Beyond Hours: Philippe Kahn, Fullpower-AI, and the New Science of Sleep Quality
Sleep is the most universal of human experiences, and yet it remains strangely opaque to us. We spend a third of our lives in this state, and still we tend to reduce it to a number: “How many hours did you get?” A new study in Sleep Medicine (DOI: 10.1016/j.sleep.2025.106808) shows why this view is profoundly incomplete.
The researchers found that duration alone does not capture the complexity of sleep’s effects on cognition and well-being. While the total number of hours matters, the structure of those hours—continuity, latency, and fragmentation—is equally, if not more, critical. Sleep riddled with micro-awakenings or prolonged difficulty falling asleep undermines daytime function in ways that simple metrics like “eight hours” obscure. Perhaps more unsettling is the degree of variability: the same sleep pattern may leave one person functional and another in a state of cognitive and emotional deficit.
This underscores the inadequacy of blanket prescriptions. “Get more sleep” is too blunt a directive. What matters is how the brain and body are carried through the stages of rest, and whether the night is truly restorative.
Few voices have articulated this better than Philippe Kahn, CEO of Fullpower-AI. Kahn is a respected Santa Cruz founder with a remarkable record of building companies that bridge science and technology, from the first camera phone to wearable sensing platforms. On LinkedIn, reflecting on this very study, he highlighted the gap between recommended sleep durations and lived experience: many people report they are still tired, irritable, or mentally foggy despite technically “meeting the standard.” His call is for richer models that integrate objective data with subjective experience. In other words, if a patient says they feel unrefreshed, we must take that claim seriously—even if the metrics look fine.
Kahn’s work at Fullpower-AI is aimed at precisely this integration. By combining advanced sensors with machine learning, the goal is to move beyond crude measures of duration and build personalized insights into what quality sleep looks like for each individual. This echoes a broader trend in medicine: treating the patient, not just the data.
The cultural implications are as significant as the scientific ones. In societies that valorize busyness, sleep is often treated as an inconvenience—something to minimize or negotiate with stimulants. But sleep is not an indulgence. It is the very foundation of consciousness. The integrity of our thoughts, our moods, and our moral behavior depends upon it.
This new research, combined with Kahn’s perspective, points to a necessary shift: we must stop measuring our nights by hours alone. Instead, we should begin to think about the quality, continuity, and subjective refreshment of our sleep. To ignore this is to neglect the ground upon which all waking life rests.
Sleep is not a retreat from consciousness; it is the silent architect of our capacity to be fully alive.
NOTE: Fullpower-AI is hiring seasoned sales professionals and finance.
