Google’s cofounders famously built their company in a garage. But now that the tech giant is the No. 5 biggest company in the world (as of press time), the bosses want employees at their desks, not carports.
In a memo viewed by The New York Times and posted internally to employees working on Google’s Gemini AI, company cofounder Sergey Brin wrote that staff should work much longer than a standard 40-hour workweek — and all of it in the office.
“60 hours a week is the sweet spot of productivity,” he wrote. “I recommend being in the office at least every weekday.”
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Brin’s memo comes at a time when competition for AI talent, resources, and spending in Silicon Valley is at a fever pitch. So much so that it brought the tech billionaire back to the office “pretty much every day” working on AI.
Brin is currently the No. 9 richest person in the world with a net worth of $145 billion, per Bloomberg.
This means he also expects employees to put in the work, per the memo.
“A number of folks work less than 60 hours and a small number put in the bare minimum to get by,” he wrote. “This last group is not only unproductive but also can be highly demoralizing to everyone else.”
Google’s current return-to-office (RTO) policy is a hybrid schedule that requires employees to be in the office at least three days a week.
“I think we have all the ingredients to win this race, but we are going to have to turbocharge our efforts,” Brin wrote.
A Google spokeswoman declined to comment to the Times.
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