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Google to reduce workforce by 12k

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Re: Google to reduce workforce by 12k

#771

Post by ok123456 »

sangnoir wrote: post #752
ifyoubuildit wrote: post #699

> Pivoting the company to be AI-first years ago led to groundbreaking advances across our businesses and the whole industry. > Thanks to those early investments, Google’s products are better than ever. Does he really believe this? Maybe I'm just biased towards the parts that are annoying and I end up missing the good parts, but search seems worse every day. I worry about using google products for anything essential d…

> Does he really believe this? I believe it: the Google of 2008 would have been completely buried by the flood of ChatGPT-generated bullshit SEO spam. What they have today is the best version of Google to date, so it's still floating, not just as high as it once was in less adversarial times.

Really? Often, the top links are AI generated spam that, while somewhat relevant to whatever you searched for, sounds like it was written by a high school student trying to pad the word count for a few pages.

Re: Google to reduce workforce by 12k

#772

Post by nomel »

nullhash wrote: post #591
ako wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is overhiring really a problem, would the world be better if companies didn’t overhire? Then many of the people now laid off wouldn’t have had a job in the first place. If you accept a job for what it is, a temporary need for your help, and plan for what’s next, a period of layoffs should become manageable.

Consider my situation. I passed my Google interview in October for New Grad 2023 and was told that my starting date would be April. Now I’m most likely not going to be hired and need to restart my job search and this will have derailed my entire plans for the first few months of this year. I won’t see a cent.

Your situation is one of extreme privilege, being able to have desirable plans, for many months, while unemployed.

I've turned down job offers in the future, because they're empty promises. You're a hiring req in some drawer, until the first day, because everyone is aware it's an empty promise.

Re: Google to reduce workforce by 12k

#773

Post by JKCalhoun »

hourago wrote: post #735
ifyoubuildit wrote: post #699

> Pivoting the company to be AI-first years ago led to groundbreaking advances across our businesses and the whole industry. > Thanks to those early investments, Google’s products are better than ever. Does he really believe this? Maybe I'm just biased towards the parts that are annoying and I end up missing the good parts, but search seems worse every day. I worry about using google products for anything essential d…

> Maybe I'm just biased towards the parts that are annoying and I end up missing the good parts, but search seems worse every day. Google product is not the search, but the advertisements. I can believe that Google has gotten better at showing more ads to more people. The services like mail or search are just a way to get people to see that ads.

Sure, but as search circles the drain, they will lose eyeballs.

Re: Google to reduce workforce by 12k

#774

Post by LordDragonfang »

insane_dreamer wrote: post #438

This comment from a NYT opinion piece by former Slack CPO added some clarity as to one reason why tech companies are doing this: pressure from investors to keep the share price up. Public companies lose that freedom to do whatever they want even if they have tons of money in the bank. > Meta and Salesforce combined lost more than $700 billion in market cap last year. Both companies are now dealing with activist inves…

This is definitely the case. I was just talking with a Googler after the Microsoft layoffs about how Google is (now was) one of the last big tech companies avoiding layoffs, and Pichai was fighting investors like hell to keep it that way. He supposedly literally told them "these are real people" out of frustration at some point.

It's hard to look at that incredibly generous layoff package an not see it as a "fuck you" to investors telling him to slim down, after forcing his hand.

Re: Google to reduce workforce by 12k

#775

Post by mathverse »

cutenewt wrote: post #727
kypro wrote: post #146

Are we about to enter a new era of ultra-profitable tech companies? While companies like GOOG and MSFT have had ridiculously healthy margins compared to traditional industries for some time now, it's also been clear in recent years that these companies have become very loose with spending. Take GOOG for example, they spend so much unnecessary money on fancy offices, free lunches, diversity programs, highly speculativ…

I doubt it. It feels more like the end of an era. All the so called "cool" technologies from FAANG names in the last 15 years have lost its luster. There's a new set of companies that are ready to take over. The most obvious ones to fall to the wayside are the ones threatened by ChatGPT and TikTok. Who knew tech could be trendy?

That’s absolutely out of touch with reality. The owner of TikTok Bytedance was massively laying off people already. It is nowhere as profitable as any of the FAANGs.

ChatGPT is nowhere a product that can pay for itself.

