Yet after a long day of work running DeepMind, the CEO still isn’t ready to catch some well-deserved shut-eye. Once his daytime shift is over, he takes a short break before delving right back into his job—with no meetings or distractions to interrupt his flow.
“I get home, spend a little bit of time with family, have dinner, and then I sort of start a second day of work about 10 p.m. and go to 4 a.m., where I do my thinking and more creative work and research work. And it’s worked out,” Hassabis continued. “I come alive at about 1 a.m.”
Hassabis isn’t the only one leading a successful business on his own timeline.
He hits peak productivity at 10 p.m., lasting until he falls asleep around 2:30 a.m. And since he’s the boss of his $73 billion short-term rental business, he gets to set the rules; his late bedtime means no meetings at the crack of dawn the next day, as 10 a.m. is the earliest Chesky will go.
Other founders including Reddit’s Alexis Ohanian fall more into the night owl camp than the early-riser pack. He goes to sleep at around 2 a.m. everyday—hours later than the many CEOs who have already snoozed off.
