Google Co-Founder Sergey Brin Urges Team For 60-Hour Work Week Amid AI Competition

In an internal memo, Google co-founder Sergey Brin urged employees to increase their efforts, suggesting a 60-hour workweek, to solidify Google's leadership in AI, amidst competition from tools like ChatGPT.

According to a report by The New York Times, Sergey Brin advised employees to work from the office on weekdays. "I recommend being in the office at least every weekday," he wrote in a memo to employees, as reported by NYT.

Mr Brin, who is estimated to be worth $144 billion, emphasised that "60 hours a week is the sweet spot of productivity" in a memo addressed to Gemini, Google's lineup of AI models and applications.

"The competition has intensified significantly, and the final race to AGI is underway," he stated, urging Google employees to accelerate their efforts to stay ahead of rivals like OpenAI and Microsoft.

"I believe we have all the ingredients to win this race, but we need to turbocharge our efforts," he wrote, reiterating his stance on a 60-hour workweek.

Mr Brin also encouraged engineers to leverage Google's AI models to assist in writing code, stating that doing so would make them "the most efficient coders and AI scientists in the world."

When ChatGPT was launched two years ago, its first 100 million users actively sought it out, finding it either remarkably helpful or, at times, underwhelming.

Similar calls for extended work hours by tech industry leaders have been widely viewed as strategies to slow hiring and cut costs. 

Last year, Infosys co-founder Narayana Murthy suggested a 70-hour workweek, while in January, L&T Chairman SN Subrahmanyan proposed a 90-hour workweek.