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Some have praised Brin’s commitment to pushing the company’s success, but others argue that his approach reflects an outdated and harmful mindset.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."
60 hours is the sweet spot for maximal control over your employees life with only the normal amount of suicides.
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!
Did that guy ever work anywhere else?
Spoken to someone who might work 60 minutes a week.
He can get fucked by his 60 hour work week. Sideways.
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.
Hey Brin, kindly go fuck yourself, you out-of-tpuch ass.
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.
…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.
Depends on your job, this is definitely true, specially on Fridays. No one wants to work on Friday, productivity is lowest on Fridays.
Kicking Sergey Brin in the teeth and working 30 hours a week is max productivity.
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.
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 .
Even if it’s less efficient than better treatment of the workforce
Mba say the darnest things
My ass it is. We’re going the other direction.
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.
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.
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.
“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!
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.
Please join my TED talk on “Why whip is a more efficient motivational tool than bonuses?”
