carry your laptop in “taco mode” through airports and offices

The video is, the truth, weird. It shows a hand carrying a closed laptop while climbing some stairs. A few moments later, the shot changes, and that same hand is carrying the same laptop slightly open, held only so that it does not close completely, as he descends the stairs.

The question, of course, is why.

And then you look at who posted and you start to understand what’s happening, because that video is from OpenAI.

People carrying laptop slightly open. With it, the AI ​​company wants to imply that there is a new fashion in Silicon Valley: that of going with your laptop everywhere, but not like before, when you carried it closed. Instead, people are carrying it slightly open because that allows the laptop to continue operating normally and not go to sleep or activate power saving modes. And the people who carry their laptop like this are people who do not stop using AI.

What seems strange or an oversight is actually a technical necessity imposed by AI agents to program. Both Claude Code and OpenAI Codex are used non-stop by Silicon Valley AI engineers, but to keep them running you have to prevent your computer from going to sleep. So what engineers who don’t stop working on AI projects with these agents do is, when moving from one place to another, they carry their laptops slightly open to prevent work from being interrupted.

The code must survive. The problem is simple but compelling: many of these AI agents are used for long programming processes that work autonomously but depend, for example, on an active WiFi connection or on AI models that run locally. If one closes the lid completely, operating systems often go into sleep mode, killing the active session and even losing accumulated progress. The solution for many is that “taco mode”: they hold the hinge with a finger so that the operating system keeps the screen and the session active.

A symbol of the times. In Business Insider they stood out how this way of carrying the laptop from one place to another is increasingly common in all types of scenarios. Not only do engineers and professionals in the technology segment in Silicon Valley do it, but it is also used by students and fans of AI who are working on all types of projects with these types of agents and do not want their work to be interrupted.

There are other options… On Reddit some users they criticized to those who carry their laptops like this, remembering that there is no reason to carry the laptop in cue mode so that it does not go to sleep. It is possible to change the power options of macOS, Windows or Linux so that when you close the laptop everything continues to function normally, but there are also tools such as Caffeinate that allow it even without changing energy options.

…but companies rule. The problem is that the professional reality is usually somewhat different: most corporate employees are forced to use “capped” laptops by the policies of the IT departments of those companies. It is usually impossible to install new tools beyond those “validated” by the company, and it is also not possible to change system preferences. The half-open laptop thus becomes a “physical hack” that solves the problem.

Virtual machines or agents in the cloud. There was also criticism of the fact that those same developers could simply have these AI agents running in the cloud, where the machines run 24/7. This would allow these processes to remain active regardless of the state of the laptop, and would also solve possible connection interruptions if one travels by plane or is in a place with a poor Wi-Fi or data connection. However, these intensive AI users prefer to carry the laptop in tow and have that immediate and total control of the situation.

Silly or prestigious? Fashion has become something that, according to BI testimonies, is increasingly common in Silicon Valley. Although some users feel a little strange and try to hide this way of carrying the laptop, others say they feel good because they see that more people do it. It is in some ways a sign of a certain professional prestige, because it seems to identify these people as heavy users of AI who are probably “on the crest” of the technological wave.

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