You can find Daniel Drabo in the office at midnight on weekdays, but sometimes Saturdays and Sundays too.
Ted Chalouhi’s dating life is on hold. Jasmine Sayyari is frustrated her team isn’t moving as fast on AI as she is. And Kate Hofman is doing her best to resist the pull — making sure she gets home in time to talk Pokémon with her son.
Welcome to the new world of startups, where the pace is breakneck.
"The last six months have been faster than any other tech period I can remember," says Fredrik Hjelm, CEO of scooter rental company Voi and an enthusiastic AI user.
"The AI opportunity feels enormous but the window feels narrow," says Phily Hayes, CEO of Irish company Zerve, which develops AI agents. "That combination is rocket fuel for both growth and burnout."
Boundaries are dissolving as everyone scrambles to master Claude Code, OpenClaw and every other must-try AI tool.
What techies call a “defensible moat” offers less protection than it once did. AI has made imitation easier and catch-up faster. Meanwhile, old startup metrics — lofty valuations, splashy funding rounds, promises of future returns — are giving way to something more immediate and unforgiving: constant, public updates on revenue. Your ARR (annual recurring revenue) has taken on new weight.
Hayes came up in an earlier era of software — a world that, in retrospect, feels almost leisurely. "Sometimes I think it would have been better if I had not known what 'going to market' in SaaS used to be," he admits. "A much slower pace, although it didn't feel like it at the time. Now it feels like we have entered a permanent product launch cycle."
AI has raised everyone's expectations of what's possible and, as a result, raised the pressure on companies to deliver more. "AI has made individuals faster, but it has not made companies calmer," Hayes says. "Instead of working less, we are simply attempting to do more."
‘On weekends, I think of work first’
Drabo is cofounder of Peec AI, a Berlin-based AI startup whose ARR is displayed on a screen visible from the street outside. That detail tells you something about the era.
"Work/life balance is pretty much nonexistent," says Drabo, who is also Peec’s chief revenue officer. "When the company started in December 2024, we had no competitors. Now we have 200-300. You can make the assumption that you have unlimited competitors.”
Peec has recently pulled back from obsessing over weekly ARR — preferring a monthly view now — but Drabo still keeps a tab open on his laptop tracking any changes.
Colleagues regularly come to the office on weekends. "You can reach everyone at all times on Slack," he says. There are offsites, cinema nights and the odd spinning class. The new office has a gym. Drabo devotes some weekend time to his girlfriend.
But the pull of the work is hard to escape. "On Saturday and Sunday, I think of work first. I'm very stressed if I have a lot of things to do. My way to destress is to work"
He's comfortable with this deal. "I'm willing to commit to this workload for a few years. It's a fair outcome when you get back what you put in.
“People sometimes say, 'man, you're crazy for being in the office at midnight.' Bro, I'm sitting on a fucking Herman Miller chair. I’m not down in the trenches, like some are in Europe, getting two or three hours of sleep. It's not that deep: things could be a lot worse."
‘Metrics have shifted'
Investors have shifted to a new tempo too. Christoph Klink, partner at early-stage VC firm Antler, says “the goalposts have moved” on what it takes to be successful.
"€1m ARR used to be good enough to get you a Series A — not anymore," he says. "The numbers you need to raise a good round have gone up quite a bit." Antler recently polled 200 founders in its portfolio; 54% said their company’s execution speed was "much faster" than it was 12 months ago.
The average age of founders the firm backs has dropped by four or five years, he says. "It's easier for younger ones to excel because they haven't learned the old ways," Klink says. "They’re a lot more open and trying out new tools every day."
Some older hands see it differently. Hjelm, at Voi, argues experience is an underrated advantage. "Who best understands moats, distribution models, regulations, and how to manage physical assets? The experienced founder is much more dangerous than a 20-year-old who had a hit with their AI tool on GitHub."
Inside the companies themselves, AI tools are now central to operations. But the hours they save rarely stay saved.
Chalouhi, CEO of London-based Duku AI, which uses AI to automate quality assurance testing for new tech products, says his nine-person team can do the work of 25. "We're AI maximalists. What used to take a team a week now takes an afternoon."
After a recent fundraise, drafting 600 share certificates took six minutes. "I thought working at Uber was fast, but it would've been even more crazy had AI been around,” Chalouhi says.
Life outside work is largely paused. The Australian founder hasn’t been on a date since December. He does, however, carve out 45 minutes for exercise daily and 10–15 minutes for meditation. "For me, stress and burnout is when you're doing something and you see no progress. There’s never been a more exciting time to be alive."
Burnout fears
Not everyone is surrendering to the manic pace without a fight.
Jasmine Sayyari, a doctor and cofounder of London-based startup Lean Health, is frank about the toll. "I am constantly burnt out and stressed. I feel that if I stop searching for the tools I need, I will fall behind."
She taught herself prompt engineering and built the company’s first product — an app for people using GLP-1 medication. But the speed of change keeps her anxious. "Sometimes I feel I am putting too much pressure on my team to learn new things at my pace, and I get frustrated when they do not," she says.
Hofman, cofounder and CEO of Pesto, which makes software for the food and beverage industry, is excited by AI but doesn’t give into the hype. “The pace of change is fast, but our customers haven’t suddenly asked us to build ten times faster,” she says. “They’d rather we fix specific problems than chase the hype.”
She is also clear about what she won't sacrifice. "I have a nine-year-old son. My mental capacity outside of work is taken up by talking about Pokémon."
A second time founder, she has experienced burnout before. “I’ve tried 996 culture. It doesn’t lead anywhere good for you or your business. Your team won’t be high-performing if you don’t maintain healthy habits.”
As AI’s gravitational pull continues to reshape the wider tech landscape, Klink offers the simplest summary: "It's both easier and harder for AI companies — easier to raise money, harder to build something enduring because competition is fierce.
"It's one of the most interesting times to be alive. The speed is mind-boggling."
