Voluntarily working the "996" schedule and living in a "coffin apartment", Generation Z in Silicon Valley is going crazy trying to "transform" themselves to become the next tech hero.
During the weekend evening in San Francisco, many people were leisurely enjoying the last rays of sunlight of the day. However, Marty Kausas, the 28-year-old founder of an AI startup, was still busy in his office. "Where else could I be?"
This founder posted on LinkedIn that he had worked 92 hours a week for three consecutive weeks, and his achievements were verifiable.
Kausas's story is not an exception. In the current AI startup circle in Silicon Valley, this extreme startup phenomenon of sleeping in the office is becoming common. A group of young founders in their 20s have almost sacrificed their weekends and abide by the principle of "no alcohol, no sleep, no socializing", vowing to devote all their waking hours to work.
They are not on the big ships like OpenAI or Gemini. Instead, they have built their own small boats and rushed into the global AI wave.
They don't have sky-high annual salary packages, and the investment they receive may be less than the annual salary of top researchers. However, their determination is stronger than anyone else's.
Work until you drop
When work becomes the sole focus of life, these young founders even arrange their most basic sleep and rest in the office.
In their world, the office is not only a workplace but also a dining room, living room, and bedroom. Some entrepreneurs make makeshift beds next to their workstations or simply sleep under the sofas in the meeting rooms. Others even rent "sleeping pods" similar to Japanese capsule hotels.
Imagine rows of small boxes like coffins neatly arranged. When you pull the curtain, it's pitch black inside.
Haseab Ullah, an AI chatbot entrepreneur, spends $700 a month living in such a shared space and lives next to about 20 like-minded people. He self - deprecatingly said, "Every night when I lie in it, I feel like I'm lying in a coffin." - It sounds harsh, but it's true.
If they can make do with sleep, they are even less picky about food. To save time and avoid distractions, some people only have one takeaway meal a day, and some rely directly on meal replacements and various supplements to survive. What about traditional entertainment? What's that? Can you eat it?
This group of people don't go to parties or bars, and there is rarely alcohol at industry gatherings. Michelle Fang, an event planner at the venture capital firm Headline, found that many gatherings of AI entrepreneurs don't provide alcohol at all.
Firstly, in this San Francisco circle, drinking is no longer something to show off. Secondly, the more direct reason is that a significant number of founders are only in their late teens and haven't reached the legal drinking age.
Is this still the post - 2000 generation who are always talking about "transforming the workplace"? The change in style is quite drastic.
Behind the prosperous wave
On the surface, Silicon Valley seems to have returned to the era of the mobile Internet and the ever - changing startup wave. However, behind the boom, the business logic and competitive pressure are the real realities that make people lose sleep and appetite.
Firstly, there is the ebb and flow of capital: In the past two years since the wave of generative AI started, startup financing has experienced a roller - coaster ride. In 2023, the total global private investment in AI startups was about $96 billion, a slight decrease from $103.4 billion in 2022 - a general cooling of nearly 20%.
There has also been an interesting structural change in the distribution of funds: The number of AI startups that received financing has increased instead of decreased. According to the HAI report from Stanford University, as many as 1,812 AI startups announced that they had received financing in 2023, a surge of 40.6% compared to the previous year. That is to say, more players are entering the field, but the average single - investment amount is shrinking.
On the one hand, this shows that the threshold for AI startups has been lowered, and there is a flourishing of startups. On the other hand, it also means that it's harder to get money: Unless you have extremely strong core capabilities, it's now difficult to see the myth of hundreds of millions of dollars in financing.
Even if they get the money, it doesn't mean a bright future. A typical example is Stability AI: This star startup focusing on open - source AI models had a valuation of over $1 billion at the end of 2022. However, it was reported that its revenue in 2023 was only a mere $11 million, while its operating expenses were as high as $153 million.
In other words, in this industry, burning money is much faster than making money, and the business prospects may not support the previous sky - high valuations. Even if capital has money, it will learn to be more rational. It can't rely on the imagined exponential growth to support the valuations. The AI track needs a more rational and solid development pace.
