Startup founders split on sleep: 5 hours vs 7 hours

Kavitta Ghai takes the opposite approach. The 29-year-old cofounder of the ed-tech startup Nectir will not pull an all-nighter. She can see the effect of sleep deprivation in her work and cognitive function, she said. She stops everything to get 7 hours.

Ghai's best thinking comes in the late evening and early morning, so she often does not sleep until 3 a.m. Her chief of staff knows: no meetings until 11 a.m. Nectir is remote and will stay remote, she said, so employees can work on their own schedules. "It allows people to do their work on their schedule," she said.

She is exacting about sleep. Magnesium every night. Temperature between 66 and 68 degrees. A sleep mask and a Whoop band. She does not touch the bed until bedtime. She falls asleep in under 3 minutes.

Boris Skurikhin, the 26-year-old cofounder of the AI startup Docket, sits in the middle. He has an expensive mattress with no bed frame – he has one but has not assembled it yet. "I will do it soon," he said. "I keep telling myself this."

He gets in bed around midnight and watches a documentary or a long YouTube video. He does not scroll. He is not one to cut sleep. He described a "grindmaxxer" in his coworking space who works constantly and never sleeps. "He was also the hospitalmaxxer," Skurikhin said. "It's just not healthy."