1w ago

Google co-founder says 60-hour workweek the ‘sweet spot’ for productivity

www.ctvnews.ca Google co-founder wants employees to work 60 hours a week in office

Sergey Brin, the co-founder of Google, claims that a 60-hour workweek is the “sweet spot” for productivity in a recent memo sent to employees.

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Some have praised Brin’s commitment to pushing the company’s success, but others argue that his approach reflects an outdated and harmful mindset.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."

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5d ago

Google co-founder wants employees to work 60 hours a week in office

www.ctvnews.ca /business/article/google-co-founder-says-60-hour-workweek-the-sweet-spot-for-productivity/

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118 comments

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..

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 :)

I honestly think it's more like 30. If we're all just making numbers up.

He fucked his assistant at work and got divorced over it.
- ahahahaha!
  What an idjit.

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.
- And plus they say that they do all of the work, remember?

Irony alert: pushing humans harder while building AI to replace them—brilliant strategy, Sergey.
😾

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...
- Commuting should be included in the 8 hour work day. I shouldn't have to give up some of my leisure time to drive to work.
  This would also incentivize denser cities.
  
  Commuting should be included in the 8 hour work day
  This would also incentivize denser cities.
  How come? You'd be paid the same regardless, be away from home for the same time regardless; suddenly it makes sense to move further away from work.
  
  Not to brag, but it is for me! But I'm also not paid a large amount. And it absolutely should be for everyone...

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.

"Arbeit macht frei."

60 hours is the sweet spot for maximal control over your employees life with only the normal amount of suicides.

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?!

What a pile of human garbage.

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.

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.

60/5=12/day 8/day for sleep Let's say it takes me an hour each way to get to and from the office. Maybe 1hr for dinner
Now I have 1 hour/day to do everything else I need to do? How did this guy invent Google?
- You sleep at the office or work 6 or 7 days. People aren't often doing 60 hour weeks by working 12x5 and then 2 off.
  Edit: Google even has those sleeping pods!
  
  Ah, my bad.
  So just have to do 50% more work for no additional pay, give up one of the two days I get to spend with my kids and require me to incur additional expenditure on childcare.
  And he's suggesting this to quite possibly the most employable software developers on the planet? Kinda sounds like a fucking moron.
- You don't have staff to clean your house, cook your food, take care of your kids, pay your bills?
  What are you some kind of poor?

I thought 6 hours per day were best? Also, where I work, we’ve gone through voluntary overtime, working 60 hour weeks. People start to look like zombies and were more prone to mistakes by week three. It is simply not sustainable.
EDIT: spelling/grammar
- I was gonna say after a few weeks of 60 hour weeks I’d be fucked. Didn’t realise that was legit.

Sergi can eat donkey dick.

Spoken to someone who might work 60 minutes a week.
He can get fucked by his 60 hour work week. Sideways.

Hey Brin, kindly go fuck yourself, you out-of-tpuch ass.

Rich asshole says out of touch moronic thing. More at 7.

Google
---Do most harm---

people like this shouldn't be allowed to finish their sentences on their own terms. it should be cut short by an extreme force.

Only if it's for two people - 30 hours each!

Lmao dude trying to claw back some relevance with bait.
Sergei Brin has not accomplished anything since Pagerank and it must make him feel very small especially since his ass got dumped quite recently.
Sad little billionaire.

Did that guy ever work anywhere else?

Does he hate social relationships and his family or something?
- Our? Yes.
  His, probably not.

When is technology going to make our lives better?

Fuck work

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.

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.

Hurry! Before they change president and figure out all the data we stole from everyone during this glorious time!

I have found out that my productivity goes down after about 6 hours of work. And even if the productivity is seemingly the same (e.g. when I worked at cigarettes factory), I unsurprisingly made more mistakes when tired. Although I must say I am more tired when I do boring shit (or nothing lol) in office job than on production line, but it's just me.

I'd be down to work the 60hrs if it was voluntary overtime. But constantly? Probably not.

Another B$ telling us how we should live. How about fawking off Sergey!

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.
- 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.
  
  My thoughts also. Totalitarian regimes make people work all the time so they're too burned-out and disorientated to rebel.
- Depends on your job, this is definitely true, specially on Fridays. No one wants to work on Friday, productivity is lowest on Fridays.
  https://www.inc.com/geoffrey-james/new-research-most-salaried-employees-only-do-about-3-hours-of-real-work-each-day.html#%3A%7E%3Atext=For+example%2C+according+to+a%2CExactly+what+you%27d+expect.
- ...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.
- 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.

what a useless clown
- At this point, it's an insult to clowns.
  
  fair, "clown" as in the study of physical comedy is genuinely hilarious
- Not true. They know exactly what theyre doing to extract wealth from the workers.
  
  Yes. The rich prefer slavery if they can get away with it .
- Mba say the darnest things

Kicking Sergey Brin in the teeth and working 30 hours a week is max productivity.

My ass it is. We're going the other direction.

Hitting Brin in the balls repeatedly would increase my happiness.

I’d work work 60 hours a week if I was going to get paid the millions they make but I’m not doing that work just to make someone else rich.
- It's beyond just making millions for someone else, it's about literally building their replacements.
  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).
  They want an AGI that will do all the work "for free" and they don't have to worry about pesky human workers who want things like "human rights" anymore.
  
  Most big players in the AI field have already said that they are not going to reach the goals they set for environmental impact by 2030. The "for free" part simply means that Earth will become unlivable for human beings sooner
  
  Yep, just plug 'em in and they'll work 24x7x52 without a complaint. That's the goal.
  "The race" to AGI is just the race to unemployment and complete subservience to the TechBro super-rich and their ilk.
- Let’s see, can’t grow your own food, can’t make your own clothes, can’t fix your own home, have to pay property taxes no matter what, have to pay for health insurance or you die…
  They have a lot of people between a rock and a hard place. Might even be all of us.

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.

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.
  
  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 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.

Please join my TED talk on "Why whip is a more efficient motivational tool than bonuses?"

60-hour workmonth? Sign me up!

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.

workweek
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