The Exchanges

Q wonder why we're talking about sleep. It's kind of funny because when I see hacker news threads or Reddit threads or, you know, people who are really into biohacking, one of the topics that comes up a lot is how to, I hate this phrase, but how to hack your sleep. So I want to know, first of all, why sleep? Like, why did you write a book on sleep?

A I wrote a book on sleep because we are living under a collective delusion that burnout is the way to succeed. I'm sure Natasha is even more aware of it than I am living in Silicon Valley because there is a cult of sleep deprivation and burning the candles at both ends and the mythology of the founder who never sleeps. We are actually ignoring all the latest science that shows unequivocally and conclusively that That sleep deprivation makes us less productive, less creative, degrades all our decision making. When I realized that after my own wake up call of collapsing from sleep deprivation and breaking my cheekbone, my first response was to ask myself, how come an entire culture believes something false? And then if you look through history, that's happened many times, you know, going back all the way to us believing that the earth is flat. To the 19 sixties, when we still thought that smoking was okay, if not glamorous. So it's not as surprising that an entire culture believes something scientifically false. What is exciting is that we are now in the middle of a culture shift, where people are becoming more aware of the new science, where companies are gradually and slowly changing how they view sleep. Uh, hotels and airlines are making changes, and even among people who are struggling to put food on the table, we see the difference that sleep would make in health and resilien…

AI assessment note: “I wrote a book on sleep because we are living under a collective delusion”

Q It's like the cult of productivity. And Arianna, I mean, you are the one who referenced this as sort of a cult of the founder, which I find fascinating because a lot of our audience includes entrepreneurs. And so why do you call it that? And do you think the Silicon Valley thing, I mean, is it all across the board?

A No, I don't think it's just a Silicon Valley thing. We have so many examples now, whether it's Bill Clinton, who said the most important mistakes I made, I made when I was tired. Whether it's what we are seeing during the presidential campaign of exhausted politicians, I think that it's particularly intensified in Silicon Valley. I went to speak to the Stanford Business School and students there were telling me how sick they get because they've sacrificed leave, they sacrifice their well-being, and they end up with mono or whooping cough. And, uh, and it's beginning to dawn on them that they are not actually more productive. And that's really what all these data-driven people are beginning to look at, because the data is conclusive that we are working longer hours than ever, but we lose 11 days of productivity a year per employee. Clearly something is wrong here. Either we get sick more often or we show up at work, but it's only like with 40% or 60% of our capacity, so we're not as productive and creative. And also not as good at working in teams, which is increasingly important as practically every company has to work across multiple time zones and offer customer service at all hours, et cetera, et cetera. Building teams requires empathy, requires a lot of qualities which are less available to us when we are exhausted.

AI assessment note: “No, I don't think it's just a Silicon Valley thing.”

Q It's like the cult of productivity. And Arianna, I mean, you are the one who referenced this as sort of a cult of the founder, which I find fascinating because a lot of our audience includes entrepreneurs. And so why do you call it that? And do you think the Silicon Valley thing, I mean, is it all across the board?

A No, I don't think it's just a Silicon Valley thing. We have so many examples now, whether it's Bill Clinton, who said the most important mistakes I made, I made when I was tired. Whether it's what we are seeing during the presidential campaign of exhausted politicians, I think that it's particularly intensified in Silicon Valley. I went to speak to the Stanford Business School and students there were telling me how sick they get because they've sacrificed leave, they sacrifice their well-being, and they end up with mono or whooping cough. And, uh, and it's beginning to dawn on them that they are not actually more productive. And that's really what all these data-driven people are beginning to look at, because the data is conclusive that we are working longer hours than ever, but we lose 11 days of productivity a year per employee. Clearly something is wrong here. Either we get sick more often or we show up at work, but it's only like with 40% or 60% of our capacity, so we're not as productive and creative. And also not as good at working in teams, which is increasingly important as practically every company has to work across multiple time zones and offer customer service at all hours, et cetera, et cetera. Building teams requires empathy, requires a lot of qualities which are less available to us when we are exhausted.

AI assessment note: “No, I don't think it's just a Silicon Valley thing.”