this post was submitted on 02 Mar 2025
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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Some have praised Brin’s commitment to pushing the company’s success, but others argue that his approach reflects an outdated and harmful mindset.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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[–] DegenerationIP@lemmy.world 8 points 46 minutes ago

Lol. Yeah. Shut up. Its not. Proven not.

[–] Yeller_king@reddthat.com 12 points 1 hour ago

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

[–] iAvicenna@lemmy.world 8 points 1 hour ago

double the salary is also a very sweet spot for productivity

[–] Matriks404@lemmy.world 1 points 32 minutes ago* (last edited 31 minutes ago)

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.

[–] werefreeatlast@lemmy.world 6 points 1 hour ago

Google

---Do most harm---

[–] UnsavoryMollusk@lemmy.world 5 points 2 hours ago

Does he hate social relationships and his family or something?

[–] TheChickenOfDoom@lemm.ee 12 points 3 hours ago

What a pile of human garbage.

[–] BeardedGingerWonder@feddit.uk 11 points 4 hours ago (2 children)

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?

[–] Wav_function@lemmy.world 1 points 24 minutes ago

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?

[–] NotMyOldRedditName@lemmy.world 8 points 4 hours ago* (last edited 4 hours ago) (1 children)

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!

[–] BeardedGingerWonder@feddit.uk 3 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

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.

[–] NotMyOldRedditName@lemmy.world 2 points 3 hours ago* (last edited 3 hours ago)

Kids? They don't want you. They want childless people who they can work for the 60h or more a week.

[–] x00z@lemmy.world 19 points 6 hours ago

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.

[–] Triasha@lemmy.world 27 points 8 hours ago

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

[–] madjo@feddit.nl 6 points 6 hours ago

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.

[–] CharlesDarwin@lemmy.world 8 points 7 hours ago

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.

[–] Aceticon@lemmy.dbzer0.com 11 points 8 hours ago

Did that guy ever work anywhere else?

[–] werefreeatlast@lemmy.world 7 points 8 hours ago

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

[–] Dvixen@lemmy.world 27 points 20 hours ago

Spoken to someone who might work 60 minutes a week.

He can get fucked by his 60 hour work week. Sideways.

[–] pageflight@lemmy.world 34 points 21 hours ago

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.

[–] ARotePleaseBob@lemmy.world 126 points 1 day ago (4 children)

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.

[–] underwire212@lemm.ee 4 points 5 hours ago

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.

[–] SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone 68 points 1 day ago (1 children)

...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."

[–] bobs_monkey@lemm.ee 25 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Or 10 hour days 6 days a week, only so the "responsible" employees can go to church.

[–] driving_crooner@lemmy.eco.br 36 points 1 day ago (1 children)

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.

[–] foggy@lemmy.world 24 points 1 day ago

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.

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[–] klemptor@startrek.website 31 points 1 day ago

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

[–] ABetterTomorrow@lemm.ee 41 points 1 day ago

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

[–] MyOpinion@lemm.ee 32 points 1 day ago (1 children)

So nice of him to support the abuse of his employees for his personal gain.

[–] Maeve@kbin.earth 22 points 1 day ago

It's not about productivity. Productivity drops exponentially when people are tired. It's about crushing the human spirit.

[–] supersquirrel@sopuli.xyz 67 points 1 day ago (3 children)
[–] SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone 23 points 1 day ago (1 children)

At this point, it's an insult to clowns.

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[–] Mac@mander.xyz 18 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Not true. They know exactly what theyre doing to extract wealth from the workers.

[–] SGGeorwell@lemmy.world 11 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Yes. The rich prefer slavery if they can get away with it .

[–] captainlezbian@lemmy.world 6 points 1 day ago

Even if it's less efficient than better treatment of the workforce

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[–] RamblingPanda@lemmynsfw.com 35 points 1 day ago

Hitting Brin in the balls repeatedly would increase my happiness.

[–] RangerJosey@lemmy.ml 44 points 1 day ago

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

[–] twinnie@feddit.uk 32 points 1 day ago (2 children)

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.

[–] SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone 25 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (2 children)

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.

[–] 100_kg_90_de_belin@feddit.it 2 points 8 hours ago

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

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[–] axh@lemmy.world 23 points 1 day ago

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

[–] SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone 24 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

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.

[–] funkless_eck@sh.itjust.works 18 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (2 children)

often these fucks do work 60–100 hour weeks because they are soulless, friendless, loveless, hobbyless people with no interior life or social life.

[–] SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone 33 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (3 children)

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.

[–] ctenidium@lemmy.world 7 points 23 hours ago

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.

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[–] reiterationstation@lemm.ee 15 points 1 day ago (1 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.

[–] Maeve@kbin.earth 11 points 1 day ago

I hope you can return to a healthy balance soon.

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