News @lemmy.world HellsBelle @sh.itjust.works 2d 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Some have praised Brin’s commitment to pushing the company’s success, but others argue that his approach reflects an outdated and harmful mindset.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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82 comments

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.
  
  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.
- 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~%3Atext=For+example%2C+according+to+a%2CExactly+what+you'd+expect.
- 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.

82 comments