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Sergey Brin says 60 hours a week is the 'sweet spot'
(fortune.com)
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this post was submitted on 02 Mar 2025
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how do these successful, sometimes intelligent people lose all empathy for humanity?
Empathy isn't really compatible with being an American CEO, they're legally required to maximise profit above treating people as humans under their fiduciary duty to shareholders.
ive always considered the stock market the core of the downfall of humanity. i get a lot of shit for pointing out how inherently evil and corrupt the entire thing is.
it is human greed distilled to its essence and removed from all societal responsibility.
I wholeheartedly agree. The initial intention might have been different but the end result is a Casino for the rich where the wins are private and losses socialized.
All the businesses closing up around you? Don't worry, the stock market is doing fine.
People need to get two jobs just to afford rent and food? Don't worry, the stock market is doing fine.
More and more people working later and later in life? Don't worry, the stock market is doing fine.
Inflation is outpacing food, rent, education, medicine, and nearly every else? Don't worry, the stock market is doing fine.
It's become the only metric for how well the economy is doing. While the country crumbles, the stock market soars so all must be fine.
You are assuming they got the empathy in the first place. How do you think they became successful? They just stop pretending to have it when public opinion cannot impact their profits anymore.
It’s not just a lack of empathy for the sake of profits, either. We know for a fact that raising hours right now would lead to poorer quality of work and that lowering hours would lead to higher productivity and quality.
They’re just stupid and cruel, that’s all.
Out of interest do you have a link to back that up? Not questioning you, id genuinely like to read up on that.
https://financialpost.com/fp-work/4-day-workweek-fix-burnout-low-productivity#:~:text=Companies%20also%20reap%20the%20benefits,increasing%20by%2022%20per%20cent.
https://cepr.org/voxeu/columns/teams-become-more-productive-when-their-hours-are-shorter
There are a couple. The basic idea is that burnout is significantly reduced, people have recovery times, less animosity towards management, just all kinds of benefits. We have the technology be so much more efficient in basically any industry and so we don’t need to be there that long even if we could handle it just fine. I could find a way to do my work twice as fast and I’d still be punished for showing up 15min later and you bet that annihilates my desire to do anything more than the bare minimum.
And, importantly, pay does not change. This isn’t a trade-off, it’s a win-win, so if they ever try to say “ok we just won’t pay you for that day” you can say “so I’ll be more productive and paid less? How does that make sense?”
You don't become this successful if you have an ounce of empathy. All billionaires are most probably on some kind of sociopathic scale, some a lot further than others.