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Google to reduce workforce by 12k

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Re: Google to reduce workforce by 12k

#961

Post by [deleted] »

outworlder wrote: post #861
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 take full responsibility for the decisions that led us here That's a meaningless statement. They never face any consequences. A CEO taking responsibility for layoffs should add their name to the list too.

[deleted]

Re: Google to reduce workforce by 12k

#962

Post by krainboltgreene »

tootie wrote: post #522
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…

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.

> We're entering what is likely a mild recessionary period with less flowing capital. It's a market correction.

If this was the case Google could have done an insane mount of other strategies to cut costs, of course why would they when they made $68B last quarter?

Re: Google to reduce workforce by 12k

#963

Post by hsn915 »

wildrhythms wrote: post #952
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?

I think it's a fair assessment for the general public, but not for the kind of person who is interested in the startup world. I expect an environment like HN to self select against this mindset that is prevalent in the general public.

There's a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy effect in this assessment too, so to some extent, it is only as accurate as you believe it to be.

Re: Google to reduce workforce by 12k

#964

Post by fragmede »

JonChesterfield wrote: post #80
pepF wrote: post #36

[dead]

Your landing page is crazy. Full screen image of awkward looking people talking without audio working (tried a few things, can't get it to make a sound). Is the product a mobile phone application that you give access to your bank and it displays the same information your bank statement does but sorted into categories?

which, intuit bought mint.com for $170 million dollars, so that's not a bad play.

Re: Google to reduce workforce by 12k

#965

Post by fragmede »

robocat wrote: post #899
FpUser wrote: post #221

Earlier in 2022 Google introduced this GRAD performance review system. In my opinion said system turns employment into a rat's race but I digress. One of the goals of that system was to eliminate about 10000 people which falls just in line with this reduction. https://www.forbes.com/sites/jackkelly/2022/11/21/alphabet-s... https://www.forbes.com/sites/jackkelly/2022/11/21/alphabet-s...

“Hohn is not factoring in the counterintuitive reason why Google and other tech companies pay software engineers total compensation packages of $300k to $800k. They are hoarding talent from their rivals and paying workers handsomely so there isn’t a motivation to quit and build a startup that will disrupt the status quo.” Terrible reporting. I would like to see a proper financial analysis on whether hoarding or preve…

Well, what do you think of ChatGPT as a product in the open market that challenges Google?

Re: Google to reduce workforce by 12k

#966

Post by heresie-dabord »

outworlder wrote: post #861
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 take full responsibility for the decisions that led us here That's a meaningless statement. They never face any consequences. A CEO taking responsibility for layoffs should add their name to the list too.

Translation: "I support this decision, because I support all my own decisions."

It is ethically meaningless, like "thoughts and prayers".

Re: Google to reduce workforce by 12k

#967

Post by kyrra »

komadori wrote: post #224
shapefrog wrote: post #148

Google had 156,500 full-time employees in 2021, an increase of nearly 16% year-over-year as compared to the 135,301 full-time employees in 2020. Google's pace of hiring was also torrid in the second quarter of 2022 as the company added 10,000 new employees to its 163,906 workforce - that is only through to July 2022. These "Layoffs" are awful for individuals, but they are simply a sign that they went on a hiring spre…

Wow! I worked at Google circa 2015 and there was an internal web page showing how many employees there were. My recollection is that there were about 50k full-time employees and 50k TVCs then. Even then, it felt crazy how large and incohesive the organisation was. I wonder what it's like now.

It's in Google's 10-Q filing with the SEC btw.

https://abc.xyz/investor/

Re: Google to reduce workforce by 12k

#968

Post by pgodzin »

MuffinFlavored wrote: post #686
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…

> you'd expect at the very least a post-mortem. "Despite getting paid millions to be good at my job, I did what every other CEO was doing when the Federal Reserve set interest rates low and hired a bunch of staff. I didn't think "hmm... this might change in the next 6-12 months". It changed. I am now doing what every other CEO is doing and jumping on the bandwagon and correcting." Now I don't actually have proof that…

> Now I don't actually have proof that interest rates directly affect Google (who is probably flush with cash/very profitable/has high margins/has lots of money coming in).

It affects everyone. When interest rates increase, the risk-free rate of return is much higher than when interest rates were 0. That means the ROI of each incremental dollar needs to be higher than it previously was, and when companies have a lot of projects with low risk-adjusted returns, they'll axe those.

Re: Google to reduce workforce by 12k

#969

Post by themeiguoren »

insane_dreamer wrote: post #515
chippiewill wrote: post #494

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google don't have to worry about such activist shareholders in the same way that other companies do. Larry Page and Sergey Brin have the controlling share in Alphabet thanks to their Class B shares. They only have a fiduciary responsibility to the other shareholders.

So does Zuckerberg. But while he and Page/Brin may have a controlling interest in _voting_ stock, they own a much smaller amount of overall shares. Sure, activists can't control the board, and Zuck/Page/Brin are not in danger of being ousted, their fiduciary duty is to the shareholders not just those with voting rights.

Fiduciary duty is more what you call guidelines than rules. It’s there to a) prevent blatant fraud; misguided/rash/anti-shareholder-sentiment decisions are not prosecutable, and b) give a board a reason to oust someone. The former requires a paper trail along the lines of “I’m liking my own pockets at the expense of other shareholders”, and as you said the latter is not a danger for them.

Re: Google to reduce workforce by 12k

#970

Post by mikymoothrowa »

citrin_ru wrote: post #358
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…

Advertising revenue is sensitive but number of engineer Google needs is not proportional to amount of ads they show. It's not like Amazon where if people order less they need less workers at fulfillment centers and less track drivers. And Google still profitable and can afford to keep headcount as an investment into future. Or they have no plans which spans more than a quarter?

only a very small fraction of people getting laid off are engineers.
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