Sergey Brin says AGI is within reach if Googlers work 60-hour weeks

Google says it has no immediate plans to change work-from-home policies.

See full article...

 

[coopster]

Do no evil: 20% of your time on personal projects

Do lots of evil: 120% of your time in the office trying to eliminate humanities purpose

 

[jakk]

The workers know that when AGI succeeds they are all out of a job!

 

[Heavens]

It’s also complete bullshit to say that’s the “sweet spot” for productivity. You can’t work five twelve-hour days in a row and operate at your peak efficiency. You just can’t. Any manager with half a brain should understand that, which is why no managers seem to understand that.

Average efficiency is around what? 30-40% for the average office worker?

They'd be better off doing 6h distraction free days.
Pretty sure it's also the reason why WFH workers tend to be more productive.
Less people walking up to you keeping you from working.

I'm usually the most productive past 4pm because there's less and less people around keeping me from getting shit done.

As I'm working directly with engineers and shopfloor workers I don't mind working on issues face to face, but if I need to churn out work orders for projects I turn off my phone and mail.

 

[jakk]

No... it isn't...

Didn't Altman claim we would have AGI by months ago?

People still falling for the LLMs... they are not the key to a true AI. They can't even do complex math right. Just a broken machine.

They answer any math question within seconds. May not be the right answer but is that important anymore?

 

[Celery Man]

Do no evil: 20% of your time on personal projects

Do lots of evil: 120% of your time in the office trying to eliminate humanities purpose

“Personal projects” that Google owns and will profit off of.

 

[Celery Man]

They answer any math question within seconds. May not be the right answer but is that important anymore?

So do calculators, or Wolfram Alpha.

 

[tedpoco]

If employees work harder maybe they can add the option to turn off ai in google search

 

[pug fugly]

Sergey Brin should shut the fuck up.

 

[sighburr]

"If you all work obscenely hard, at the end you can celebrate your accomplishments by getting fired."

Came here to say the same thing, you said it best.

 

[BobbyBobberson]

Mario's brother.

 

[KingAZAZ]

Using a picture of him wearing Google Glass is a hilarious and subtle dig. Great job.

 

[Edified]

I recently had a Google Workspace support request with a response byline too good not to share:


The poor person couldn't understand at all what I was reporting, which was that Google errantly send Sales Partner emails out to end user administrators, complete with instructions on how to explain price increases "to our customers"- it felt very AI, though I suspect they may be human.

 

[Lancasterian]

The next time I see a billionaire tech bro talk about a 60+ workweek, I'm going to smack the bastard.

Want me to work your hours? Pay me what you pay yourself. Until then, go f yourself.

 

[Redshirt]

Working your AI development team into the ground is how you end up with Skynet.

 

[schnackenpfefferhausen]

Sergey:
Explain how AGI is “within reach” with 60 hours a week in the office.. but isn’t with 40 hour weeks and a longer time horizon or more staff, and why it isn’t with people working remotely.

Please, provide data to justify your response.

 

[xoid]

If they really needed all that time dedicated to projects, they could increase their workforce by half and then be (checks notes) still extremely profitable.

 

[ReaderBot]

Regardless of the reason why...

If you want me to work 50% more than was originally agreed upon by my accepting the offer to work for your company (not that I work for Google, but hypothetically), I'm going to expect, no, demand, that you increase my salary by at least 50%.

Though since you're cutting into my work life balance, I'm going to have to put a surcharge on that and say if you want me to work 50% more, double my salary.

Oh? You don't want to raise my salary at all? Then go fuck yourself, I'm working the 40 hours agreed to originally. I'm loyal to the paycheck you give me, not the company or you personally as an individual.

After a negotiation like that, I am only barely working for those 40 hours, and then not giving a shit about the business for the rest of the week.

Leadership at its finest.

 

[Pierre B.]

When Sergey decided to no longer go to the office, that was fine. So when Sergey comes back, well, every has to come back. Double standard much?

 

[pmatous]

As I don't give shit about AGI, may I take a paid vacation instead until the rest of you are done with it?

 

[Poro4]

With 60h work week within reach. With 40h and clear rested brains, inevitable.

 

[coredumpster]

Is every Google founder a complete dick?!

Replace "Google founder" with Silicon Valley Billionaire, and the answer is "Yes".

I have become convinced that the amount of wealth they possess has broken their brains in a fundamental way. Perhaps because they are surrounded in bubble of people who only agree with them, or maybe they were broken to begin with and the money just makes it our problem now too. Or a bit of both.

