For an exec, it is, and he is 100% correct.
There's a reason why execs get perks - free housing, transportation, personal assistants, etc are all common things at the VP and up level for these large corportations. The whole reason for that is to free up time so they can work 60 hour weeks.
For a standard IC, that's not the case. Life takes time. You can do it, but it will be at the cost of those around you. I spent the last ~2 years working 60-80 hour weeks at Figma. At one point my boss asked me to work from my honeymoon. My life, health, and relationships suffered because of the pressure I was putting on others as a result of that.
If Google wants and expects that out of their ICs, they need to provide the same level of accomidation they do for execs, otherwise it just comes off as an exec being out of touch with the needs of every day life.
I’d like to understand what you were doing at figma that was so damn important for your boss to ask this of you. I’ve used figma, it’s definitely not critical software product that people place their lives on.
Likely the value of his boss’s stock options leading up to their IPO.
These are the same execs who count their flight time as working hours but refuse to do the same for their run-of-the-mill employees commute time.
And business lunches etc.
Unless you're the pilot, the amount of work you can do on a plane is greater than you can do if you're driving a car. Hmm... maybe that's why Google is investing all that money in Waymo.
I would disagree that it's a sweet spot for execs.
Essentially no one should be working 60 hours a week, the human mind needs breaks to unconsciously work on problems.
I would posit unless someone is doing pure labor, anything involving creativity / problem solving actually has worse returns past 30 hrs a week of intense work.
Anyone in exec positions claiming otherwise likely would hesitate to let someone actually see what they do all day / week. No doubt they "work" all day in some cases, but that day is filled with lots of non work / downtime.
But Sergey Brin has never been an exec. He is someone who got really, really lucky, and then just plays around on the side.
It sounds like youre not helping.
Doing that amount of hours is what makes execs think they can ask that of other people too
That's part of the reason why I quit :)
What does a CEO actually do for 60 hours a week?
I seriously doubt they’re working harder than the average SWE in the trenches, even though they probably think they are.
From my vantage point, C-suite jobs are basically hired nobility.
>What does a CEO actually do for 60 hours a week
In tech I dunno, in finance/trading the answer is pretty simple: European markets open at 9am, US closes at 10pm. There is your 12 hours with 1 hour lunch break.
Apparently, some of them work BILLIONS of times harder than the average wagie.