311–320 of 339 posts
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It is a Capital Revolt. Workers were getting too comfortable, and now Money is teaching them a lesson
We got a little blip in human history where employers were forced to treat their employees like actual people. Was nice while it lasted. Back to having a boot stomping on our faces again...
Where is the innovation here? How are these moves cutting edge? It's the opposite - reactionary, megalomaniacal, short-term greed drives. That is not a culture that will produce innovation.
It will be interesting to see amazing talent leave Google and build new companies and institutions now that it’s slowly being mismanaged to death.
Yes, our smartest people, who were once making people click ads, are now fired.
(I seem to recall that was about Facebook at the time, not Google, but same same.)
Current Googler, I have no insider info at all, found out about this the same Friday morning as everyone else. Everything expressed here is speculation based on my own observations and conversations with HR leaders at Google and other companies involved in this round of industry layoffs. It's unfortunately not surprising that some current and rising stars in the open source world were impacted by this. There's an imp…
> layoffs _must_ be done without regard to performance Do you have any citation for this? I’ve never heard this before, and a quick search pulls up many sources that contradict this.
That usually means laying off a mass of people without consideration for their individual attributes.
Layoffs are literally never personal… at least in theory.
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> it's not to increase productivity, it's to increase compliance and push down salary bands. Its as if someone has forgotten that they can increase revenue instead.
Which one is easier for executives, particularly during a recession?
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it's not to increase productivity, it's to increase compliance and push down salary bands. Have you forgotten this is the same company that had a backroom non-poaching pact with Apple (and probably other SV firms) a decade ago? And got caught red handed and got in a shitload of trouble for it? When I joined Google in 2011 they were still dealing the fallout from that.
> it's not to increase productivity, it's to increase compliance and push down salary bands. Its as if someone has forgotten that they can increase revenue instead.
It still hasn't stopped, though it may have slowed a bit in its increase. But there's no danger on the revenue front. Just danger on stock price, because investors really want Number Go Up continually.
So the moves last week were really about making investors think Google is Doing Something and exercising downward pressure on wages.
Its a sector-wide move to put downward pressure on wages and bargaining power, and Google is only a small part of it.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It is a Capital Revolt. Workers were getting too comfortable, and now Money is teaching them a lesson
We got a little blip in human history where employers were forced to treat their employees like actual people. Was nice while it lasted. Back to having a boot stomping on our faces again...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
We got a little blip in human history where employers were forced to treat their employees like actual people. Was nice while it lasted. Back to having a boot stomping on our faces again...
Barf!!!! To compare a 2023 Google employee to any population that’s had “boot stomping on their faces” is so out of touch with historical reality that it’s disturbing, disgusting and laughable all at the same time. We’re not talking about kids cleaning chimney sweeps here, or even modern slaves digging in cobalt mines. But Google employees, where 6% were allowed to go find another lucrative position and are sacrifici…
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Google doesn't have the ability to speak with a customer at ALL. If there is a problem, basically the only recourse you have is to flail about on HN, Reddit or Twitter and hope that you are noticed by a random Google employee who feels sympathy for your plight and decides to try and help you. The ONLY official channel they have where you can talk to someone that I am aware of, is sales and restricted to sales only. T…
When Google released Anthos, we were in the market for something along those lines for Kubernetes on our own hardware (policy requirements). Talked to our reps, asked for some quotes … nothing. Tried again. Nothing. Tried again. Nothing. This left everyone wondering what it'd be like if we (as an existing GCP customer) needed support for any reason. The only company I've ever dealt with which was worse at taking your…