In the note, shared internally and viewed by the New York Times, Brin urges staff working on Google’s Gemini AI projects to put in long hours to help the company lead the race in artificial general intelligence (AGI).
Some have praised Brin’s commitment to pushing the company’s success, but others argue that his approach reflects an outdated and harmful mindset.
“The hustle-centric 60-hour week isn’t productivity—it’s burnout waiting to happen,” wrote workplace mental health educator Catherine Eadie in a post shared by LinkedIn’s news editors.
Others said they feel that hard work is essential for success, with a COO of a business analytics business writing, “Brin is just being honest—successful people have always put in long hours."
Last summer there were a bunch of stories reporting findings that companies that experimented with a 4-day work week saw productivity gains over the traditional 5-day, so this billionaire’s opinion sounds out of alignment with reality
It’s burnout waiting to happen
So? Then you fire them and hire fresh meat.
Humans are replaceable, no?
/S, of course
Don’t worry the full mindset is: work 60h/week until you train your replacement… The AI…
I honestly think it’s more like 30. If we’re all just making numbers up.
We are slowly shifting to a 4x8=32h work week here. 60h long term has nothing to do with productivity anymore.
“Fuck productivity! You’re my bitch and I’m here to show it!”
I dream of my company going to that schedule, but I don’t think they ever will. It’s great to see other companies shifting that way though :)
Irony alert: pushing humans harder while building AI to replace them—brilliant strategy, Sergey.
😾
He fucked his assistant at work and got divorced over it.
ahahahaha!
What an idjit.
double the salary is also a very sweet spot for productivity
Lol. Yeah. Shut up. Its not. Proven not.
It is if your an ineffective manager trying to justify their salary in a time of economic crisis.
I’m sorry that Sergey Brin apparently doesn’t have hobbies or family/friends that care about him, but 60 is still wrong. We have computers and work multipliers and have perfected efficiency… We don’t need to spend the majority of our lives toiling anymore! Some would argue against 40, but at least that gives a balanced workday: 8 hours of work, 8 hours of sleep, 8 hours of leisure. And I say all that as someone who actually likes their job…
60 hours is the sweet spot for maximal control over your employees life with only the normal amount of suicides.
Well, if Sergey Brin wants to work 60 hour weeks, be my guest. Sounds like a good idea for the CEO class, since they should really justify what they’re paid.
Sounds like a good idea for the CEO class
Mate, he’s a class or two ABOVE the CEO class. He’s in the “trillionaire soon maybe?” class where you don’t get to be by just being a CEO, you have to own major stock in a massively overvalued company that just keeps on growing.
He should be working at LEAST 50000 hour weeks to justify his continued growth of wealth at this point. Why the lazy bastard isn’t doing it is beyond me.
Totally agree! I use CEO in that way, but yeah, he is definitely an uber rich asshole, who is paid way more than could ever be fair. Definitely more than could ever be what he ‘deserves’ or ‘earns’.
Right now, i think some of these people are absolutely unable to participate in society because they literally exist outside of the normal bounds, far outside of them. And exactly that will create major problems, well it already has and we’re living through it. What’s to keep these assholes from actually demanding this kind of work hours from workers? Like, they will do so, absolutely, once you let them.
I’m just not at all sure in what way in the current liberal system, we’re able to limit the wealth and power of these individuals. Yeah, taxes of course, but these people are so deeply connected to political class and are able to bully the legal system… So, that’s a hard challenge there.
Right now, i think some of these people are absolutely unable to participate in society because they literally exist outside of the normal bounds, far outside of them.
Yeah. These are people for whom a carton eggs could cost $5000 and it wouldn’t really matter. Not because they’re eating steak or salmon for most meals, but because the difference between $5 and $5000 is negligible.
They’re Lucille Bluth, but 10000x as rich as the Bluth family ever even pretended to be
And plus they say that they do all of the work, remember?
“Arbeit macht frei.”
Ahh, the typical manager misconception. Nope. Long work hours don’t equal high productivity.
But I can understand that misconception, as it takes those people up there many more hours to get a single useful idea compared to those under them who actually do the work and earn the money.
Outside of the google office would be a sweet spot for a guillotine.
Has there ever been a better call to eat the rich?!
