Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 y…
Who are these investors that he’s fighting?
Google to reduce workforce by 12k
841–850 of 1001 posts
Re: Google to reduce workforce by 12k
#842> 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…
After the way Google treated Stadia, I can't trust any Google product enough to fully rely on it.
I think Stadia is something they handled well. Refunds to people. There are worse deprecation examples you can find.
Re: Google to reduce workforce by 12k
#843> 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…
Meanwhile, here is an actual quote from the figurehead that led the quantitative dumping that put us where we are today: "I don't take responsibility at all"
Remember how a few short years ago, it was widely recognized that Wall Street and Main Street were completely out of sync? That was due to trillions of dollars in helicopter money meant to make the financial markets look good despite the pandemic. These layoffs are part of the bill that's coming due.
Re: Google to reduce workforce by 12k
#844The 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. I…
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Re: Google to reduce workforce by 12k
#845Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 o…
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Re: Google to reduce workforce by 12k
#846This 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…
Meh. Saying this is a new "era" and the old ways are over is nonsense. We're entering what is likely a mild recessionary period with less flowing capital. It's a market correction. The "era" will last maybe 2 years. Then the upward trajectory will hit again and tech workers will get drone shuttles to work or something by 2030.
Remind me, what happened after the DotCom bubble imploded?
Re: Google to reduce workforce by 12k
#847> 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…
> and it affects the livelihood of 12.000 people I'll stop you right there. Why would they do a post-mortem for this? They're not accountable to the employees. This should be a reminder for everyone as to who SLT actually works for.
Corporations should be accountable to their employees. The system we have today is harmful.
Re: Google to reduce workforce by 12k
#848This 'I take full responsibility' thing is getting really tiresome. Of course you take full responsibility, you're the f'ing CEO, and in case on account of this someone loses their house I'm sure you'll make good on it, because it's your responsibility, right?
If you're saying "I take full responsibility", I'd expect a meaningful consequence on your part, such as resigning, forgoing your bonus for the year or a significant pay cut. That's what's happening to the staff being laid off.
But because exec comp is mostly stock based, he's actually getting a massive pay increase.
Re: Google to reduce workforce by 12k
#849The 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. I…
Specialisation is a risky long term bet though. The amount of companies a good generalist software engineer can work at is orders of magnitude more than an ML engineer and I imagine it will remain like that for a long while. Same thing for more extreme niches like compiler engineers - the number of opportunities is substantially less.
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Re: Google to reduce workforce by 12k
#850> 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…
I'll believe it when Google Maps stops asking me if I want to get off the highway, drive around in a big square, then get back on at the same exit going the same way.
No google. I don't care if it's 8 minutes slower. Still not tempted.