Google to reduce workforce by 12k • Hacker News Board

Re: Google to reduce workforce by 12k

#501

Post by jossclimb » Fri, Jan 20, 2023, 2:00 PM UTC

civilized wrote: post #426

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.

"Full responsibility" is just humblebragging. Superficially, it's humility about making strategic mistakes that led to the need for the layoffs. But really, it's bragging to Wall Street. "I am tough, confident CEO. I know what takes to make shareholder value and line go up. Praise me!"

Taking full responsibility is resigning surely?

Re: Google to reduce workforce by 12k

#502

Post by giantg2 » Fri, Jan 20, 2023, 2:00 PM UTC

AYBABTME wrote: post #422

Every time I read stuff like: > "Over the past two years we’ve seen periods of dramatic growth. To match and fuel that growth, we hired for a different economic reality than the one we face today." I feel taken for a fool. Every damn body knew that the last 2 years were not representative of the future. Everybody knew that free-money, COVID and related phenomenons were a phase. I can't believe that Google, Shopify, C…

"I can't believe that Google, Shopify, Coinbase, everyone, really believed that this was the new reality going forward."

They didn't. They knew it wouldn't last. But what they had to do was stay competitive and/or meet demand by scaling up while they could. Now they have a larger pool of talent and can cut people/programs who are too expensive or are under performing.

Re: Google to reduce workforce by 12k

#503

Post by projectramo » Fri, Jan 20, 2023, 2:00 PM UTC

AYBABTME wrote: post #422

Every time I read stuff like: > "Over the past two years we’ve seen periods of dramatic growth. To match and fuel that growth, we hired for a different economic reality than the one we face today." I feel taken for a fool. Every damn body knew that the last 2 years were not representative of the future. Everybody knew that free-money, COVID and related phenomenons were a phase. I can't believe that Google, Shopify, C…

"Every damn body" knows this in retrospect. At the time -- when we were washing our groceries and we weren't sure if the IFR was 1% or 10%, and if it was airborne or if it was morphing into something worse -- our new reality might have been very different.

Re: Google to reduce workforce by 12k

#504

Post by htrp » Fri, Jan 20, 2023, 2:02 PM UTC

AYBABTME wrote: post #422

Every time I read stuff like: > "Over the past two years we’ve seen periods of dramatic growth. To match and fuel that growth, we hired for a different economic reality than the one we face today." I feel taken for a fool. Every damn body knew that the last 2 years were not representative of the future. Everybody knew that free-money, COVID and related phenomenons were a phase. I can't believe that Google, Shopify, C…

The problem also is the justification for management pay is that they are able to predict these kind of things and avoid the kind of disruption to the organization that occurs in this.

Unfortunately, it doesn't really seem the case (that and no one gets the credit for just keeping the system running)

Re: Google to reduce workforce by 12k

#505

Post by timcavel » Fri, Jan 20, 2023, 2:03 PM UTC

[dead]

Re: Google to reduce workforce by 12k

#506

Post by mabbo » Fri, Jan 20, 2023, 2:05 PM UTC

AYBABTME wrote: post #422

Every time I read stuff like: > "Over the past two years we’ve seen periods of dramatic growth. To match and fuel that growth, we hired for a different economic reality than the one we face today." I feel taken for a fool. Every damn body knew that the last 2 years were not representative of the future. Everybody knew that free-money, COVID and related phenomenons were a phase. I can't believe that Google, Shopify, C…

> Every damn body knew that the last 2 years were not representative of the future.

I disagree. There's charts showing the proportion of commerce online vs offline and it slowly rises over time over the last 20 years. It's following a pretty stable trend. Until the end of 2021 or so, the data really really looked like there had been a 5-6 year jump ahead on the curve thanks to COVID-19.

The question was never "is this a temporary change", it was "how much of this is temporary and how much is permanent?". When the dust settled, would we see it go back to a 2-year jump-ahead? Stay at a 5-year? Go back to what was expected?

Nobody knew the answer. You didn't. You had a guess. And most people forget what their guess was once they know the answer, and believe they always knew the answer.

Re: Google to reduce workforce by 12k

#507

Post by grugagag » Fri, Jan 20, 2023, 2:05 PM UTC

kmlx wrote: post #425

AYBABTME wrote: post #422

Every time I read stuff like: > "Over the past two years we’ve seen periods of dramatic growth. To match and fuel that growth, we hired for a different economic reality than the one we face today." I feel taken for a fool. Every damn body knew that the last 2 years were not representative of the future. Everybody knew that free-money, COVID and related phenomenons were a phase. I can't believe that Google, Shopify, C…

sure, but the problems back then were immediate for google et al: "we need more people to deal with the increased flow". they hoped those covid patterns will remain after covid. they didn't.

At that level of money decisions only make sense financially with complete disregard for anything else and without any efficiency in mind

Re: Google to reduce workforce by 12k

#508

Post by BurningFrog » Fri, Jan 20, 2023, 2:07 PM UTC

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.

It's a way to say you're not blaming anyone else, and the people getting laid off did nothing wrong.

Re: Google to reduce workforce by 12k

#509

Post by softwaredoug » Fri, Jan 20, 2023, 2:07 PM UTC

The last recession - if you were a software developer, or in tech, you had a great deal of immunity. I remember having spending power when everyone else was unfortunately suffering and taking time to find jobs, etc.

Now it feels like the same is true of machine learning. And to some degree other specialist roles within software engineering. If you're a generalist software developer, you're in a vulnerable position. If you have more specialized skills (AI, etc) you're going to be in a better, more robust position. Being a developer is more commoditized than it ever has been (of course good developers are still hard to find, but a lot of work doesn't really need good developers)

It makes me think that specialization over time is telescoping. At one point computer engineering was a specialization of electrical engineering. Then computer science / software became a specialization out of computer engineering. Now other specializations are being born out of general software developers.

Re: Google to reduce workforce by 12k

#510

Post by wonderwonder » Fri, Jan 20, 2023, 2:08 PM UTC

AYBABTME wrote: post #422

Every time I read stuff like: > "Over the past two years we’ve seen periods of dramatic growth. To match and fuel that growth, we hired for a different economic reality than the one we face today." I feel taken for a fool. Every damn body knew that the last 2 years were not representative of the future. Everybody knew that free-money, COVID and related phenomenons were a phase. I can't believe that Google, Shopify, C…

They needed the increased labor at the time, they got it, utilized it, juiced profits and now don't need it so are getting rid of it. They used the increased labor to increase profits by 41% in 2021. If they did not have the increased labor in that period would their profits have increased by that much?

I see this comment in much the same way I see a bear in a bull market. Stock X is $100 and Bob buys it. Carl tells Bob he is an idiot and the stock is going to go down. Stock X goes to $200. Bob sells. Stock X starts going down and Carl starts telling everyone he was right and he knew the stock would crash. In the mean time Bob is retired and has gotten everything he needed from that particular stock purchase.