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Some have praised Brin’s commitment to pushing the company’s success, but others argue that his approach reflects an outdated and harmful mindset.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."
There’s 182,502 employees at Google.
Maybe if Brin wants to work hard, he can do all the work at 60 hours a week himself, since he’s so fucking smart.
That’s only 10,950,120 hours a week, Brin. Those are rookie numbers! You can do it yourself, right? Right?
You wouldn’t be sitting on your ass doing nothing demanding others do all the work, right? Right??
Narrator: Brin was indeed sitting on his ass doing nothing.
Also, for context, 60 hours a week divided by 7 days a week is 8.6 hours a day with no days off or 6 ten hour days with one day off or 5 twelve hour days with two days off.
often these fucks do work 60–100 hour weeks because they are soulless, friendless, loveless, hobbyless people with no interior life or social life.
I work 60-100 hours a week because I own my business.
They aren’t “working” in the same way I am or you are. They don’t work their businesses. Their hobbies social life and business are all blurred. That’s why they can make the claim they are always working but it’s not the same thing.
I hope you can return to a healthy balance soon.
Nah, they count shit like going to the gym for two hours or having a three-hour-three-martini “business lunch” as part of their “work week” so those numbers are way overinflated. They count every little thing they do that they tell us “isn’t working” (like eating) as “work” when it comes to their own schedules.
There’s middle managers who really work like that but its because they hate their home lives, their wives, their children.
“I am the all-important central pillar of this company, so looking after my health needs is how I do my job. It would be bad if I joined investor calls and virtual meetings without getting 10 hours of sleep and 3 square meals per day, so of course that time is billable. And I’ll need the company to pay for my various trainers, aides, counsellors, and spiritual advisors who keep me physically and mentally healthy, otherwise we wouldn’t have a leg up on the competition.”
“Hey, does it make our company look bad if the Apple CEO owns a larger yacht than I do? We need to fix that ASAP. How can we make more room in the budget for my compensation? Do we really need to keep all these engineers?”
Now we are talking!
Exactly! I worked at a really small company in a rural area and and even at that insignificant place my bosses would sit around, drink coffee, maybe drive their fancy company cars visiting their friends at another company for chatting and berating their employees for being lazy and being egoistic for having a low working morale. While leaving early everyday. I used to say I’d like very much spend my holidays like they spend their days working.
Please join my TED talk on “Why whip is a more efficient motivational tool than bonuses?”
Hurry! Before they change president and figure out all the data we stole from everyone during this glorious time!
60 hours is the sweet spot for maximal control over your employees life with only the normal amount of suicides.
As a sufferer of Long Covid, Sergey Brin can suck my ass. Any company can deem themselves lucky if I manage to make 40 a week. There’s more to life than work, and it’s not like they’ll pay you for those extra 20 hours.
Spoken to someone who might work 60 minutes a week.
He can get fucked by his 60 hour work week. Sideways.
So nice of him to support the abuse of his employees for his personal gain.
It’s not about productivity. Productivity drops exponentially when people are tired. It’s about crushing the human spirit.
If you are a CEO, sure. But if you are not then it’s quite the opposite.
If only these capitalist pigs could put themselves in the shoes of others.
60-hour workmonth? Sign me up!
Classic correlation v. causation. The sweet spot for productivity is believing in and wanting to do your work. For some people, this motivates them to spend tons of time working. For some people, this boueys then to high productivity even while exercising great work life balance and avoiding burnout.
Google used to know this, and spend huge amounts of effort and resources on trust, enjoyment, innovation. Now that’s something to find at other companies.
Have fun paying out overtime in developed countries
Assuming overtime pay and other employee benefits aren’t completely gutted
That’s why I specified developed countries. Countries stuck in the 1800s don’t count.
They won’t pay overtime. Obviously.
JFC, and with the assholes in the government in collusion with these fuckers, they are likely to be able to make it mandatory.
The 4 day workweek is likely more optimal for humans, at least until we are post-scarcity.
Hey Brin, kindly go fuck yourself, you out-of-tpuch ass.
workweek
Joiningwords forno reasonis weirdwhenhyphens stillexist.
punktetrefferanerkennung
arbeidsongeschiktheidsverzekeringsmaatschappij
Why? Fuck me, that’s like a 12 hour day over a 5 day week. No-one is doing productive 12 hours day for very long, so he’s basically just arguing for an adult version of fucking daycare here.
Depends on your job, this is definitely true, specially on Fridays. No one wants to work on Friday, productivity is lowest on Fridays.
Well yeah. If you’re at the office that long, you’ll be too tired to do anything else like protest, organize, live life, etc.
…or 8.6 hours a day 7 days a week with no days off. There’s no way to math this that isn’t “fuck you, you don’t deserve a life outside of working to replace yourself with AI.”
Or 10 hour days 6 days a week, only so the “responsible” employees can go to church.
Ew.
Specially developers, you’re going to spend the first 3 hours of work every day, fixing all the shitty code wrote in the 3 last hours of the preview day.
Yep. If you want max productivity from devs, it’s salary and ad hoc.
Do your work when the fuck ever. Just get it done.
