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Some have praised Brin’s commitment to pushing the company’s success, but others argue that his approach reflects an outdated and harmful mindset.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."
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.
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.
Because you won’t get hired if they have to pay you to drive longer hours. Employers would be incentivized to hire locally.
So you’re saying you want prospective employers to tell you “Sorry, you live too far, we hire only within 5 city blocks”?
There should be non-discrimination laws for distance, otherwise anyone not living in the city center would be truly fucked in the hiring process AND your employer would get to tell you that if you move farther away, you’re fired.
I want denser cities, the whole point is to discourage people from living outside the city.
It would require a transition period so people have time to leave the suburbs and small towns, but we need as many people as possible on as small a land footprint as possible in order to restore habitat, reduce transportation emissions, reduce the cost of transportation infrastructure maintenance, and otherwise reduce the amount of land and energy and time wasted on people driving 30 miles to work every day.
So you want the entire world to be forced to live in equivalents of Manhattan, or ideally, Kowloon Walled City?
Also, you say you’re against people driving to work, but the other potential consequence is that people in medium density cities are going to be told that they’re no longer allowed to walk to work.
Look, population density in general is good. Forcing it by telling employers they’re now both allowed AND encouraged to discriminate employees based on where they live is going to have so many unintended consequences there’s no point in even entertaining the thought. If they’re not allowed to discriminate, people are going to intentionally move far enough away to have a 4 hour commute each way.
There’s no winning here, the only way to make things better is to lobby for better zoning laws if you live in a country where those commonly prevent high-rises or mixed-use neighborhoods. That benefits everyone, regardless of whether they want to live in an apartment smaller than a standard shipping container, a luxury penthouse, or in the suburbs.
If you want maximum density, you need cities to be built from the ground up like they do in China. START with the skyscrapers, instead of building them when enough people live there for there to be demand.
Not to brag, but it is for me! But I’m also not paid a large amount. And it absolutely should be for everyone…