Jensen Huang bans one-on-one meetings, and Airbnb's Brian Chesky doesn't use email -- meet the CEOs with unconventional work-life rules

White-collar workers have fallen into the mundane rhythm of office life: checking an endless stream of emails, sitting through a barrage of meetings, and pushing through mental fatigue by week's end.

But some CEOs are rewriting norms of the corporate world, leading billion- and trillion-dollar companies on their own terms.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang: no one-on-one meetings

Huang, the cofounder and CEO of $4.8 trillion technology giant Nvidia, is trimming the fat from his work routine by prioritizing efficiency over regular check-ins.

The leader doesn't believe that frequent catch-ups with his 55 direct reports are the best use of his time, given that a continuous stream of meetings would only clog up his work schedule and slow him down.

"I don't do one-on-one's with any of them," Huang said at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research summit in 2024.

His broader goal is to maintain transparency within one of the world's largest companies.

"They never hear me say something to them that is only for them to know," the billionaire continued. "There's not one piece of information that I somehow secretly tell the staff; I don't tell the rest of the company."

Huang still has regular catch-ups with his executive team, and if an employee genuinely needs to get in touch with him, he'll "drop everything for them," the CEO added. However, limiting time-consuming meetings helps Huang and the company move faster in the AI race.

"In that way, our company was designed for agility," Huang said. "For information to flow as quickly as possible. For people to be empowered by what they are able to do, not what they know."

Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky: no emails or early-morning meetings

Chesky said that no leader should apologize for how they choose to run their businesses, and he's unabashedly following his own advice.

For one, the chief executive of the $86 billion short-term rental platform no longer bothers with the bane of many workers' existence: emailing. Instead, he texts and calls to get his job done.

"[Emailing] was the thing about my job that I hated the most before the pandemic," Chesky told The Wall Street Journal last year.

And that's not the only corporate norm Chesky has snubbed: the Airbnb CEO, who hits peak creativity late into the night, also doesn't take meetings before 10 a.m. The rise-and-grind norm of Silicon Valley CEOs doesn't apply to the self-made billionaire.

"When you're CEO," Chesky said, "you can decide when the first meeting of the day is."

United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby: office power naps

Kirby said that an impromptu office nap is his trick to staying sharp over his decades-long career in business. He even slept on the floor until United staffers found out about his habit, and rushed to get him a couch for some quality shut eye.