Sun’s out, laptops out.
Summer is the season of endless out-of-office messages, as workers cash in on their paid time off. But is the same true for those locked in the AI race?
Miles Brundage, OpenAI’s former head of policy research, theorized on X that some AI labs may be more keen on vacay time than others. While it’s difficult to know how Anthropic or OpenAI actually compare on PTO usage, Brundage’s post sparked a debate about vacation days in the white-hot AI race.
For AI employees chasing the singularity or a white-hot IPO, do you really want a Euro summer?
The OpenAI vs Anthropic vacation debate
In Brundage’s comments, OpenAI and Anthropic staffers debated their own vacation time.
One Anthropic staffer showed off his trip to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. An OpenAI employee said that it was “a sign that I should take some vacation.”
Leo Gao wrote that, as “someone who has always had a tendency to let my work consume my entire life,” he’s felt at home at OpenAI.
Others took it as an opportunity to take jabs. OpenAI’s Jason Liu asked Anthropic’s Thariq Shihipar whether he agreed. “Aren’t you always on vacation,” Shihipar responded.
OpenAI and Anthropic did not respond to requests for comment. Commenters also chimed in on vacation culture at other AI labs, such as Meta and Google DeepMind.
“Having just transferred from academia I’m still trying to figure out what this ‘vacation’ thing is,” wrote Alex Imas, Google DeepMind’s director of AGI economics.
Angel investor Kevin Wimer pointed to a lab with a notoriously hardcore reputation: “Now do SpaceXAI. I don’t think they sleep.”
Brundage, the former OpenAI staffer, said the main point he was trying to make by posting about PTO within the AI community was that “rest is important!”
Are you ‘hardcore’ if you take PTO?
Most tech workers do have access to vacation days. Taking it is another question.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 95% of information workers have access to paid vacation. A 2025 Alliant survey of tech industry benefits found that tech companies offered an average of 19.8 days of PTO.
Still, the AI race is getting faster and fiercer. To stay competitive, some tech companies are instilling hardcore work cultures. Some software engineers are 996ing — working 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., six days a week — and abstaining from vices like alcohol.
Under such work pressure, taking a trip may be last on the list.
Or the engineers may not personally want to travel, for fear of falling behind. AI bros told Business Insider that keeping track can be overwhelming. One described it as “drinking from a water hose, and the hose just keeps getting bigger.”
What does OpenAI CEO Sam Altman think of time off? He said in 2018 that he was a “bad example of work-life balance.”
“I do try to take vacation,” he said at WIRED25. “But the rest of the time I just work.”
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