Google's Sergey Brin Asks Workers to Spend More Time in the Office

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/27/technology/google-sergey-brin-return-to-office.html

by tgma • 1 year ago

59 29 1 year ago

genev2• 1 year ago

I don't get it. He's an intelligent person that knows that working after a certain number of hours per day leads to diminishing returns.

Why say something like this?

tgma7• 1 year ago

This is a classic Sergey snark. He is basically saying that number is 60 not 40. (Also diminishing returns does not usually imply "net negative" but less ROI on the marginal hour you put in.)

Point is, Google seems to be somewhat trying to get back their mojo and get rid of their retirement home reputation, at least as far as their AI products are concerned.

I am sure entitled googlers will be vocal though.

paganel• 1 year ago

Nothing snarky about a guy worth $100 billion telling his minions that they should work for 60 hours per week, instead of the usual 40. Maybe he should remember from what country his parents came and what happened to the billionaires there.

xracy2• 1 year ago

Yeah, the article is literally about an entitled googler being vocal.

Man worth 100+ Billion complains he should be worth more, and that the grunts should have to make him worth more at all costs.

How is anyone who doesn't want to do that entitled?

gorbachev• 1 year ago

Because if gets people do to that (he won't), he'll increase his net worth by a few billion.

cmsj• 1 year ago

Do the tech billionaire elite, like Sergey, actually believe that AGI is going to happen any time soon?

Firstly, I don't think it is, so I tend to assume that they're just being hype-guys for staff/investors, but assuming I'm wrong, it seems very weird to suggest that the difference between success or failure in bootstrapping AGI hinges on burning through a generation of AI hires, vs working them at a reasonable pace.

hooverd• 1 year ago

I think they're hitting middle age or older and AGI / super intelligence is what they think will prevent from having to face their own mortality.

TrackerFF• 1 year ago

60 hours a week equals to shit work/life balance. 5 days/12 hours, 6 days/10 hours, 7 days/8.5 hours...doesn't mater, they're all bad. Throw in the commute because RTO, and it becomes even worse.

The only time I consistently pulled 60+ hour weeks, was back in my fresh grad years - where I worked 2 years of that, because I knew the work would lead to better opportunities. Should come as no surprise that me, and practically all my other junior colleagues were all under 25, single, and had no kids or family. After two years 90% had moved on to greener pastures, or enrolled MBA program.

In professional fields like finance, consulting, law, etc. it is accepted - precisely because everyone assumes it will only be a 1-2-3 year ordeal. Maybe big tech companies look at it the same way. But it would sure suck to be a dedicated employee that decides to stay, and expected to work those kinds of hours...burnout will come sooner than later.

cebert2• 1 year ago

https://archive.ph/Dz2lm

cebert2• 1 year ago

I’m curious about the amount of time people spend in meetings at these places where they work 60 hours a week. I’ve noticed that meetings at my workplace have become quite excessive. They aren’t always the most productive use of my time, so I end up working extra hours to compensate for the time wasted in meetings.

insane_dreamer• 1 year ago

The more hours you work, the higher the morale.

“A number of folks work less than 60 hours and a small number put in the bare minimum to get by,” he wrote. “This last group is not only unproductive but also can be highly demoralizing to everyone else.”

redserk• 1 year ago

It's wild how disconnected from reality he is. The fastest ways I've seen coworkers demoralized has been:

1) Managers who regularly insist their way is the only correct way

2) Low compensation/raises/bonuses

3) On-call combined with not addressing the problems causing middle of the night issues

4) A deluge of statements from upper management that make everyone else in the room roll their eyes into the back of their head

sjsdaiuasgdia• 1 year ago

I'm reminded of that "CEO work week" chart [0] that shows 55 hours "worked" but 20 hours of it is "Miscellaneous - Travel, exercise, personal appointments, and other activities."

By that standard I think a lot of us could already be putting in CEO hours, we just didn't think to count a bunch of our personal activities as work time.

[0] https://i.redd.it/deo5agt3omq61.jpg

xracy2• 1 year ago

AKA, a 35 hour work week.

lol. In my heart I knew this, but I didn't think anyone would ever self-report like this.

nickthegreek• 1 year ago

On Wednesday, Sergey Brin, co-founder of Google, said the company could lead the industry in artificial general intelligence — when machines match or become smarter than humans — if employees worked harder.

If only these pesky meat machines would work 50% harder for 50% more than fulltime, all the time, he could have his silicone bot that will work 100% of the time.

8thcross• 1 year ago

I think the Indians started this trend...Infosys, L&T etc.

tgma7• 1 year ago

Wow. I posted this link and the feedback is just incredible. It's disappointing to see "Hacker" News so much against hard work. I am sure the Gemini team has pretty much infinite demand for engineers to join, so if someone wants to leave for other teams or companies that should be fine for them.

This feedback indeed substantiate Sergey's point that such bare-minimum people really do destroy the morale for everyone else. I certainly would have felt that had I were at Google on a critical exciting project that the company deeply cared about to the degree that a founder was actively participating in.

If the ship sinks to irrelevance, it will sink for all Googlers. In fact, the top billionaire will be the least affected.

genev2• 1 year ago

There's a wide range between bare minimum and 60 hours per week work.

techorange• 1 year ago

If I’m given exciting work to do, and management reduces beurocracies and other blockers, I’ll work 60, 70, 80 hour weeks. If my job is as a glorified paper pusher because of bad procrssses/management I won’t.

It’s a leaders job to motivate people to work those hours, and create an environment where it is worthwhile, to just say “work more” sounds like he thinks management doesn’t have a role to play.

In fact almost definition ally, if you’re people aren’t working enough, that’s a management failure. So who is he telling?

tgma7• 1 year ago

Sure, but you start from somewhere. Part of that leadership and creating that environment is signaling and setting expectations. To let the people know what kind of team it is going to be and have them self-select, especially if the starting point is default Google rest-and-vest.

3vidence• 1 year ago

Look if they want us to work 60 hours a week pay us at least 1.5x as much.

But since over 40 hours is overtime, make it more like pay us 2x as much.

I'm sure some people would consider it then.

But until then stop asking for free work in return for nothing

tgma7• 1 year ago

What do you mean by "us"? Did you get that email? I'm sure you can argue that with your manager if you did and you feel your comp is not warranted. I'm confident the Gemini team is well compensated and they'll probably match their comp if they bring a competing offer.

P.S. I am quite confident if any of those people join OpenAI or Meta, they have to easily work at least 2x Google. At least.

vigilantpuma• 1 year ago

Nobody is against hard work, but what's the point of working harder than you need to for a company that has shown that hard work is no defense against being laid off?

tgma7• 1 year ago

Well, don't; if you think that's the case. Last I checked people are still begging to work at Google and especially on AI stuff.

voidhorse• 1 year ago

We have one life to live. Most people would rather not spend the bulk of that precious life being wage slaves whose hard work does little more than produce technology that is marginally beneficial to society and that primarily serves to massively enrich a few people off their hard labor.

If you find yourself aligning with billionaires making completely unreasonable demands, unless you are one of those billionaires yourself, I think you are fully drinking the kool aid and should seriously reevaluate your life .

majestik• 1 year ago

“No punting — we can't keep building nanny products. Our products are overrun with filters and punts of various kinds. We need capable products and [to] trust our users.”

What does Sergey mean by this?

tgma7• 1 year ago

He is probably referring to "responsible AI" bullshit (i.e. censorship and refusing to answer questions).

Google's Sergey Brin Asks Workers to Spend More Time in the Office

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