4 ms·
Sergey Brin told Google staff that working 60 hours a week is the 'sweet spot' (2025)
- randycupertino 5mo ago> In an internal memo to employees who work on Gemini, Google cofounder Sergey Brin recommended being in the office at least every weekday and said 60 hours is the “sweet spot” for productivity, according to the New York Times.
- _tk_ 5mo agoDated August 2025
- colordrops 5mo agoProbably 70 hours now.
- twoodfin 5mo agoThe original Fortune piece was February 2025, apparently. I have a hard time getting worked up about this. This is a team where the median engineer is probably approaching 7-figures total comp, working on a strategic project comparable to the iPhone—or at least Google sure thinks so. They all have plenty of other options (albeit probably not as prestigious or high paying) if they want to level down their expectations.
- handle584 5mo ago[dead]
- bobthepanda 5mo agoRemember when Google used to be considered one of the cushier places to work? Not a fan of how big tech has become the parable of the frog in slowly boiling water.
- cyanydeez 5mo agoid say its MBAs that do a ship of theasus replacement, like the borg, once an org demonstrates valuable progress.
- delusional 5mo agoIt's comforting to blame it on "MBAs", but i think it's pretty clear that silicon valley has been entirely captured by the "hardcore grindset" segment of the manosphere.
- bobthepanda 5mo agoSergey Brin is hardly an MBA and has all the power and money to resist that pressure if he cared.
- xethos 5mo agoThe frog was smart enough to hop out, and only stopped when just this side of lobotomized. The story doesn't match, and it's because frogs are smart enough to leave when they recognize their environment is not amenable to their continued existance
- Moldoteck 5mo agoSo a guy that married 2 times and divorced 2 times, has 3 children, recommends that the sweet spot for productivity is 60 hours per week, which would mean about 12h/day if you work 5 days or 10h/day if you work 6 days. This means, if you start your work at 8, you finish either at 20:00 or 18:00 + 30-60min lunch break. With such a packed day I can only imagine what a stellar childhood will his kids get assuming he wants to be involved in rising them...
- ravenstine 5mo agoJust pay for a nanny, bro. /s I'm sure most people wouldn't outright say that, but I have no doubt that many corporate leadership types think that way. After all, the C-suite has higher incidences of NPD and ASPD so it shouldn't be surprising. Along with being out of touch, some of them probably think their peons should have the means to do the same.
- bryanlarsen 5mo agoThe other part of the recommendation is "at the office 5 days a week". Working more than 40 hours and spending meaningful time with your kids is very possible, if you aren't wasting 2 hours a day commuting and you have a flexible schedule and you have a partner who can also spend time with the kids.
- delusional 5mo ago> Working more than 40 hours But he's also not recommending 40 hours, he's recommending 150% of that. Even then, I'd assume that when he says "sweet spot" he's also talking about a median, meaning you'll have to put in additional hours sometimes.
- formerly_proven 5mo agoThis is pretty much 996, which is illegal even in China (though apparently a sizable share of companies are still practicing it).
- deleted 5mo ago[deleted]
- jleyank 5mo ago60 hours, hmm. Does he pay overtime? Does he increase stock options, ideally grants? Is the project horribly behind time or features? Or, is he just an asshole who feels he can replace workers as needed? Obviously ageist, probably anti-partner. Does this include commute time, or is this gratis?
- sys_64738 5mo agoI work to live and not to make a billionaire even richer off my back. The rank and file who are clued in don't spew this dross but those with most to gain do. You can always tell those with skin in the game.
- gjsman-1000 5mo agoOkay, so if Google wins AGI first, who is to say that AGI isn’t so disruptive, the government just nationalizes Google?
- mindslight 5mo agoIn dictatorship, the government nationalizes the companies. In USA, the companies nationalize the government.
- deleted 5mo ago[deleted]
- 18561239faaee4 5mo ago[flagged]
- deleted 5mo ago[deleted]
- abbassix 5mo agoOur heros fought and died for 8-hour working days and when we stop fighting, we go back to 12-hour working days! That is why you need to search for theinternationalism.org
- breppp 5mo agodid they also work for 8 hours a day in the gulag?
- abbassix 5mo agoGulags were the worst kind of exploitation; that is why we always were anti-Stalinist and always identified the USSR as 'state capitalism'! The fact that a state 'claims' socialism does not mean it 'is' socialist, just as North Korea claiming 'democratic' people's republic does not mean it is 'democratic'. Clear?
- breppp 5mo agoWhat about the millions killed in China and Cambodia? When do you look at the system you are proposing and understand it has been a disaster during its slow and inevitable economic implosion?
