The offices of coding tools startup Cursor have a no-shoes policy. One employee posted two photos on X of shoes scattered across a wooden floor inside what looks more like the entrance to someone's apartment than the offices of the $9.9 billion company.
The offices of coding tools startup Cursor have a no-shoes policy. One employee posted two photos on X of shoes scattered across a wooden floor inside what looks more like the entrance to someone's apartment than the offices of the $9.9 billion company.
Cursor employee Ben Lang wrote in X: “Cursor office(s) in San Francisco.” He also noted that he has only worked at startups with no-shoe policies.
Some X users took the policy negatively, mainly due to concerns about potential odor issues. In response, Lang wrote that there are shoe covers and slippers at the entrance.
The shoe-ban policy is not a new trend in Silicon Valley. Before the pandemic, going barefoot was a "uniform" for techies, along with hoodies, T-shirts, and jeans. The main reason given was that some CEOs grew up in families where going barefoot was a tradition.
Lang also published a list of 25 startups in X where politics is at work.
“We’ve been doing this for years,” said Andrew Hsu, co-founder of Speak, a San Francisco-based language learning app that was on the list.
A Speak spokesperson confirmed to Business Insider that they have a no-shoes policy, adding that "employees receive a bonus pair of slippers when they join the team."
The founder of another startup also confirmed that they have a shoe ban.
“We are a shoeless, pantsless culture,” said Kyle Sherman, founder of Flowhub, which develops software for managing cannabis retail. “But shorts are mandatory.”
