{"id":83459,"date":"2025-08-20T10:29:12","date_gmt":"2025-08-20T10:29:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/83459\/"},"modified":"2025-08-20T10:29:12","modified_gmt":"2025-08-20T10:29:12","slug":"sergey-brin-told-googles-ai-staff-that-working-60-hours-a-week-is-the-sweet-spot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/83459\/","title":{"rendered":"Sergey Brin told Google\u2019s AI staff that working 60 hours a week is the \u2018sweet spot\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sergey Brin believes Google can win the race<\/a> to artificial general intelligence and outlined his ideas for how to do that\u2014including a workweek that\u2019s 50% longer than the standard 40 hours.<\/p>\n

In an internal memo seen by the New York Times<\/a>, the Google cofounder told employees working on Gemini, the company\u2019s suite of AI products, that he recommends being in the office \u201cat least every weekday\u201d and that \u201c60 hours a week is the sweet spot of productivity.\u201d<\/p>\n

He also warned against working more than 60 hours a week, saying it could lead to burnout<\/a>, while calling out those who work less.<\/p>\n

\u201cA number of folks work less<\/a> than 60 hours, and a small number put in the bare minimum to get by,\u201d Brin wrote in February. \u201cThis last group is not only unproductive but also can be highly demoralizing to everyone else.\u201d<\/p>\n

A source close to the matter declined to comment, but the Times said the memo doesn\u2019t signal a departure from the tech giant\u2019s official policy for employees to work in the office at least three days a week. Recently, Google said staff on some teams will have to come into the office more often, though did not specify which departments would be affected when asked by\u00a0Fortune<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Brin\u2019s exhortations highlight the urgency to develop artificial general intelligence, or AGI, which is AI that\u2019s as smart as or smarter than humans.<\/p>\n

\u201cCompetition has accelerated immensely, and the final race to AGI is afoot,\u201d he said in the memo. \u201cI think we have all the ingredients to win this race, but we are going to have to turbocharge our efforts.\u201d<\/p>\n

Brin added that Gemini staff can boost their coding efficiency by using the company\u2019s own AI technology.<\/p>\n

The memo is one of the latest indications of his shift to a more hands-on role. In 2019, Brin and fellow Google cofounder Larry Page stepped down from their daily executive duties at parent company Alphabet.<\/p>\n

But OpenAI\u2019s release of ChatGPT in late 2022\u2014and the tech sector\u2019s rush to generative AI that followed\u2014inspired Brin to get back into the mix. Since returning, Brin has also spent a lot of time at Google\u2019s DeepMind<\/a> AI division, according to the Times.<\/p>\n

Last year, he acknowledged he \u201ckind of came out of retirement, just because the trajectory of AI is so exciting.\u201d That also coincided with some high-profile gaffes in Gemini\u2019s AI, including an image generator that produced racially diverse Nazis<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, tech companies and corporate America overall are emphasizing in-person work. Amazon<\/a>, AT&T, and JPMorgan Chase<\/a>, for example, have told employees to work in the office five days a week<\/a>. And President Donald Trump has ordered all federal workers to return to the office<\/a> five days a week, too. <\/p>\n

A version of this story originally published on Fortune.com<\/a> on Feb. 28, 2025.<\/p>\n

More on RTO: <\/p>\n

Introducing the 2025 Fortune Global 500, the definitive ranking of the biggest companies in the world. Explore this year’s list.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sergey Brin believes Google can win the race to artificial general intelligence and outlined his ideas for how…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":83460,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[62,245,13685,276,277,49,48,192,36704,49950,61],"class_list":{"0":"post-83459","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artificial-intelligence","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-alphabet","10":"tag-always-free","11":"tag-artificial-intelligence","12":"tag-artificialintelligence","13":"tag-ca","14":"tag-canada","15":"tag-google","16":"tag-return-to-office","17":"tag-sergey-brin","18":"tag-technology"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83459","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=83459"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83459\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/83460"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=83459"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=83459"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=83459"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}