A job listing from the company warns: “This role isn’t for everyone. It’s almost for no one.”
Arrowster CEO Kenneth Chong says long hours are just part of the deal.
“There is no way to sugarcoat it. At startups, you work extremely hard,” Chong told Forbes.
He compares the commitment to being an athlete: “Not everyone wants to be an athlete. And if you do, then you chose that life.”
Chong, who leads a five-person team spread between the U.S. and Vietnam, believes the traditional workweek doesn’t make much sense.
“Why is a week seven days? If you think about it, there’s no logical reason,” he said.
Instead of waiting for weekends to rest, Chong supports intense sprints followed by short naps or breaks.
A Growing Trend
Arrowster isn’t alone. Corgi, a Y Combinator-backed insurance startup, also lays out its seven-day expectations clearly.
“We work seven days a week in our SF office because we believe in pushing boundaries and getting things done,” wrote Corgi’s Josh Jung in a recent LinkedIn post.
Then there’s Mercor, a recruitment startup that raised $100 million and offers a $10,000 housing bonus for living close to its San Francisco office.
While the company used to run seven days a week, it now takes Sundays off.
“But ideally we hold onto it as much as possible,” CEO Brendan Foody said.
Six-day schedules are also common at startups like Latchbio, Autotab and Decagon.
At Decagon, which builds AI agents for customer calls, about a third of the 80-person team shows up on Sundays voluntarily.
“There’s really no such thing as a rocket ship that doesn’t have a certain level of intensity to fuel itself,” Decagon cofounder Jesse Zhang told Forbes.
Intensity as a Recruiting Tool
Some founders say the demanding culture helps attract the right people.
Autotab cofounder Jonas Nelle said that the six-day workweek helps the startup identify candidates who are serious about its mission and willing to commit fully during what he called a crucial window of opportunity.
He added, “This is a very unique moment in time that warrants sacrificing some of the things to have more of focus in the short term.”
Daksh Gupta, cofounder of AI code review startup Greptile, went viral last year after posting that his company offered “no work-life balance” and a six-day minimum schedule.
“My inbox is 20% death threats and 80% job applications,” he posted afterward.
Legal and Burnout Risks
Long hours are legal in most cases, especially for salaried employees exempt from overtime laws.
Catherine Fisk, a labor law professor at the University of California, Berkeley, says there’s no federal limit on how many days someone can work.
“You could work eight days a week if there were,” she said.
Still, experts caution that extreme schedules can result in burnout or even discriminatory workplace cultures, especially for older workers or parents.
“I am quite convinced that it’s not the amount of hours and the amount of days that you work,” said Orly Lobel, a professor at the University of San Diego.
“But rather, it’s much more about quality.”
A Conflict With AI’s Promise?
The irony, some say, is that these grueling workweeks come from companies that claim AI will reduce work hours.
JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon predicted in 2023 that future generations may work just 3.5 days a week thanks to AI.
Lazarus AI even said earlier this year that a four-day week is totally possible.
Chong, for his part, sees no contradiction. “It’s about reaping the benefits of AI, but the benefits have to be built by other people,” he said.
“Someone has to make the sausage.”
For now, that means long hours and few weekends for some of the most ambitious AI startups in Silicon Valley.