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Google to reduce workforce by 12k

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Re: Google to reduce workforce by 12k

#951

Post by wildrhythms »

anonymouswacker wrote: post #646

It's a shame that Google is so good at hiring top talent, and even better at under utilizing them. The company had a hypomanic vision of greatness by throwing everything to see what stuck, and still can't get a new idea that is profitable besides marketing & advertising due to their virtual monopoly. I'm very curious what the breakdown of positions will be. This is a failure of leadership and Sundar should resign.

You don't have to utilize the talent; you just have to keep it out of the hands of your competitors.

Re: Google to reduce workforce by 12k

#952

Post by wildrhythms »

hsn915 wrote: post #325

I find it odd that most of the comments here are angry, as if at someone who stole the livlihoods of thousands of people. I understand the general public thinks their life depends on a company. I find it odd that this sentiment is so strong on HN.

>I understand the general public thinks their life depends on a company.

And do you think this is not a fair assessment?

Re: Google to reduce workforce by 12k

#953

Post by rsj_hn »

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…

Imagine you are running a restaurant and normally you get 100 people a night and you service that with 10 staff, and you know for the next year you will get 200 people a night and can support that business with 20 staff and then after it will go back down to 100 people.

So you can choose to:

1. Refuse to hire the extra staff for a year and lose out on the profits of 100 customers a night for a year.

2. Go with the flow, expanding when demand increases and contracting when demand decreases.

Most people will go with option 2 as that is what gets you more money and also allows the economy to respond to price signals in a rational way. This is particularly true of growth companies like Google. The idea of a growth company is not to maintain constant revenues and employment over time. People who go to work for Google should understand that Google will hire more staff when demand goes up. But then they should also understand that Google will cut staff when demand falls.

That it's predictable that demand goes up and down does nothing to change this calculus. It's like people blaming the home builders in 2010 for expanding home building. I mean, when there is an increased demand for new housing, why wouldn't they expand home building?

Re: Google to reduce workforce by 12k

#954

Post by talleyrand »

michaelgrosner2 wrote: post #792
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…

I literally only hear that Google search is bad from HN. No one else in my daily life - my family, friends, people out at my gym or grocery store - ever complain that Google search is bad. In fact, Google is still the default for looking up information anywhere. It's sentiments like this that make you realize how much of a bubble HN exists in. OTOH, people have trouble using GMail, google home, or ban YouTube in thei…

I've heard this over and over on HN in recent years and I simply don't understand it. Almost any Google search I run has just what I am looking for as the first or second choice. Google frequently knows what I am looking for after I type in the first few words of the search! Are HN people not logged in when they search?

Re: Google to reduce workforce by 12k

#955

Post by cbeach »

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…

Yes, I remember being permanently blocked from using Adsense without warning or explanation. As far as I know, I’d done nothing wrong. Nothing even remotely dodgy. Reading your comment reminds me that I should be careful not to rely too heavily on Google Docs and Workspace.

Google is too big to offer the personal touch. They’re a very cold and uncompromising company.

Re: Google to reduce workforce by 12k

#956

Post by FearlessNebula »

pembrook wrote: post #58

A lot of people seem to be chalking this one up in the “memetic imitation among tech execs” column. However, in the case of Google, I’m not so sure. Google is an advertising business. And advertising revenue is extremely sensitive to changes in the economy (Companies cut ad spending when there isn’t as much demand to soak up). In the last recession Google was still rapidly stealing ad share from old media, but now th…

> they actually employ A TON of ad sales people

Why? Don’t customers submit their own ads to Google?

Re: Google to reduce workforce by 12k

#957

Post by FearlessNebula »

ako wrote: post #115
dzonga wrote: post #30

I blame companies for blaming with people's lives like this: not market dynamics. companies are the ones that decided to overhire, overpay - based on covid demand, cheap money that was floating around. companies not the market, resulted in a war over talent. now it's a war on talent. and of course everyone and their grandma will want to work at these tech companies where life is laid back and you get all the benefits…

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.

I’m convinced I got into FAANG last year because of overhiring. Even if I get layed off, a year of FAANG on my resume is a blessing

Re: Google to reduce workforce by 12k

#958

Post by epolanski »

michaelgrosner2 wrote: post #792
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…

I literally only hear that Google search is bad from HN. No one else in my daily life - my family, friends, people out at my gym or grocery store - ever complain that Google search is bad. In fact, Google is still the default for looking up information anywhere. It's sentiments like this that make you realize how much of a bubble HN exists in. OTOH, people have trouble using GMail, google home, or ban YouTube in thei…

I hear it often in my circles that search has degraded.

Re: Google to reduce workforce by 12k

#960

Post by asda_ »

lwhi wrote: post #491
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.

Will a workforce of ex-Googlers create a positive benefit to other non-Google companies?

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