Corgi founder sleeps 3 hours, builds with pace

Corgi founder – Nico Laqua says he works seven days a week, sleeps three to four hours a night on a mattress in the Corgi office, and embraces a grind that mirrors the startup “996” culture—even as Corgi hits unicorn status and races through major funding rounds.

Nico Laqua doesn’t clock out at Corgi. He lives there—at least, part of the time.

When the Corgi cofounder spoke on the “20VC” podcast released Saturday. he described a routine built for nonstop momentum: working seven days a week. sleeping in the office. and getting only three to four hours of sleep a night. In the Corgi office, he keeps a mattress on the floor. His employees call it “Nico’s room.”.

Laqua said he doesn’t use it every single night anymore. He used to shower at the Equinox one street over, but it closes early—like 8 p.m. on Fridays—so the arrangement became unpleasant.

Corgi, an AI insurance company cofounded by Laqua in 2024, has been moving fast in the market. In May, it became a unicorn after raising its Series B at a $1.3 billion valuation. Three weeks later, it raised a Series B1 round at a $2.6 billion valuation.

Laqua’s explanation for how he keeps up with that pace was simple and blunt. On the podcast, host Harry Stebbings asked him: “Would you rather Corgi was a trillion-dollar company, but you died at 50, or it was a fail, and you live till you were 80?”

“The answer to that is pretty easy,” Laqua said. “I’m dying either way.”

For many founders, long hours are already treated like a rite of passage. Laqua’s version takes the logic of “grindset” and pushes it further. He connected his approach to a broader tech trend: the locked-in “996” schedule—9 a.m. to 9 p.m., six days a week—plus cutting out alcohol and sex. But his timetable isn’t six days. He aims for seven.

“Whatever you can get done in five days, I promise you you’ll get more done in six and seven,” Laqua said. “You should go all out.”

He also said high-growth startups in San Francisco have full offices on the weekends, and added, “I don’t think it’s a coincidence.”

Still, the nonstop life isn’t portrayed as a total shutdown of rest. Laqua said Corgi employees take a day off “every now and then,” but they don’t have a ritualized weekend of rest. He drew a line at the standard calendar:

“If your days off happen to be Saturday and Sunday every week, then you will not have a place at Corgi,” Laqua said.

The sleep numbers, though, are what land hardest. Laqua said he gets three to four hours of sleep a night. “I would rather measure my lifespan in victories than years,” he said.

That kind of thinking has drawn pushback from other startup leaders. Linear cofounder Karri Saarinen wrote on X that Laqua’s mindset represented that of young founders “where the startup becomes their identity.” Saarinen added: “They have a hard time doing anything else. and cannot understand that your work is not the person that is you. ” and that activities outside of work can “grow you as a person too” and help you “do better work.”.

Laqua responded: “If you’re obsessed with a problem, you work hard.”

Corgi’s pace is now matched by its branding—right down to a detail that’s become a flashpoint online: the company’s logo tattooed on its own early team.

When Stebbings shared the interview online. he included an extra detail: that “2/3 of the first 30 team members have the Corgi logo as a tattoo.” The statistic wasn’t discussed in the interview itself. But Laqua previously told the Wall Street Journal in September that “two-thirds of our early employees got Corgi tattoos.”.

Corgi has 177 employees, per PitchBook. Laqua and Corgi did not respond to requests for comments from Business Insider.

The tattoos sparked debate. Richard Wu. of Coinbase. wrote: “Imagine getting a tattoo all for building B2B SaaS.” Former Lovable engineer Tiger Abrodi called it a “clown show.” Others were more curious. OpenClaw chief architect Vincent Koc quoted the line on X, added “Hmmmm,” and tagged the agent’s creator, Peter Steinberger.

On the podcast, Laqua emphasized why he thinks branding matters so much. “The cosmetic stuff does matter,” he said. “There’s a reason why governments and religions and all of the really important things tend to care about symbols.”

Work-life fusion is a gamble—sometimes it’s treated as fuel, sometimes it becomes a burnout engine. Laqua’s account places that question in the open, right alongside the company’s wins: from becoming a unicorn in May to a Series B1 valuation of $2.6 billion three weeks later.

The tension is clear in his choices. A grind that leaves room for little sleep. A workplace culture where Saturdays and Sundays aren’t guaranteed. A symbol carried on skin. And. at the center of it all. Laqua’s insistence that the sacrifice is worth it because—win or fail—he says he’s “dying either way.”.

Corgi Nico Laqua AI insurance startup funding Series B Series B1 unicorn valuation 20VC podcast grindset 996 schedule office sleep branding tattoos