# Sergey Brin calls for 60-hour workweeks - **Episode:** [176](https://agents.truthliesandwork.com/episodes/176.md) (2025-03-04) - **Type:** news-roundup - **Tags:** sergey-brin, workweek, google, productivity - **Time:** 8:34–15:09 (start 514s) - **Listen:** [https://truthliesandwork.com/176?t=514](https://truthliesandwork.com/176?t=514) --- [8:34] Al Elliott: Well, this one caught my eye. I've always been, well, I'm not always, but Back in the day when I was starting my businesses, I was fascinated by, uh, by Google because it seemed to come from nowhere. Um, one, there's an article this week in, I believe it's TechCrunch, but the link will be in the show notes, um, where Sergey Brin, one of Google's OGs, one of the 2 people who started it, Larry, I forget his name, you're probably shouting at me, and Sergey Brin, uh, they're 2 Google co-founders. They have sent a memo to staff telling them to return to the office at least every weekday [9:02] Leanne Elliott: I'm out [9:03] Elaine Smith: I'm done [9:05] Al Elliott: Come back, Lelele. Sit back down. Sit back down [9:08] Leanne Elliott: Can't do another one [9:09] Al Elliott: Oh, we're gonna have to. We're gonna have to. These, these good people need to know what's going on. So as I was saying, Sergio Bryn has told people to come back to the office at least every weekday, which again suggests a problem. So it's not 3 days a week like their current policy, but every single day. And apparently he thinks— now, Leanne, sit down and don't go anywhere because you're— I'm about— you're about to be What do the kids say? Shook? [9:32] Elaine Smith: Mm-hmm [9:32] Al Elliott: Apparently he thinks 60 hours a workweek is the sweet spot for productivity. That's 12 hours a day for 5 days. I'm like, hold on a fucking minute here. This just doesn't make any sense. This is just crazy talk. But anyway, this isn't an official policy change yet, but it does show how much pressure these tech giants are feeling in this race to develop AGI. That's artificial general intelligence. To you and I, that's basically ChatGPT, which is not ChatGPT because Google got their own. But Bryn has apparently come back to Google specifically to help them catch up after ChatGPT really started taking market share away from them back in 2022. I mean, I do get it from one angle. Obviously, you're in a very competitive industry. If you do feel behind, there's a temptation to throw everything at the problem, like, you know, more hours, more face time, more collaboration. But 60 hours is a sweet spot. I'm just not sure the research backs that up at all. In fact, I'm pretty sure that my Leanne is gonna have something to say about that [10:32] Leanne Elliott: I'm not sure I understand. I understand. So he's saying that come back into the office at least 5 days a week [10:38] Al Elliott: Yep [10:39] Leanne Elliott: Work at least 60 hours a week. Yep. And what's AI got to do with the price of fish? [10:45] Al Elliott: Because they are behind with AI. So basically everyone else has overtaken them. So Anthropic, which is from Amazon, has overtaken them. ChatGPT, which is, which is, um, I think mainly what funds, uh, Microsoft, uh, AI [10:59] Leanne Elliott: So he's blaming that on the fact that people have been working from home? [11:02] Al Elliott: Yes [11:02] Leanne Elliott: And not in the office 5 days a week? [11:05] Al Elliott: Yes, exactly. He's talking about creativity you get when you get everyone together. He's talking about the fact that they all work really hard. If there's like a— maybe it worked for him, uh, him and Larry at the very beginning when they did start Google back in what, 2002, 2003? Maybe that's how they did it. So that's the only way he knows to win. But Google is just in kind of big trouble because there's quite a few AI startups which are taking on Google for search. When was the last time you actually Googled something? And when was the last time you Googled something and clicked on an advert? Because, you know, people say, oh, I never click on ads, but ads do work. But I imagine their revenue is way, way down [11:40] Leanne Elliott: I'm still a Google girl. Yeah, I do. I do Google stuff. I like to see where the source is from. Do you know what I mean? I always like that. Yeah. Where's that thing on, on ChatGPT or Or similar. Um, oh, I mean, whatever. I'm so, I'm so, I'm so bored of the bringing people back to a physical office is going to fix all of our productivity and innovation problems. It's not. It's really not, unless it's done with intention and unless it's, it's done in a way that is actually following some form of data that has been gathered about the current way of working. Then you're just not even going to know if it's going to have an impact or not. I think we just need to get to the point where we stop glorifying startup culture, which yes, might be 8 people in the same room 7 days a week, 60 hours a week, because that is often what is needed in startup. It's that hustle, it is that, that pace and speed is what's needed. Once you're then at this point of a multi-million dollar corporation, it's a very different mindset, it's a different, it's a different culture. And more to the point, like, it's just naive that People are willing to work that hard for a startup because they might have equity and they might end up being a Google or, you know, going to the moon. But the, the point is about Google, it's not there anymore. You've already lost the AI race. If you're this far behind, you've already lost. The best thing you can possibly do is think about what the next thing is going to be in terms of how AI will be applied, how you can use that with all the great minds that you have in Google that have dominated um, internet technology for the past 20 years. The way that, that young talent, any talent is now talking— forget young, actually, that was what I was incorrect then— any talent is talking is that they want more flexibility, they want more balance, they want more autonomy. They have realized that these long commutes or time away from their family actually isn't very effective for them sustainably. Working at a productive pace. It's just, there's so many things. I just think Google is in trouble, and I'm very surprised that this is the way they're going. And then it also screams as well, they've paid billions for these complexes that nobody's in. Google have YouTube [13:58] Al Elliott: Yes [13:58] Leanne Elliott: Right, yeah. So they've not— Google haven't been innovative for a long time, have they? [14:03] Al Elliott: No, and that's a great idea. What about if you went to YouTube and you went, right, let's put all of our AI work into YouTube because no one's really got that yet. What, what happens if you had an AI where you go to YouTube and go, I want to, like, I've been really getting into like, uh, joinery and stuff recently, so I might go, I want to see, um, how to make a butt joint, which is always funny because it's got the word butt in it. Uh, so what I, what the AI will do was scan all the videos, look at my previous, uh, history, work out What videos I click off on and what videos I watch to the end so it knows what my viewing style is and just create me one video that is basically a summary of maybe 5 different videos on butt joints and it puts it together all in real time or within like, you know, sort of 30 seconds. That's interesting. That is a great application of AI just to build another ChatGPT when there's already 2 out there [14:53] Leanne Elliott: Yeah. Or at least put some effort into solving the problems that people are concerned about when it comes to AI or its limitations or its— I don't know [15:01] Al Elliott: Anyway, sorry, we're going slightly off work here for a second. I got a little bit on my, on my positioning soapbox. Le, what else have you seen this week?