AI startups skip return-to-office memos and fill desks

AI startups’ – In the AI startup world, going back to the office is often less a mandate and more a habit—fed by tight teams, equity stakes, and the kind of work that depends on fast, in-person feedback. Executives at cloud compute, productivity AI, and multi-agent AI firms

On an ordinary question—whether he’s ever had to send a return-to-work memo—Together AI CEO Vipul Ved Prakash’s answer was immediate. When asked by Business Insider whether he had ever had to push employees back to the office, Prakash said, “What is an RTO?”

Prakash then put it plainly: “People generally like to come in.” He added, “We’ve never enforced it.”

That exchange captures a shift in office culture that stands out in AI startups formed after the COVID lockdowns—companies where coming in can be voluntary, and sometimes even includes weekends—rather than something enforced through memos and compliance.

Nicholas Bloom, an economics professor at Stanford University, said the demographic makeup of startup teams and the personal stake many employees have in their companies create a work mode that is “almost entirely in-person” and “100% work focused.”

For a single 23-year-old with equity worth $20 million, Bloom said, “it makes sense to work in the office for 100 hours a week.” His summary landed with a sharp metaphor: “They don’t work from home, they home from work.”

Arvind Jain, founder and CEO of Glean, described why that “startup spirit” can be so different from long-established corporate routines. Jain said he “was not eager” to bring his team back because finding an office is a hassle. Yet he said the pull toward being in person kept growing.

Glean’s origin story starts in 2019, right before the pandemic. Jain said that when the company first began, “everyone wanted to be in person and return to their original mode of working.”

During the early pandemic lockdowns, he said the team struggled with remote work because there was never a practical playbook. “We just simply didn’t know how to work from home because everybody was in this one small room,” Jain said. “We used to be sitting next to each other. brainstorming what to build. and so we found that very. very hard.”.

Over time, Jain said, he learned to enjoy remote work and got to spend time with his family. But he said the team’s desire to be together again stayed real. “That’s the difference — there’s this startup spirit. and it’s only 10. 15 people. and we want to be with each other. ” he said. “They love each other. they bond with each other. we used to play games together. and we have very fond pre-pandemic memories as a close-knit group.”.

As Glean grew faster in recent years, it moved into a larger office and set Thursday as its work-from-home day.

At Resolve AI. Spiros Xanthos. founder and CEO of the enterprise technology startup building multi-agent AI systems. said the office is part of the culture rather than a policy problem. Xanthos said the company has a “very strong culture” of in-person work and has never had to ask anyone to be in the office.

“We have a fairly big office now, and we have breakfast, lunch, and dinner,” Xanthos said. He added that “Most people have lunch in the office together with their colleagues, and many people stay to have dinner in the office.”

Since founding Resolve AI in early 2024, Xanthos said “cohesion and culture and friendship” among employees has been critical. He also described an effort to connect teams across time zones and locations. saying he often brings colleagues based in New York to the Bay Area for offsite retreats so the team could get to know each other better.

Xanthos did not frame remote work as a trade-off. He said. “People will actively avoid working remotely at this point. ” especially for “some of the younger folks who didn’t have many years of experience.” He added that even for employees who had worked remotely before. the difference is stark: “many of them tell me it’s day and night — the fact that they have so many friends at work now that they can trust.”.

The reason this in-person pull persists may be tied less to office perks and more to the work itself. Richard Florida, an urban studies theorist and professor at the University of Toronto, said the AI wave has unique characteristics that can create greater in-person demand.

“Innovators have to be close to end users because end users are a part of the innovation system,” Florida said. He added: “If you’re an AI company. the technology itself is interesting. and you can invent it. but what you really learn is by interaction with the end user. by interacting with your customers and clients.”.

Xanthos echoed that logic by connecting culture to the need for constant experimentation. “As a company. we’re solving very. very hard problems. and to solve these problems. you operate at the frontier. ” he said. “And this means that you need to experiment a lot, try a lot of things that might fail.”.

He linked that experimentation to a kind of workplace trust: “That in turn requires a very high trust in an environment of psychological safety where people feel that they have the ability to innovate bottom up.” He described what that looks like day to day: “Where they don’t need to be told what to do. where there is communication velocity and bandwidth.”.

Put together. the stories from Together AI. Glean. and Resolve AI show the same through-line from different angles: employees aren’t just being brought back—they’re choosing to be there. for reasons that start with relationships and equity. then deepen into the day-to-day demands of building frontier technology.

The next time you speak to an AI startup founder, Prakash’s point hangs in the air like a small warning. Don’t ask how their RTO is going. The people in these companies are already working—tight teams, rapid feedback, and offices that keep getting filled without anyone needing to enforce it.

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