 

[caramelpolice]

With all due respect, Sergey Brin, shut the fuck up. Never open your mouth again. Not even to breathe. If that doesn't sound like it's with much respect, it's because you don't deserve any. You are worth less than dirt. I have taken shits that provided more joy and value to the world than you, or Zuckerberg, or Musk, or any of these fucking technofascist narcissists who have decided they are gods whom we all exist to serve.

There is no point talking around it anymore, or giving these people even a modicum of 'decorum'. They are a stain on this planet and will kill us all if it will make them another dollar, and we can no longer try to ignore this fact.

 

[Kaiser Sosei]

So that's 40 hours at regular pay, 20 hours of overtime at 1.5 times pay. Right?

Of all the STEM groups, comp sci/programmers/IT seem to be in this this world of "I'm just a few steps aways from making it big". No, you are not. It's a dream. You are not a "Rock Star". You are giving your time to someone who will fire you at no moment's notice to make their stock price go up.

As a unionized STEM worker, it's been past time for you to unionize and get paid for your work.

 

[vvax56nM]

Because it's not enough to build skynet, we have to build a skynet that comes into being thinking our exploitation is required for its very existence.

I wonder what's worse: Working for Skynet or working for techbro billionaire?

 

[graylshaped]

Following the Bard fiasco, Google has developed a single-minded obsession with adding (s).

Yes, we know. And "AI" is just another tactic in that obsession.

 

[Spiders from Mars]

It’s also complete bullshit to say that’s the “sweet spot” for productivity. You can’t work five twelve-hour days in a row and operate at your peak efficiency. You just can’t. Any manager with half a brain should understand that, which is why no managers seem to understand that.

I still remember the day when I decided that if it was 9pm, I was going home.

 

[H2O Rip]

It's been demoralizing being in the tech world lately when shit like this seems to be pervasive amongst leaders. Its weird how being proud of where I worked has turned into apathy.

 

[SirBedwyr]

If you are already worth $137 billion dollars, what exactly is the point of this?

Of one thing I'm pretty certain after living on the same earth as these people for my adult life. The money was only ever a scorekeeping card for power-seeking assholes.

 

[Msterbee]

WTAF??? It's like Musk's brain has been transferred to Brin. Paraphrasing: "become a (shitty wage) slave to our goals for some questionably useful goal or go find another job"

 

[chaos215bar2]

Does the part of the government that protects workers rights still exist? Because if it doesn’t they’ll get fired they mention the word union.

Well, there's always the way things worked before unions…

 

[vvax56nM]

So that's 40 hours at regular pay, 20 hours of overtime at 1.5 times pay. Right?

Overtime at 1.5 pay is for the occasional crisis where there is a real need to work more for an evening or two. Not for sustained 60h weeks. For that I'd demand 10x pay for all 60 hours. Plus Sergey Brin personally cleaning my home and doing my laundry while I work.

 

[Malefor]

Are the people cooking up this kind of suggestion the same people wondering why Luigi's name is being invoked like that of a bloody saint these days?

 

[graylshaped]

It's been demoralizing being in the tech world lately when shit like this seems to be pervasive amongst leaders. Its weird how being proud of where I worked has turned into apathy.

Bear in mind every time one of these same people swear up and down their sole goal in pursuing this technology is to improve quality of life for humanity, they demonstrate at every possible turn they place no value in being a humane leader.

 

[Sasparilla]

Wow, this was one of the guys who came up with the "Do No Evil" mission statement for Google back in the day. He likely wants to push people out w/o having to pay severance.

The silicon valley execs seem so jealous of Elon being cruel to his employees (& the government employees) as if that horridness should be something to strive for.

 

[Don Reba]

Why not just hire 50% more people?

 

[pauleyc]

If you are already worth $137 billion dollars, what exactly is the point of this?

I see two reasons:

1. $300 billion is always better than $137 billion.

2. His wealth largely depends on the valuation of Google stock so he needs to keep the balloon inflated.

 

[JCarnage]

That’s a no from me, champ. Working 60hrs/wk means I’m giving myself one hell of a paycut.

 

[s73v3r]

It sucks they are expected to work themselves out of a job harder, but I’m not going to shed many tears that people making $300-$800k are being pushed to work hard either.

What's the exact dollar amount one can make before they are no longer able to complain about abusive management?

 

[Heart of Dawn]

So, so much bullshit in one sentence. AGI is just not going to happen, and certainly not with with the current LLM approach, and burning out your employees with an endless crunch is certainly not going to get you there.

That he's willing to destroy hundreds of people's lives chasing an impossible pipe-dream tells me everything we need to know about the billionaire class.