'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.
By Sherin Shibu Edited by Melissa Malamut
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 $9.9 billion AI coding startup earlier this year, posted two pictures to X 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 Notion, an AI workspace startup, in addition to Cursor. "Curious which other companies do this."
Lang compiled what he called a "comprehensive" list of 26 startups with no-shoes policies, including Lovable, a company that helps users build websites and apps with AI, and reMarkable, a paper tablet startup.
Cursor office(s) in San Francisco https://t.co/6m68bUAghD pic.twitter.com/i0mf9S2B07
— Ben Lang (@benln) August 12, 2025
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 wrote 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 Business Insider.
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 CBS News/YouGov survey, 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 should be barefoot, which could lead 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 reported 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 in a post on X. "Shorts are required though."
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