xAI engineers camp overnight as Grokipedia launch nears in LA
-2xmnjtT2.png "xAI engineers camp overnight as Grokipedia launch nears in LA")
At the headquarters of xAI in Los Angeles, engineers pitched tents and stayed overnight ahead of the planned release of Grokipedia – the AI-powered encyclopedia project from Elon Musk – highlighting the startup’s high-intensity, around-the-clock engineering culture.
Grokipedia is described by Musk as a “massive improvement over Wikipedia,” aimed at being an open-source knowledge base powered by xAI’s LLM model Grok. Originally scheduled for October 20, 2025, the launch was delayed to review sources and reduce bias.
Critics of Grokipedia point out that building a credible encyclopedia takes more than speed and AI. The project still faces questions about source transparency, editorial governance and how it will handle ideological biases embedded in training data. Previous announcements from Musk and xAI emphasised that the model will tag statements as “true, partially true or missing key context.”
The overnight‐camp culture at tech companies is not new, but in the crypto and AI world it takes on an almost ceremonial quality. In 2024 the staff of LayerZero refused to leave the office during a Sybil-attack sweep, sleeping at desks and working non-stop. Others joke about “sleeping bags under the desk” seen as a badge of dedication. The xAI story continues that lineage.
The overnight‐camp culture at tech companies is not new, but in the crypto and AI world it takes on an almost ceremonial quality. In 2024 the staff of LayerZero refused to leave the office during a Sybil-attack sweep, sleeping at desks and working non-stop. Others joke about “sleeping bags under the desk” seen as a badge of dedication. The xAI story continues that lineage.
On the other hand, burnout is pervasive across tech and finance roles, where long hours and high pressure are common. Studies show that more than half of IT professionals report feeling burnt out, with one global survey reporting 58% of decision-makers in tech across 31 countries experiencing burnout. According to research published in 2025, digitalisation and relentless role overload contribute directly to burnout by expanding job demands faster than organisations provide support.
Whether camping overnight yields better product quality or simply more hype is unclear. In xAI’s case the tents and all-night sprints are part of the launch narrative for Grokipedia, which claims to challenge Wikipedia’s editorial model and reliance on human editors.
Whether camping overnight yields better product quality or simply more hype is unclear. In xAI’s case the tents and all-night sprints are part of the launch narrative for Grokipedia, which claims to challenge Wikipedia’s editorial model and reliance on human editors.
Author
Sebile Fane cut her teeth in blockchain by building tiny NFT experiments with friends in her living room, long before the buzzwords took hold. She’s driven by a curiosity for the human stories behind smart contracts — whether it’s a small-town artist minting her first token or a DAO voting on climate grants — and weaves technical insight with genuine empathy.