- mhitza 5mo agoWith declining birth rates big corporations might get the idea that "you know, child labour isn't really a big problem today with the extra precautions we take" At the same time having these large companies that operate in emerging economies where they hide under the rug all child work exploitation.
- esseph 5mo ago> Sun 22 Mar 2026 11.00 EDT > The number of child labor violations has risen fivefold in the last 10 years, but Republicans across the US are continuing to propose and pass legislation that rolls back protections or regulations for workers under the age of 18. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/mar/22/child-labor-protections-republicans https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/mar/22/child-labor-...
- elnatro 5mo agoHow many hours per week was he working when having an affair with the Google Glass marketing manager? [1] [1] https://www.vanityfair.com/style/2014/04/sergey-brin-amanda-rosenberg-affair https://www.vanityfair.com/style/2014/04/sergey-brin-amanda-...
- SonOfKyuss 5mo agoThe answer to that question depends on if you count hours spent sleeping with your employees as “working”
- noosphr 5mo agoI'd count it towards the daily cardio target as well. Every minute counts as three. You'd be crazy not to use that productivity hack.
- zippyman55 5mo agoThis always pissed me off with these executives who consider skiiing in vail as work time business meetings.
- bonesss 5mo agoIf Giant A-hole at Widget Co opens his wallet because his wife was distracted on one slopes chalet while he & his mistress enjoy the hot tub on another… can we really say the work time business meetings weren’t worth a bunch of money? The game within the game within the game, IME, is enough to make one yearn for the simplicity of soul-crushing and personal liberation of Middle Class.
- cynicalsecurity 5mo agoDidn't he retire not so long ago?
- karakoram 5mo agoOn topic https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48267221 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48267221
- mattkevan 5mo agoWhat an arsehole. Multi-billionaire says to work harder to make him richer faster. The sooner this attitude is recognised as a sickness the better.
- coffinbirth 5mo agoWhere actually went all the productivity gains of the last decades? Isn't that supposed to decrease the amount of labor we humans have to do eventually? Most frequent answer to this is: "But look we have all the high tech everyone of us can afford easily". But that cannot be the answer, because even if I choose to live like a luddite hermit while working 40h a week, I'm still not becoming super rich or can afford a house, which people my age could do 50 years ago. So the productivity gains went elsewhere. The question is, into whose pocket? I guess into the pockets of those people who demand we should work even more than 40h a week.
- msftengineer 5mo agoExcellent take. What are we, as a society, gaining from working this much? Billionaires is the only answer at this point.
- alexbezhan 5mo agoThere is a book, called "The Price of Tomorrow". Talking about this specific problem. TLDR: Inflation
- formerly_proven 5mo agoPart of the productivity gains did go to workers. Depending on the country that's somewhere between 0% (Japan) and ~70%. The US seems to sit at 10-20%. The remainder is pocketed by others.
- an0malous 5mo ago> Where actually went all the productivity gains of the last decades? Productivity gains by design go primarily to the investor class, the owners of corporations. There’s no mechanism for those gains to go to laborers. If a company performs 10x better, you don’t get a 10x raise, but the equity might be 10x higher. https://wtfhappenedin1971.com/ https://wtfhappenedin1971.com/ In addition to that, the monetary policy of money printing has severely diluted the dollar since 1971, with an extreme surge that happened during COVID. This policy effectively reduces the wealth of the labor class and increases the wealth of the investor class. If there’s 100x more dollars and the same amount of Tesla stock or houses, the Tesla stock and houses are suddenly worth way more in dollar terms and whoever only had dollars has effectively 1/100 of what they used to have. So any productivity gains the labor class received have been getting leeched away for decades. On top of this, the investor class has the entire system rigged in their favor. They're protected from their bad investments like in the 2008 financial crisis or the Silicon Valley Bank fiasco. The tax code allows many of the investor class to get away with paying little to no taxes. There are restrictions on building new housing because the current owners don't want to see their homes devalued. It's basically easier to make money the more money you already have. Now, these aren't really strict "classes." If you own a retirement fund, you are at least partially in the investor class. But there are many people who don't own any assets, and because of this dynamic where it's easier to make money the more you already have, the people at the top of this pyramid scheme are always extracting the most out of any gains that society achieves.
- exabrial 5mo agoI mean but AI is replacing humans, so they should be able to work less hours.
- diego_moita 5mo agoAnd he is absolutely right! If, like Brin, you're the boss and you can delegate all the unpleasant parts of work to your minions then why not work 60 hours only in the pleasant parts (including having sex with a marketing manager) and, still, cash billions?
