An Inc news report examines the sleep habits of successful business people and inventors, past and present.

Sleep isn’t just something we spend a lot of time doing, it’s something we spend a lot of time thinking about. Sleep deprivation can cause a variety of problems that can negatively effect your productivity, leading to anything from concentration problems to depression. But what is the right amount of sleep? The traditional number (and the National Sleep Foundation’s recommendation) is somewhere between seven and nine hours for a healthy adult. However, some experts argue that anything more than seven hours is unhealthy. Furthermore, the C.D.C. found that some people may have a gene that lets them sleep less. Take to the internet or hit the books when it comes to sleep and you’ll find a lot of disagreements, conflicting studies, and not too many clear answers. One thing is clear, though: sleep is important.

Some of history’s most successful people–and some of the most successful people living today–have answered the sleep question in surprising ways. While some successful people, like Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, or Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, get somewhere between 7 and 9 hours of sleep every night, others have strange habits and schedules that may seem impossible to keep to the average sleeper.

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