Google co-founder Sergey Brin recently declared that engineers should work 60-hour weeks in the office to build AI systems—the very same AI systems that could eventually automate those engineers out of jobs. The tech industry burnout culture just reached a new level of irony.
At a time when many tech workers are already struggling with work-life balance, Silicon Valley’s elite are doubling down on an extreme work ethic that feels increasingly disconnected from reality. Google’s call for 60-hour weeks isn’t just a scheduling suggestion—it’s a glimpse into how the industry’s most powerful leaders view the relationship between humans and the technology they’re building.
The Burnout Paradox: Building Your Own Replacement
The cruel twist in this narrative is unmistakable: tech workers are being asked to sacrifice their mental health, relationships, and well-being to create technologies that could ultimately make their own roles obsolete. According to multiple studies, the tech industry already faces a significant burnout crisis, with over 57% of tech workers reporting symptoms of burnout.
What’s particularly striking about Brin’s comments is the timing. They come after a period when remote work demonstrated that many tech jobs could be performed effectively without constant office presence. They also arrive amid massive tech layoffs, with over 260,000 tech employees losing their jobs in 2023 alone.
“The crunch culture in tech might seem productive in the short term, but it quickly leads to stress, exhaustion, and burnout,” notes one industry report, highlighting how the pressure to constantly upskill while maintaining inhuman work hours creates a perfect storm for mental health crises.
Silicon Valley’s Self-Destructive Feedback Loop
The push for extreme work hours isn’t happening in isolation. It’s part of a broader tech industry burnout culture that has been building for years. The industry once promised a utopia of work-life balance and progressive approaches to employee well-being. Yet somewhere along the way, that vision morphed into a pressure cooker environment where worth is measured in hours logged and personal sacrifice is celebrated.
This culture creates a dangerous feedback loop. Burned-out engineers build imperfect AI systems. These systems require more engineering hours to fix and improve. The cycle continues while human costs mount.
Perhaps most concerning is how this approach disproportionately impacts diversity in tech. The 60-hour office week model inherently favors those without caregiving responsibilities and those who can physically and mentally withstand such extreme demands—typically younger workers without families and predominantly men.
The Human Cost Behind AI’s Rapid Development
Behind the sleek interfaces and impressive capabilities of today’s AI systems lies a growing human cost. While tech leaders like Brin frame extreme work hours as necessary for innovation, the reality is more complex.
The pressure to stay competitive in the AI race has created what some industry analysts call a “burnout economy” where human sustainability is sacrificed for technological advancement. Mental health issues in tech have reached alarming levels, with anxiety, depression, and chronic stress becoming increasingly common.
Even more concerning, this pressure-cooker environment often prevents technologists from thinking critically about the ethical implications of what they’re building. When engineers are working 60-hour weeks, there’s little time for contemplating the societal impacts of the systems they’re creating.
Breaking the Cycle: Sustainable Innovation is Possible
Despite what tech leaders might suggest, evidence indicates that sustainable work practices actually produce better outcomes. Companies with healthier work cultures tend to have higher employee retention, greater diversity, and—ironically—more innovation.
Some tech companies are pushing back against the burnout model. They’re implementing four-day workweeks, mental health benefits, and truly flexible work arrangements. These companies recognize that solving complex problems like artificial intelligence requires clear, well-rested minds—not exhausted ones.
There’s also a growing movement within tech to question the underlying assumptions about productivity and presence. Remote work proved that many tech workers could be equally or more productive outside the office environment, yet companies are rushing back to pre-pandemic norms without examining the evidence.
The tech industry faces a critical choice: continue down a path of self-destructive work culture that treats humans as disposable resources in service to technology, or build a more sustainable approach that recognizes human limitations and needs.
As AI development accelerates, the irony becomes even more pronounced. We’re creating intelligent systems by demanding increasingly unintelligent treatment of the humans building them. In the race to create artificial intelligence, we risk losing sight of the very human intelligence that makes innovation possible in the first place.