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The Google layoffs are about personal ambition and poor leadership

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Re: The Google layoffs are about personal ambition and poor leadership

#31

Post by dchftcs »

themitigating wrote: post #18
fnfjfk wrote: post #12

I understand that layoffs are a blunt instrument and it is unlikely that all of the “right” people were affected, but Google has long been known as the FAANG to go to if you want to chill, coast, and vest. No Facebook PSC, no Amazon stack ranking, no Netflix “sports team”. Obviously it is team dependent, but it really has that reputation. The well-known tradeoff is that getting a promo to a post-senior level is borde…

"but Google has long been known as the FAANG to go to if you want to chill, coast, and ves" Is that a fact or just your perception?

It's a fact that it is the collective perception. Whether people actually get to chill is team dependent but from my understanding you can't really do 30 hour weeks at Facebook, Amazon or Netflix, but it's more possible at Google.

Re: The Google layoffs are about personal ambition and poor leadership

#32

Post by bbor »

logicalmonster wrote: post #11

Is there any publicly available commentary on what kinds of roles these big tech companies such as Google were chopping, and in what percentages? Were these layoffs mostly recruiting/HR types, various managers, marketers, etc, or programmers? Did they chop 70% of their recruiting/HR types, but closer to 1% of their techies, or vice versa? Analyzing these layoffs IMO might be best done through the lens of what kind of…

It’s top secret, for some reason. What that could even be hiding I have no idea - if the goal is increasing investor confidence then you’d think they’d release at least some vague data

Re: The Google layoffs are about personal ambition and poor leadership

#33

Post by paxys »

fnfjfk wrote: post #12

I understand that layoffs are a blunt instrument and it is unlikely that all of the “right” people were affected, but Google has long been known as the FAANG to go to if you want to chill, coast, and vest. No Facebook PSC, no Amazon stack ranking, no Netflix “sports team”. Obviously it is team dependent, but it really has that reputation. The well-known tradeoff is that getting a promo to a post-senior level is borde…

Google had that reputation when compared to Amazon and Facebook, but that is hardly a bad thing considering the culture at those companies (and it's not like they are doing too hot right now either despite all that stack ranking and overwork). There are plenty of large tech companies with real "retirement home" reputations – Microsoft, Cisco, IBM, Oracle, VMware, Adobe, Intel, HP, Dell... There's no comparison between this tier and Google in terms of tech standard, productivity and really anything else.

Re: The Google layoffs are about personal ambition and poor leadership

#34

Post by CydeWeys »

fnfjfk wrote: post #12

I understand that layoffs are a blunt instrument and it is unlikely that all of the “right” people were affected, but Google has long been known as the FAANG to go to if you want to chill, coast, and vest. No Facebook PSC, no Amazon stack ranking, no Netflix “sports team”. Obviously it is team dependent, but it really has that reputation. The well-known tradeoff is that getting a promo to a post-senior level is borde…

The layoff didn't particularly target the rest-and-vesters, though. It frankly appears mostly random based on what I've seen.

Re: The Google layoffs are about personal ambition and poor leadership

#35

Post by fnfjfk »

themitigating wrote: post #18
fnfjfk wrote: post #12

I understand that layoffs are a blunt instrument and it is unlikely that all of the “right” people were affected, but Google has long been known as the FAANG to go to if you want to chill, coast, and vest. No Facebook PSC, no Amazon stack ranking, no Netflix “sports team”. Obviously it is team dependent, but it really has that reputation. The well-known tradeoff is that getting a promo to a post-senior level is borde…

"but Google has long been known as the FAANG to go to if you want to chill, coast, and ves" Is that a fact or just your perception?

Obviously it is impossible to measure this sort of thing objectively, but if you know enough people that bounce around in FAANGs or check Blind, this is pretty widely the opinion.

Re: The Google layoffs are about personal ambition and poor leadership

#36

Post by menzoic »

tschellenbach wrote: post #14

The market for talent is quite competitive. Companies need to pay market rates and have a staff that's large enough to compete. In a market where capital is cheap they will bid up rates and hire more people. If you don't do this you give your competitors a chance to beat you. Companies might be able to slow it down a little bit, but not entirely. Similarly in a market where capital is expensive they need to reduce th…

> The bigger problem is that in the USA healthcare is tied to employment. That's messed up

True but COBRA coverage lets you pay to stay on your job-based health insurance (cheaper) for a limited time after your job ends (usually 18 months).

https://www.dol.gov/sites/dolgov/files/ebsa/about-ebsa/our-a...

Re: The Google layoffs are about personal ambition and poor leadership

#38

Post by pydry »

bradleyjg wrote: post #10

This ruling [Dodge vs Ford Motor Company (1919)] stands at the heart of the current situations being faced by companies like Google today. —- It really doesn’t. First, that’s a Michigan case interpreting Michigan law. Almost every non trivial US company is incorporated in Delaware and subject to Delaware law. Delaware law does have somewhat similar cases, eBay v. Newmark is a good one to read but … Second, in both th…

Yeah, this is bullshit. Shareholders aren't compelling this to happen. At most theyre cheering it on.

This has more of a flavor of Google's 2011 "caught fixing wages and forced to pay a $300 million fine" scandal.

Of course some believe that the idea that they might have done something that they have already been found guilty of in the past to be nothing more than a implausible harebrained conspiracy theory.

Re: The Google layoffs are about personal ambition and poor leadership

#39

Post by civilized »

> Before getting into that it’s worth noting that all publicly listed companies operate under a fiduciary duty to maximise profits for their shareholders.

This is a myth. Lynn Stout argued against the relevance of Dodge v. Ford (1919) in this article: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1013744

This misstep kind of undermines the rest of the piece, which now reads like a superficial just-so story in the same way.

Re: The Google layoffs are about personal ambition and poor leadership

#40

Post by hsn915 »

kerblang wrote: post #20

You work for google because you make insane money and have cachet you can take anywhere and get hired instantly. Hell, you can pull in 10 million funding for your startup idea if you like. Or just retire, get a boat, go sailing. Of course all of this had to go bad. Come on now. Stop whining already. I work in the IT sewer fighting rats. I will always have work. I'm filthy and I smell bad, but I'm doing fine, and no,…

Observing super priviliged people whining about how unfair it is to get laid off is really something.
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