Tech loves a perk, but few go this far. Rilla, an AI startup that makes coaching software for sales teams, spends about $1.7m a year on housing stipends so staff can live near its New York office, Fortune reports. The trade-off is a 72-hour week.
Employees who live within a 10-minute bike ride of the Williamsburg office get an $18,000 annual housing stipend. About 80% take it. That helps in a neighbourhood where a studio rents for around $4,000 a month.
Flow, not comfort #
Chief executive Sebastian Jimenez frames the spending as focus, not indulgence. “We’re not trying to coddle people,” he told Business Insider. “A lot of companies offer perks that end up distracting employees. We ask ourselves, ‘Can this help someone get into the flow?'”
That logic runs through the rest of the package. Rilla pays for three meals a day and is building a gym with a sauna and cold plunge. It even hired a Harvard healthy-buildings expert to pick an office with ventilation that aids concentration.
The maths of a 72-hour week #
The bill runs steep for a small firm. Rilla spends roughly $37,000 per employee a year on these extras, near $4.4m across about 120 staff, and it signed a 10-year lease. Jimenez says the return justifies it, and claims each engineer generates $4m to $5m in revenue a year. Staff work 12 hours a day, six days a week, and he says he hires people, from Division I athletes to founders, who want that.
It fits a wider hardening of work culture in tech. As the industry argues over whether AI adds or cuts jobs, some startups lean the other way. They hire a small core of elite staff and ask them for marathon days. Rivals sell softer versions of the same idea, from JPMorgan’s tennis courts to Goldman’s cycling studios.
Why it matters #
The stipend reads as generous, and as a lever. Cut the commute, remove the friction, and the workday stretches. Critics of the always-on office, including voices warning against cutting the junior tier or chasing raw output, would call it a gilded cage. Jimenez sees it differently. “Our goal isn’t simply to get people into the office,” he said. “It’s to build an environment where they can do the best work of their lives.”
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