At a moment when many technology companies are trimming headcount and leaning on artificial intelligence to offset labour costs, one AI startup chief executive has adopted a sharply different strategy: spending thousands of dollars on premium mattresses so his engineers sleep better.
Matan Grinberg, co-founder and chief executive of Factory — a San Francisco-based AI startup that builds software development agents — purchased $3,000 (approximately ₹2.83 lakh) Eight Sleep mattress covers for every member of his then-30-person team. The move, first reported by Business Insider, is part of a broader philosophy Grinberg holds about what it actually takes to extract top performance from a small, high-stakes engineering team.
"I want to make sure everyone is squeezing out every ounce of brain power they have," Grinberg told Business Insider. "To do that, you need to get good sleep."
The logic, as Grinberg frames it, is borrowed from professional sport. He compared his engineering team to elite athletes — specifically citing Navy SEALs and National Basketball Association (NBA) All-Stars — who depend on physical recovery to sustain performance at the highest level. In that framing, a $3,000 mattress cover is not an extravagance but a performance investment with a measurable return.
"We are optimising for output," he said. "The people we are bringing onto the team — it is worth every dollar to make them more productive and deliver on these ambitious goals that we have."
The Eight Sleep covers Grinberg purchased use internal liquid to regulate bed temperature and offer split-zone controls so partners can customise each side independently. Recent models also include automated elevation controls.
No Sugar Either
Sleep is not the only variable Grinberg is managing. He has also restricted processed sugar at the office, arguing it is detrimental to sustained mental focus. In its place, Factory spends more on alternatives such as protein chips and canned matcha.
When asked whether the strategy echoed the office-perk culture that defined Silicon Valley in the 2010s — complete with foosball tables and recreational spaces — Grinberg pushed back. Those perks, he said, were "unrelated to work." His approach, by contrast, is explicitly tied to cognitive output.
The Company Behind the Decision
Factory was co-founded in 2023 by Grinberg and chief technology officer Eno Reyes. Grinberg had been pursuing a doctorate in theoretical physics at the University of California, Berkeley before leaving to start the company, according to a Fast Company profile. Factory builds AI coding agents, which it calls Droids, that automate tasks across the software development lifecycle — testing, debugging, refactoring, and code migration.
The company has grown quickly. It now employs around 120 people and, in April 2026, secured $150 million in fresh funding, bringing its valuation to $1.5 billion, according to Tracxn data. Investors in the round include Khosla Ventures, Sequoia Capital, Lux Capital, and Blackstone.
The newer employees have not yet received the Eight Sleep covers, but Grinberg told Business Insider he was considering making them a standard part of the onboarding package — or offering a comparable health stipend in their place.
A Wider Conversation About Workplace Investment
Factory's approach sits at an interesting intersection: the AI industry is simultaneously cutting staff and searching for ways to maximise the output of those who remain. Research from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has found that insufficient sleep costs American employers an estimated $411 billion annually in lost productivity, a figure cited widely in workplace wellness discussions.
Eight Sleep, the company behind the mattress covers, raised $100 million in August 2025 to expand its AI-driven sleep technology, according to TechCrunch. The company's flagship Pod product monitors sleep stages, heart rate, breathing patterns, and movement, and automatically adjusts temperature and elevation in response.
Whether or not premium mattresses become standard issue at Factory, Grinberg's bet is a straightforward one: in a company where the entire business model depends on a small group of engineers staying sharp, anything that protects their cognitive function is, by definition, a business expense.
.jpeg)