Re: Google to reduce workforce by 12k

#776

Post by ipaddr »

cloutchaser wrote: post #620
nvarsj wrote: post #598

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's funny to me because this has been happening in tech a long time and is happening to the current giants. The old giants like IBM, GE, Motorola, etc. all suffered similar fates. And it's been discussed ad nauseum by disgruntled engineers who then go and make new companies/start ups to get away from the "suits". It's called "Takeover by MBA". You know it's happened when you start hearing phrases like "Cut costs", "…

It’s an anecdote but it’s also what I heard from my doctor dad working in the NHS. There was a time when the UK health system was actually run by doctors or people with medical knowledge. Now it’s MBAs and generalist managers. It doesn’t work, all it does is increase overhead, both in staff and bureaucracy. In his opinion that’s what ruined the NHS not underfunding. Business and management courses are not necessarily…

Doctors abuse the system to their own benefit when given the chance. Putting them in charge produces terrible results as well.

Re: Google to reduce workforce by 12k

#777

Post by deadmutex »

ifyoubuildit wrote: post #699

> Pivoting the company to be AI-first years ago led to groundbreaking advances across our businesses and the whole industry. > Thanks to those early investments, Google’s products are better than ever. Does he really believe this? Maybe I'm just biased towards the parts that are annoying and I end up missing the good parts, but search seems worse every day. I worry about using google products for anything essential d…

> Does he really believe this?

Google Translate, Google Photos, YouTube Recommendations, etc. and many many more are powered by AI. It is included also sprinkled in features such as gmail smart reply, etc.

Re: Google to reduce workforce by 12k

#778

Post by browningstreet »

int0x2e wrote: post #697
charles_f wrote: post #656

> I take full responsibility for the decisions that led us here When an incident occurs in prod and it affects the livelihood of 12.000 people (or more if you include family), you'd expect at the very least a post-mortem. I've never seen a company produce one after that. What was the root cause? crazy hiring, massive wage war Could the current situation be anticipated? hell yeah, out of a pandemic, war raging in Euro…

I love your thinking, but sadly most large corporates seem to suffer from very slow and very bad deciding making processes. Some examples from the tech giant I called home for 5+ years until I recently quit: 1. When the pandemic hit, mangement froze all hiring and emphatically urged us to optimize costs so we wouldn't have to lose anyone. 2. When the pandemic concerned turned into the hype of 2021, we tried to hire a…

When the pandemic hit I was working at a name SF company that immediately -- day one -- cut all contractors & consultants. They pivoted from working on things that had 2 year delivery timeframes to things that had 30 day delivery time frames. Then everyone who was left got run into the ground because their business boomed (one of those companies that thrived during the pandemic).

So sure, they didn't need all those other people when they were trying to build big things that took years of development, but those same people were cut and left to fend for themselves while the company recorded record revenues and profits.

Now, in the case of the pandemic, these things were hard to predict. Contractors & consultants know they're expendable, they're paid to be (though, not like they used to be).

But now companies are giving at least three orthogonal messages: 1) we're doing fine but productivity requires everyone to please come back into the office, and 2) we're not in a recession but we're going to cull the herd in big numbers anyway, and finally 3) we have to control and minimize corporate spending.

It's hard not to think that the cullings are part of an effort by the big corps to assert greater control over their employees. There's a collective hurt being spread across the workforce, a quelling of employee pushback against RTO policies (the pandemic is still happening, in actuality), and a desire to bring salaries back down by minimizing the opportunism of mobility via strategic attrition.

I do wonder a) how the orgs that are remote-first in hiring are faring in this climate, and b) if this will start a tumble in housing in HCOL areas.

Re: Google to reduce workforce by 12k

#779

Post by [deleted] »

brightball wrote: post #740
ifyoubuildit wrote: post #699

> Pivoting the company to be AI-first years ago led to groundbreaking advances across our businesses and the whole industry. > Thanks to those early investments, Google’s products are better than ever. Does he really believe this? Maybe I'm just biased towards the parts that are annoying and I end up missing the good parts, but search seems worse every day. I worry about using google products for anything essential d…

> Chat (whatever it's being called that month) is always changing, and not for any benefit that I can see. I'll actually vouch for the current state of Chat. The Google Chat and Spaces functionality included in the office suite is a great addition. It still has a ways to go to be anywhere close to the level of Slack, but what they have so far is extremely useful for customers that don't want to deal with an outside s…

[deleted]

Re: Google to reduce workforce by 12k

#780

Post by lazide »

jbirer wrote: post #700
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…

It's really unfair that the incompetent have so much power over the competent and block their potential.

Eh, Google long ago passed the point where it was about making things, and has been at the point where 99.99% of its energy has to go towards stopping itself from imploding.

Which means processes, approvals, triple checks, departments/groups fighting each other (to protect themselves), etc.

It’s a natural part of the lifecycle and every organization gets there eventually.

What you’re talking about is frustration when you’re part of the picture (and individual ability to get things done) is blocked by the overall organizations dysfunction/morass.

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