AI entrepreneur Nico Laqua often sleeps in the office, works seven days a week and gets by on just three hours of sleep.
In his own words, Nico Laqua would rather sacrifice years of his life than see his startup fail.
The US entrepreneur co-founded the AI insurance startup Corgi in 2024. Success didn’t take long to arrive: in May, the company became a unicorn and reached a valuation of $1.3 billion in a Series B financing round. Just three weeks later, this doubled to $2.6 billion in another round of financing.
In order to advance his startup, Laqua lives according to an extreme work rhythm: He works seven days a week, often sleeps in the office and, according to his own statements, gets by on around three hours of sleep per night.
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On an episode of the “20VC” podcast, host Harry Stebbings asked Laqua, “Would you rather have Corgi be a trillion-dollar company but you die at 50, or have it fail and live until you’re 80?”
“The answer to that is pretty simple,” Laqua said. “I’m dying either way.”
Laqua is not alone with his attitude. In the tech industry, many founders celebrate the so-called “grind set” – a culture that glorifies maximum performance and working to the limit. The “996” rhythm is popular: working from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., six days a week. Some even give up alcohol or sex to do this.
But Laqua takes it to the extreme. Here’s what he told Stebbings on the podcast:
The office as a bedroom
Laqua said he has a mattress on the floor of the Corgi office. His employees call it “Nico’s room”.
“I don’t spend every single night there anymore,” he said. “I used to shower at the Equinox down the street, but they close very early, at 8 p.m. on Fridays, so that was uncomfortable.”
When we visited young founders in September, several of them naturally pointed to sofas or air mattresses in their offices; for some, this has long been part of everyday startup life.
But the close mix of work and private life has its downsides. What works for some can also lead to exhaustion or burnout in the long run.
Laqua also said he doesn’t sleep much. He explained that he only gets three to four hours of sleep a night. “I would rather measure my lifespan in victories than in years,” he said.
Weekend? Rather not
Some managers want a four-day week. Laqua aims for a seven-day week. “Whatever you do in five days, I promise you you will do more in six and seven days,” Laqua said. “You should give it your all.”
Laqua said high-growth startups in San Francisco are full on weekends. “I don’t think this is a coincidence.” That doesn’t mean Corgi employees can’t take a day off. Laqua said his employees take a day off “every now and then” — but that they don’t have a set weekend schedule. “If your days off happen to be Saturday and Sunday every week, then you have no place at Corgi,” he said.
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Linear co-founder Karri Saarinen wrote on X that Laqua’s mindset mirrors that of many young founders “for whom the startup becomes their identity.”
“They find it difficult to do anything else and cannot understand that your work is not who you are,” Saarinen wrote. “But activities outside of work can also make you grow as a person and lead to you doing better work.” Laqua replied, “When you obsess over a problem, you work hard.”