In this context, it's easy to imagine how intense the competition in the industry is. Homogeneous competition has become a hidden danger in the AI startup circle. Many startup teams rely on "wrapping" a few basic models to create different applications.
Only those who can quickly capture the market, acquire users, and generate revenue have a chance to break through the competition. No wonder venture capitalists sigh that they have no appetite to fund a bunch of new players without differentiation. They prefer to save their resources for large - model companies that have already occupied the high ground or vertical applications with clear barriers. The siphon effect is emerging, further intensifying the involution.
Seek fame, fortune, and victory
In such a difficult environment, why do these young people keep rushing into the fire? What drives them to push themselves to such an extent?
Ideals, illusions, and naked desires for fame and fortune are intertwined to form the most real answer.
The desire for wealth and success has always been the strongest stimulant in the startup circle. Stories like "financial freedom" and "unicorn myths" have continuously inspired the later generations.
Today's AI startup boom is a living copy of the Internet bubble at the end of the 1990s. Back then, those garage entrepreneurs dreamed of getting rich overnight and cashing out after the company went public. Now, AI is that lottery ticket that could change one's fate.
Some people admit, "Entrepreneurs work so hard just to earn enough money to change their lives as soon as possible. No one wants to work the 996 schedule until they're 65. They want to achieve financial freedom earlier."
Therefore, the AI wave is regarded as the "gold rush of the 21st century". People are willing to give up the high - paying and comfortable jobs in big companies to start their own businesses - as long as they win this bet, the rewards will be astronomical.
This almost obsessive pursuit of profit is, to some extent, reinforced by the startup investment system. VCs are used to betting on founders who are "all in". Entrepreneurs who are willing to work hard, sleep on the floor, and keep fighting are often regarded as high - quality targets with passion and resilience. This orientation has invisibly encouraged the spread of the extreme work - hard culture.
However, besides the pursuit of fame and fortune, there is also a deep - seated sense of urgency - "fomo", the fear of missing out on the tide of the times.
Artificial intelligence technology has made rapid progress in recent years. It only takes a few months from GPT - 4 to the iteration of various new models. The technology curve is climbing steeply, with giants everywhere. The window of opportunity for small teams is fleeting.
Many entrepreneurs share the consensus that "a once - in - a - lifetime" opportunity is right in front of them, and if they don't seize it, they'll never get another chance. Jared Friedman, a partner at Y Combinator, observed the current situation and couldn't help but sigh that "history is repeating itself". The energetic young people in front of him made him feel as if he had returned to the early days of the Internet when employees in companies like PayPal also slept under their workstations and stayed up late.
The difference is that the scale of this AI wave may be ten times that of the past, and it is expected to give birth to the next great companies like Apple and Google. On the other hand, the competition is more intense and the evolution is more rapid than ever before. Facing this pace, these entrepreneurs in their early 20s are under great psychological pressure: the technical solutions are full of uncertainties, the market feedback is fleeting, and the capital chain is tight... Any one of these factors could break their mental state.
What these entrepreneurs are desperately pursuing is not only the work rewards but also a voice in the future: the identity of the winner in the AI era.
What's even more magical is that these entrepreneurs not only engage in AI startups themselves but also their first batch of "employees" may be AI: various agents, models, and chatbots. The project prototypes are generated by AI, the code is written by AI, and the design is initially done by AI and then adjusted in Figma.
Does AI make startups easier? Maybe, but it also makes self - exploitation easier.
A person's energy and resilience, the cohesion and culture of the team, and the patience and calculation of capital - all these factors will be tested for success or failure in the long run. Blind courage can create great achievements, but it's also possible to end up with nothing.
Maybe after a few years, when we look back at today, we'll find that the real surviving AI giants may not come from the most intensely involuted group. Instead, the teams that can go the distance are those that maintain a proper balance and move forward steadily.
Anyway, these young entrepreneurs who are working day and night have left a unique mark in the chapter of the AI wave. Their perseverance and struggles are worth recording and caring about.
In the face of rapid technological progress, sometimes we still need to remind ourselves: even the hottest startup dreams should allow for a moment to catch our breath.
This article is from the WeChat public account "APPSO". Author: Discovering Tomorrow's Products. Republished by 36Kr with permission.