Sleep Instead of Bonuses: Startup CEO Spent $90,000 on Mattresses for Employees So They Could Work Better

While some IT companies are cutting costs on employees and others are trying to lure people in with free lunches and game rooms, the head of the American AI startup Factory decided to invest in something that usually stays outside the office — his workers' sleep.

Factory CEO Matan Grinberg said he bought each of the company's first 30 employees a smart Eight Sleep mattress topper costing about $3,000. In total, the unusual corporate perk cost roughly $90,000. But the executive is convinced the money pays off.

According to Grinberg, engineers should be viewed the same way as professional athletes. If an athlete needs quality rest to perform at their best, then a programmer needs good sleep for the brain to work effectively. That is why, instead of traditional corporate perks, he chose to invest in employee recovery.

The Eight Sleep system is a high-tech mattress topper that regulates bed temperature throughout the night. It can cool or warm the sleeping surface, track sleep metrics, and automatically adjust conditions for rest. The brand has previously been associated with well-known entrepreneurs and athletes, and the company has become one of the symbols of the fast-growing «smart sleep» market.

Most interestingly, Grinberg is strongly opposed to the old tech-company culture, where employees were showered with entertainment and useless perks. He believes trampolines, arcade machines, and other hallmarks of Silicon Valley's boom years have no direct connection to work quality. Instead, he limits the amount of sweets in the office, buys healthier food, and tries to support habits that truly affect focus and productivity.

At the same time, the executive is not trying to turn the company into a maximum-security prison. He also criticizes the culture of endless overtime and boasting about 12-hour workdays that is popular among some startups. In his view, good results are achieved not by exhausting employees, but by creating conditions in which a person can work at peak performance.

Interestingly, investing in employees' sleep is gradually becoming a new trend among technology companies. More and more executives see quality rest as one of the key factors in productivity. Against the backdrop of the popularity of biohacking and the so-called «sleepmaxxing» — the drive to maximize sleep quality — such initiatives no longer look quite so exotic.

Grinberg himself admits that he cannot precisely measure how much the team's productivity increased after such a gift. However, he is convinced that a well-rested employee makes more balanced decisions, makes fewer mistakes, and works more efficiently. And for a company building products based on artificial intelligence, that may turn out to be far more valuable than any corporate entertainment.