- strstr 5mo ago[2025]
- jjcm 5mo agoFor an exec, it is, and he is 100% correct. There's a reason why execs get perks - free housing, transportation, personal assistants, etc are all common things at the VP and up level for these large corportations. The whole reason for that is to free up time so they can work 60 hour weeks. For a standard IC, that's not the case. Life takes time. You can do it, but it will be at the cost of those around you. I spent the last ~2 years working 60-80 hour weeks at Figma. At one point my boss asked me to work from my honeymoon. My life, health, and relationships suffered because of the pressure I was putting on others as a result of that. If Google wants and expects that out of their ICs, they need to provide the same level of accomidation they do for execs, otherwise it just comes off as an exec being out of touch with the needs of every day life.
- boredatoms 5mo agoIt sounds like youre not helping. Doing that amount of hours is what makes execs think they can ask that of other people too
- jjcm 5mo agoThat's part of the reason why I quit :)
- disqard 5mo agoI'm so sorry to read about your experience in this thread. I will comment, that once you left, the next person who joined won't have the benefit of your experience, allowing them to be similarly exploited... and the cycle continues.
- jjcm 5mo agoFor what it's worth, overall I have a very strong net positive opinion of my time overall at Figma. It was hard, and I spent too much time working, but half of that was probably my fault as well. It's a great company, and I have great memories of my time there.
- 5mo ago
- alcomatt 5mo agoModern take on slavery creeping up on us closer and closer... "Work will set you free..." - I've heard this one before, didn't end up well...
- deleted 5mo ago[deleted]
- ChrisArchitect 5mo agoAugust 2025 OP? February even. How's it working out for them? Some discussion then: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43201709 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43201709 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43211925 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43211925
- akmarinov 5mo agoAnd they’ll be compensated more than fairly for the 60 hours, including double overtime, right? Right? This is capitalism, my dude, people don’t work at your company, because it’ll cure cancer or something, they do it for the compensation. And for those that do work there 60 h/week out of blind loyalty - you deserve the thousands of layoffs they’ve had the past years.
- jmclnx 5mo agoThe sweet spot to me is time and a half at 100 USD per hour. Adjusted for inflation. That works out to 7000 per week. He will not listen to me so why should I listen to him.
- twoodfin 5mo agoThe engineers he’s addressing are likely making at least 2X that in total comp, some much more.
- sevennull 5mo agoSweat spot
- 7e 5mo agoFuck you, Sergey.
- steve1977 5mo agoOh I easily do work 60 hours a week. Just not all of them for my employer, because I have kids I want to raise and I have chores to do. Which people like Sergey Brin likely don't have. That's the big difference.
- kermatt 5mo agoHis investment in time is guaranteed to pay off for him, and the investment in time of the people who work for him is guaranteed to pay off for him. The rest of us have no guarantees, and have learned the trade-offs are less and less likely to be worthwhile.
- fodkodrasz 5mo agoLooking on the bright side: I guess based on the google 20% rule this mean 12 hours for opensource every week!
- munksbeer 5mo agoDirected at the team working on gemini it seems. I'd work 60 hours a week for the compensation they're getting, without hesitation. I already work close to that for far less.
- amai 5mo agoHe is just a rich guy with an opinion. What do studys say? A four-day working week improves mental and physical health: https://www.ukri.org/who-we-are/how-we-are-doing/research-outcomes-and-impact/esrc/a-four-day-working-week-improves-mental-and-physical-health/ https://www.ukri.org/who-we-are/how-we-are-doing/research-ou... Work time reduction via a 4-day workweek finds improvements in workers’ well-being https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-025-02259-6 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-025-02259-6 So to not feel starved for time, aim for a 7.6 hour workday. That would equate to a 38-hour workweek. https://www.atlassian.com/blog/productivity/this-is-how-many-hours-you-should-really-be-working https://www.atlassian.com/blog/productivity/this-is-how-many... New Study Finds the 'Optimal' Length of a Workweek and found that the "optimal" workweek is 37 hours. https://money.com/optimal-workweek-length-hours/ https://money.com/optimal-workweek-length-hours/
- xtiansimon 5mo agoMy sweet spot is not far from this 60, but in the way of side projects for work. Let me explain, I cram work directed by my employer into a 10h x 4 day work week. Followed by 10-16h on self-directed projects over my 3-day weekend. Projects with no supervision or direction (which is key). It’s a pattern that has produced great results and satisfaction. Though, when your self-directed work falls-off it can be difficult to get it going again. Life being so full of challenges.