Andrej Karpathy's Daily Routine
Do the most important thing first and keep weekends free. Andrej Karpathy exercises for an hour, has one coffee, then goes straight to his top task.
By Colin PaceUpdated
Overview
Andrej Karpathy was a founding member of OpenAI in 2015 and led AI at Tesla from 2017 to 2022. In 2025 he coined the term "vibe coding". His employed week is simple: about 9:00 AM to 7:00 PM, Monday to Friday, and nothing on weekends.
He starts the day with an hour of exercise and one coffee, then goes straight to his top-priority task. He aims for 7.5 hours of sleep. He described the week on Threads in 2024, and on X in 2025 he laid out a far more chaotic one from a stretch when he wasn't employed. His PhD years ran later still, with bed at 5:00 AM and waking at noon.
Anyone whose mornings get eaten by small tasks should borrow the order: move, one coffee, then the thing that matters most before anything else gets in. You get the big task done while you're fresh, and a weekend that's genuinely off. The midnight bedtime, the timing of the exercise hour and the meals are our estimates.
Who's it for
At a glance
- 7 hr 30 min sleep per night
- 47.5 hr work per week
- 2 meals per day
- 8 hr eating window
- 7 hr movement per week
Sleep
52.5 hours/week7 hr 30 min per night
- Weekdays12:00 AM → 7:30 AM· 7 hr 30 min
- Weekends12:00 AM → 7:30 AM· 7 hr 30 min
No naps.
Work
47.5 hours/week9 hr 30 min a day3 hr 30 min deep work6 hr other
Nothing on Weekends
- Deep work9:00 AM → 12:30 PM· 3 hr 30 min · Weekdays
- Work1:00 PM → 7:00 PM· 6 hr · Weekdays
Eat
7 hours/week2 meals16:8 eating window1 hr eating
- Lunch12:30 PM → 1:00 PM· 30 min · Weekdays
- Dinner7:30 PM → 8:00 PM· 30 min · Weekdays
- Lunch12:30 PM → 1:00 PM· 30 min · Weekends
- Dinner7:30 PM → 8:00 PM· 30 min · Weekends
Off
Move
7 hours/weekMove 7:30 AM
- Move7:30 AM → 8:30 AM· 1 hr · Weekdays
- Move7:30 AM → 8:30 AM· 1 hr · Weekends