‘No Shoes and No Pants Culture’: There Are at Least 26 Tech Companies Where Shoes Are Left at the Office Door, Including a $9.9 Billion AI Startup
The front entrance of Cursor’s San Francisco office is full of employees’ shoes.
Key Takeaways
- AI coding company Cursor has a no-shoes policy in the office.
- A Cursor employee in San Francisco posted pictures on X on Tuesday of shoes inside the entrance of the company’s office building.
- This policy isn’t new in Silicon Valley, with tech leaders adopting it as early as 2019.
Stepping into Cursor’s San Francisco office means stepping out of your shoes.
Ben Lang, a Cursor employee who joined the AI coding startup earlier this year, on Tuesday showing racks filled with shoes, plus sneakers and slip-ons strewn across the floor. The destination was not someone’s home, but rather the Cursor office in San Francisco, which has a no-shoes policy.
And while this might seem odd to the typical 9-to-5er, it’s actually quite common in Silicon Valley.
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“I’ve only worked at startups that have a no-shoes in office policy,” Lang posted, adding that he had worked at , an AI workspace startup, in addition to Cursor. “Curious which other companies do this.”
Lang what he called a “comprehensive” list of 26 startups with no-shoes policies, including , a company that helps users build websites and apps with AI, and , a paper tablet startup.
Cursor office(s) in San Francisco
— Ben Lang (@benln)
Andrew Hsu, co-founder of language-acquisition app Speak, chimed in on Lang’s post on X, stating that Speak had “done this for years,” even offering employees a stipend for slippers. Lang on X that Cursor also provides slippers to wear around the San Francisco office and offers shoe covers as well.
Speak’s no-shoes policy began in 2019 because its first market was South Korea. The startup wanted to “pay homage to the traditional Asian culture of no shoes inside,” a Speak spokesperson told .
Another reason why no-shoe policies are popular in Silicon Valley is that many startups begin in someone’s home, where shoes aren’t worn inside. According to a 2023 , the majority of Americans (nearly two-in-three) take off their shoes when they are in their own homes.
Experts say taking off your shoes can leave unhealthy contaminants at the door, but that still doesn’t mean you , which could to injury and infection. However, despite the drawbacks, the trend of not wearing shoes in the office has persisted for a number of years, beginning before the pandemic.
BI in 2019 that companies like Notion and Gusto, a payroll platform, offered workers the perk of slipping off their shoes at the front door.
One startup founder, Kyle Sherman of software platform Flowhub, went even further than no shoes by banning pants in the office as well (though shorts are mandatory).
“We are no shoes and no pants culture,” Sherman wrote . “Shorts are required though.”
Join top CEOs, founders and operators at the to unlock strategies for scaling your business, boosting revenue and building sustainable success.Key Takeaways
- AI coding company Cursor has a no-shoes policy in the office.
- A Cursor employee in San Francisco posted pictures on X on Tuesday of shoes inside the entrance of the company’s office building.
- This policy isn’t new in Silicon Valley, with tech leaders adopting it as early as 2019.
Stepping into Cursor’s San Francisco office means stepping out of your shoes.
Ben Lang, a Cursor employee who joined the AI coding startup earlier this year, on Tuesday showing racks filled with shoes, plus sneakers and slip-ons strewn across the floor. The destination was not someone’s home, but rather the Cursor office in San Francisco, which has a no-shoes policy.
And while this might seem odd to the typical 9-to-5er, it’s actually quite common in Silicon Valley.
