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Google to reduce workforce by 12k

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Re: Google to reduce workforce by 12k

#241

Post by LaGrange »

rco8786 wrote: post #232
eCa wrote: post #51

I guess someone has to write this comment: > I take full responsibility for the decisions that led us here As usual, he says nothing more what the consequences for him are. It seems like all of the FAANGs have made severe strategic cockups when it comes to hiring lately. I wonder if it will affect their longterm attraction as employers.

He said responsibility, not consequences. I am still not sure what people expect CEOs to do in these situations to "punish" themselves. Google is not going bankrupt, they are still wildly profitable, they overhired and are adjusting headcount by a few percent. It sucks for the people affected, I don't want to downplay that. But I'm genuinely curious what is supposed to happen to the leader in these situations.

Donate 90% (or everything above $2M, whichever amount is higher) of their wealth to the people dismissed, and never take on a leadership position again.

No, I'm not joking.

Re: Google to reduce workforce by 12k

#242

Post by GoToRO »

rco8786 wrote: post #232
eCa wrote: post #51

I guess someone has to write this comment: > I take full responsibility for the decisions that led us here As usual, he says nothing more what the consequences for him are. It seems like all of the FAANGs have made severe strategic cockups when it comes to hiring lately. I wonder if it will affect their longterm attraction as employers.

He said responsibility, not consequences. I am still not sure what people expect CEOs to do in these situations to "punish" themselves. Google is not going bankrupt, they are still wildly profitable, they overhired and are adjusting headcount by a few percent. It sucks for the people affected, I don't want to downplay that. But I'm genuinely curious what is supposed to happen to the leader in these situations.

They could quit or... not get any income until everybody that leaves gets a new job.

Re: Google to reduce workforce by 12k

#243

Post by Moissanite »

I wonder how much major tech companies are taking into account "revenge" when doing their firing. For example, if I was a GCP Solutions Architect and got laid off, my skills would be well suited to jumping to a customer who is using GCP - but would I be inclined to support this activity, giving the employer who fired me more revenue? Depends on the availability of roles of course, but I would certainly be giving strong consideration to ways to screw them over in return, for example by advocating for another cloud and quietly, tactically airing some dirty laundry.

Re: Google to reduce workforce by 12k

#244

Post by Draiken »

kkoncevicius wrote: post #186

I don't understand some of the comments here, maybe someone can explain. Does a company need to have an excuse to let people go? Is there a right to stay employed? As far as I am aware working for a company is not a life-long situation. And further - why don't we invert it and praise these companies for supplying thousands of six figure jobs for years. Surely being employed for several years is better than never bein…

Comments like these tell me how ingrained capitalism is on people's minds now. We seem to forget that without the people that make up the company, it simply does not exist.

Companies are imaginary entities chasing profits for its owners. There's nothing sacred about it and they shouldn't EVER be more important than people.

I don't understand how we can lose sight of that.

Re: Google to reduce workforce by 12k

#245

Post by tempsy »

eCa wrote: post #51

I guess someone has to write this comment: > I take full responsibility for the decisions that led us here As usual, he says nothing more what the consequences for him are. It seems like all of the FAANGs have made severe strategic cockups when it comes to hiring lately. I wonder if it will affect their longterm attraction as employers.

People really don’t seem to understand that the fact employment is at will and people are not unionized is the reason why tech salaries are so high to begin with

The concept of being a lifer is very rare. Not many people expect to stay at one company forever, many not even more than a few years at most.

Re: Google to reduce workforce by 12k

#246

Post by cwingrav »

wheels wrote: post #197
eCa wrote: post #51

I guess someone has to write this comment: > I take full responsibility for the decisions that led us here As usual, he says nothing more what the consequences for him are. It seems like all of the FAANGs have made severe strategic cockups when it comes to hiring lately. I wonder if it will affect their longterm attraction as employers.

I think calling them cockups is a stretch. A few points: - Flexibility of the US labor market is one of the things that makes it attractive relative to labor markets of other rich countries: it's easy to hire more people when demand goes up, and fire them when it goes down. - Demand just went down, all over the interwebs, since people miss doing things in real life. - It's an easy time to fire a bunch of people witho…

> It’s an easy time to fire a bunch of people..

Totally agree. This is just cutting in places they’ve probably wanted to cut for a while. They’ll hire back in a year or two as things ramp up, and on projects they consider important.

Re: Google to reduce workforce by 12k

#247

Post by oblio »

If you've ever wondered, this is not about immediate money concerns.

In 2021 Google made $257 billion aka $257 000 000 000. And a profit of $76 bn aka $78 000 000 000.

It had 187 000 employees.

That works out to $1.3 million income per employee. And a net profit of $406 000 per employee.

They don't need to lay off anyone. They just want to.

I've seen smaller companies where they first shift employees around, offer everyone a choice, etc. People are only really laid off is things don't work out over many months or even years.

Re: Google to reduce workforce by 12k

#248

Post by HDThoreaun »

ergonaught wrote: post #234

I need to see these "I take full responsibility" people actually punished. At the very least, this sentence needs to be removed from their mouths. Alphabet had 116 billion USD "cash on hand" at the end of September 2022. Even if the full cost of each of those 12K employees is 500K per year, that's "only" 6 billion dollars to keep those "great" people that they "love" working with around. Net income for that quarter w…

Punished for what? This is all going to plan. Big tech gambled that the pandemic would create huge opportunities and it hasn’t totally panned out. They always planned to lay people off in that situation.

Re: Google to reduce workforce by 12k

#249

Post by kgwgk »

helsinkiandrew wrote: post #67
afandian wrote: post #9

> Pivoting the company to be AI-first years ago That seems like a weird thing to throw in there. Does anyone else read it as a hasty "we were doing AI before ChatGPT was cool"?

In Google I/O 2017 they announced a "pivot to AI". https://www.engadget.com/2017-05-20-at-i-o-2017-google-doubl... Google Assistant, Tensorflow, Google Lens, Cloud TPU, Google Goggles, auto mail responses etc. A lot of interesting stuff but nothing that has made the popular press like chatGPT, dall-e etc.

DeepMind has occasionally made to the popular press - but not like ChatGPT. Coverage was more like that of IBM’s Watson and Deep Blue back in the day.

Re: Google to reduce workforce by 12k

#250

Post by Eisenstein »

ergonaught wrote: post #234

I need to see these "I take full responsibility" people actually punished. At the very least, this sentence needs to be removed from their mouths. Alphabet had 116 billion USD "cash on hand" at the end of September 2022. Even if the full cost of each of those 12K employees is 500K per year, that's "only" 6 billion dollars to keep those "great" people that they "love" working with around. Net income for that quarter w…

I guess it depends on what they were hired for. If they were on a team for a project that is no longer viable, should they be kept on and given busywork?
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