- Workplace experts can’t decide what’s the optimal number of working hours for Gen Z workers—but they know it’s not “every waking minute” of the day like Cerebras’ CEO suggested, or the 60 hour “sweet spot” Google’s Sergey Brin recommended earlier this year. That schedule is unsustainable, but 40-hour workweeks aren’t enough for the young and hungry.
The CEO of $8.1 billion AI chips company Cerebras recently hit back at the idea entrepreneurs can launch an innovative business working “30, 40, 50 hours a week.” Aside from suggesting “every waking minute” should be dedicated to success, he gave no magic number for how much time people should actually put in. And in an internal memo to Gemini staffers earlier this year, Google cofounder Sergey Brin set his own expectation by saying clocking in 60 hours every week is the “sweet spot” to be efficient. Workplace experts told Fortune that’s unsustainable—but they also don’t always know where to draw the line.
