Google to reduce workforce by 12k • Hacker News Board

Re: Google to reduce workforce by 12k

#631

Post by pm90 » Fri, Jan 20, 2023, 3:53 PM UTC

hankman86 wrote: post #460

I wonder what hidden benefits there are in these layoffs. Sure, companies lose skilled staff and nominally taken a hit in overall corporate output. On the flipside, people work twice as hard, eager to show their worth. That may be the cynic intent behind these industry-wide layoff. Scare the crap out of everyone and make them do the extra mile.

Fear isn’t a good long term strategy though. If your culture is fear driven, engineers will be less likely to join, or you will attract certain kinds of engineers. When operating on survival mode teams will switch from collaboration to competition. It can become really bad really quickly.

Re: Google to reduce workforce by 12k

#632

Post by Redoubts » Fri, Jan 20, 2023, 3:53 PM UTC

marvin wrote: post #609

xiphias2 wrote: post #584

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google of 2008 didn't do this, I was there. The difference is that current Google is full of non-tech non-sales people who fight with eachother to reorganize tech people who are trying to build things. Other tech people change the API for no reason and give work to 1000 more people to ,,upgrade to the newer system'' and stop maintaining the old system. Also the new CEO is not a software engineer, so he doesn't unders…

> The difference is that current Google is full of non-tech non-sales people who fight with eachother to reorganize tech people who are trying to build things. Is this true? If so, how can a historically disruptive and innovtive tech company like Google make that kind of blatant mistake?

Growing past thousands of people is very hard to do “correctly”. Maybe it’s not even possible.

Re: Google to reduce workforce by 12k

#633

Post by momodadragon » Fri, Jan 20, 2023, 3:54 PM UTC

netheril96 wrote: post #266

jensensbutton wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> diversity programs... Not even remotely comparable to the other things you listed. People such as yourself seemingly can't stop talking about it though, despite it having no effect on your life.

> despite it having no effect on your life. How could it have no effect on our lives? It has effect when you compete against a diversity hire, it has effect when you have to work with a diversity hire, it has effect when your manager has to decide who to lay off when your coworker is a diversity hire.

if you're losing out to a "diversity hire", you weren't that good.

Re: Google to reduce workforce by 12k

#634

Post by anxman » Fri, Jan 20, 2023, 3:54 PM UTC

xiphias2 wrote: post #584

EthanHeilman wrote: post #543

The Google of 2005 wouldn't do this. The Google of 2005 would use this as opportunity to monopolize all the talent and move into some new space and eat everything with fantastic software. * I had a good seat to watch google obliterate mapquest and yahoomaps with amazing javascript maps. It was day and night. Yahoo was penny pinching their mapping engineers while Google was buying geographic satellite companies and in…

Google of 2008 didn't do this, I was there. The difference is that current Google is full of non-tech non-sales people who fight with eachother to reorganize tech people who are trying to build things. Other tech people change the API for no reason and give work to 1000 more people to ,,upgrade to the newer system'' and stop maintaining the old system. Also the new CEO is not a software engineer, so he doesn't unders…

I worked on Sundars team at Google in 2006. He is highly technical and understands the nuance of software.

Re: Google to reduce workforce by 12k

#635

Post by AYBABTME » Fri, Jan 20, 2023, 3:55 PM UTC

xdavidliu wrote: post #488

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…

> It was written in the sky since April 2020. Anyone with a semblance of understanding could guess that the COVID-fueled situation and artificial economic prop up would come due in the medium term. Can you point to any comments that people with a semblance of understanding made back then in which they were able estimate the rough time window when things would come back down to earth?

If you look the Spanish flu in particular, it eventually fade out after 2-3y, and people resumed life by a mix of adapting to the new reality and stopped caring, and the illness mutated to a less dangerous form. People (at least those I think sounded pragmatic) were talking about that back in Spring 2020.

I don't know of a comment in 2020 that specifically say that, mainly because I don't keep a log and will not go search for it.

Re: Google to reduce workforce by 12k

#636

Post by charles_f » Fri, Jan 20, 2023, 3:55 PM UTC

unholiness wrote: post #629

Possibly naive question: Everyone's talking about how these companies are preparing for a global recession. But it's striking how specific to large tech companies. Is it possible these companies are just seeing the new remote-first paradigm as an opportunity to replace US devs with cheaper, foreign developers? Obvious this is absurdly difficult, but it's likely more realistic now than it's ever been before.

I don't think this is true, I have seen a number of small companies doing the same thing in here.

Re: Google to reduce workforce by 12k

#637

Post by hbarka » Fri, Jan 20, 2023, 3:56 PM UTC

>> We’ve decided to reduce our workforce by approximately 12,000 roles.

When I first read this I saw the word “role” and not “jobs” and therefore interpreted it as more than 12,000 jobs, because a role can be one or more people. By that definition however it’s absurd to think that that many roles would be eliminated.

Why didn’t they just say “jobs”?

Re: Google to reduce workforce by 12k

#638

Post by ra7 » Fri, Jan 20, 2023, 3:57 PM UTC

Larry and Sergey used to proudly boast that they are not a “conventional company”. In fact, this quote is still in Alphabet’s home page:

> As Sergey and I wrote in the original founders letter 11 years ago, “Google is not a conventional company. We do not intend to become one.”

Google looks more and more like a conventional big company with moves like this. They’ve become really boring in the last 5-6 years.

Re: Google to reduce workforce by 12k

#639

Post by cptskippy » Fri, Jan 20, 2023, 3:57 PM UTC

kderbyma wrote: post #590

xiphias2 wrote: post #584

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google of 2008 didn't do this, I was there. The difference is that current Google is full of non-tech non-sales people who fight with eachother to reorganize tech people who are trying to build things. Other tech people change the API for no reason and give work to 1000 more people to ,,upgrade to the newer system'' and stop maintaining the old system. Also the new CEO is not a software engineer, so he doesn't unders…

Pinchai has been a Terrible pick. He made google just worse. Like a passive aggressive leader...

I always assumed his appointment was strategic, Pichai got his position shortly after Nadella took over Microsoft. This coincided with announcements like Android One and other products targeting or focusing on the Indian market which is emerging as a force on the global stage.

Re: Google to reduce workforce by 12k

#640

Post by whiplash451 » Fri, Jan 20, 2023, 3:57 PM UTC

sillysaurusx wrote: post #135

makach wrote: post #104

Not a bad email, and a decent follow up on the ones that are affected. It is also a reminder that killing yourself slowly at the workplace is meaningless. Management has no responsibility to you, and no promise is certain. It’s your responsibility to take care of yourself. My take, don’t be bitter. Take the severance as soon as possible and get back on your feet. Having Google on your resume is a very good thing.

Hear hear re: not letting work consume your life. Seeing someone else say that was very refreshing. It’s so true that when you’re gone, the company hardly notices. Being let go with no severance and zero days notice was the last straw for me to ever put my soul into a soulless company again. Luckily there are cool ones out there worth putting yourself into. I managed to find one. Weirdly I now seem to enjoy staying u…

Yep, that works until the founders hand the keys of the truck to a random CEO who sends the whole company (and yourself) into what all companies look like.