Investor won’t back startups unless staff are in the office 6 days a week ‘because they’re going to fail’

As AI allows startups to accomplish more with fewer people, Jason Lemkin, founder of the SaaS community SaaStr, said the companies that come out on top won’t be collaborating on Zoom—they’ll be in the office on Saturdays.

“I want small, high-paid teams that work in the office over six days a week,” Lemkin said last month on the 20VC podcast’s weekly news episode. “I’m not interested in investing in anything else—I’m just not interested. And it’s not because I don’t have empathy, it’s because they’re going to fail.”

Lemkin’s comments came during a discussion about the future of work, sparked by a viral moment from Ryan Petersen, CEO of supply chain management company Flexport, who argued that remote work amounts to “white-collar fraud” because employees simply aren’t as productive at home as they are in the office. 

Petersen pointed to his own experience, saying workdays are routinely interrupted once children come home from school.

While Lemkin acknowledged that companies made the remote work model work during the pandemic—and that some employees might still pull their output weight with just 15 to 20 hours—he believes that era is largely over.

“The companies we want to invest in—and this is a very narrow set of the universe—they’re not hiring folks that want to work 20 hours a week from home,” Lemkin said. 

‘Make your choice, boys’: Lemkin says you can earn eight figures working six days a week—or $180,000 with flexibility, but not both

Convincing workers to be in the office six days a week—let alone five—may be an uphill battle. Fully on-site work is the preferred arrangement for just 4% of millennials, according to a recent Gallup poll. Even among baby boomers, the generation most likely to favor in-person work, only 10% prefer being in the office full time. Hybrid work remains the overwhelming favorite across generations.

But Lemkin argued the debate isn’t really about work-life balance. In his view, it’s about ambition—and whether employees are willing to make the sacrifices required to build an outsized company in the AI era. With new models and tools arriving almost weekly, startups have little room to slow down. The companies that pull ahead will be those with small, highly paid teams constantly iterating and collaborating—not employees putting in a few hours a week from home

“Today, it is how you build a winner,” Lemkin said. “You can’t win in your marketplace if people are working 20 hours a week. You can’t win.”

That difference, he argued, can come with major financial implications.

“You don’t get to make 10 million for working 18 hours a week. You get a watch—you get an Omega,” Lemkin said. “[Do] you want an Omega, or you want to be rich? Make your choice, boys.”

Employees willing to embrace the pace of high-growth startups—the best of whom, have coffee shops open 24/7—have the opportunity to earn in the $100 million range, while those seeking more predictable hours may be better suited to established companies.

“I don’t want to invest in anyone in the middle. I can’t afford to invest in the folks that want watches,” he added. “Enjoy your $12,000 Rolex or your $8,000 Omega. I hope it’s meaningful to you.”

Fortune reached out to Lemkin for further comment.

From Silicon Valley startups to Fortune 500 tech giants—AI is raising the bar for work-hour expectations

Lemkin isn’t alone in arguing that the AI race is reshaping expectations for startups. 

Last year, it was reported that many Bay Area startups had begun leaning into work models resembling China’s infamous “996 work schedule”—in which employees are expected on the clock from 9:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m., six days a week, totaling 72 hours per week.

Harry Stebbings, founder of the 20VC fund, said on LinkedIn last year that Silicon Valley had in fact “turned up the intensity,” on their AI-era work culture, and European founders needed to take notice.

“[Seven] days a week is the required velocity to win right now. There is no room for slip up,” Stebbings said in the post. “You aren’t competing against random company in Germany, etc. but the best in the world.”

And it’s not just startups that are feeling the pressure 

Google co-founder Sergey Brin reportedly urged employees working on the company’s Gemini AI models to spend at least every weekday in the office, telling them that roughly 60 hours a week represented the “sweet spot” for productivity. Those who failed to embrace the moment, he warned, risked slowing down the entire team.

“A number of folks work less than 60 hours, and a small number put in the bare minimum to get by,” Brin wrote last year, according to The New York Times. “This last group is not only unproductive but also can be highly demoralizing to everyone else.”