Investor says he will only fund startups with six-day office weeks
SaaStr founder Jason Lemkin said AI-era startups need small, highly paid teams working together in the office six days a week to compete.
By Sofia Marchetti · World Affairs Correspondent
3 min read
Jason Lemkin, founder of the SaaStr community, said he is not interested in backing startups whose staff do not work in the office six days a week. Fortune reported that Lemkin made the comments on the 20VC podcast, placing him among tech investors and executives pushing for more intense work expectations as AI changes startup staffing.
Lemkin said on the podcast that he wants “small, high-paid teams” working together in person across six days, according to Fortune. “I’m not interested in investing in anything else,” he said, adding that his view was based on his belief that companies with looser work models “are going to fail.”
The comments came during a discussion about workplace flexibility after Flexport CEO Ryan Petersen argued that remote work amounts to “white-collar fraud,” Fortune reported. Petersen said his own experience was that workdays at home are regularly disrupted when children return from school.
AI and startup intensity
Lemkin said remote arrangements worked during the pandemic and acknowledged that some workers may still produce enough output in 15 to 20 hours from home, according to Fortune. He said the companies he wants to fund are not hiring people seeking that kind of schedule.
Lemkin framed the issue as one of ambition and competition. He said startups cannot win markets if employees are working 20 hours a week, according to Fortune’s account of the podcast discussion.
He also tied the work schedule to potential compensation. Lemkin said workers should not expect to earn $10 million while working 18 hours a week, and argued that employees seeking more predictable hours may be better suited to established companies, Fortune reported.
Fortune reported that Lemkin said the highest-performing startup employees can have opportunities to earn in the $100 million range. Fortune said it contacted Lemkin for additional comment.
Workers still prefer flexibility
The six-day office view runs against worker preferences cited by Fortune. A recent Gallup poll found that 4% of millennials prefer fully on-site work, while 10% of baby boomers, the group most favorable to full-time office work in the poll, prefer that arrangement.
Gallup found that hybrid work remains the preferred setup across generations, according to Fortune. That gap between executive demands and employee preferences has become a recurring flashpoint as companies reassess remote and hybrid policies.
Fortune also reported last year that some Bay Area startups had adopted schedules resembling China’s “996” model, in which workers are on the job from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., six days a week, for a 72-hour week.
Harry Stebbings, founder of the 20VC fund, said in a LinkedIn post last year that Silicon Valley had raised the intensity of AI-era work and that European founders should pay attention, according to Fortune. Stebbings wrote that seven-day workweeks were the required pace to win.
The pressure extends to larger technology companies. The New York Times reported last year that Google co-founder Sergey Brin urged employees working on Gemini AI models to be in the office every weekday and said about 60 hours a week was the “sweet spot” for productivity.
This story draws on original reporting from Fortune.