Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Google was beloved as an employer for years. Then it laid off thousands by email

cnn.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 142 posts

Re: Google was beloved as an employer for years. Then it laid off thousands by email

#101

Post by cmrdporcupine »

nostrademons wrote: post #90
cmrdporcupine wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wasn't there in 2007, didn't get there til 2011, but looking at the facts think 2007/2008 era it seems like a juncture from one Google to the next, for sure. The other, really major, shift -- which happened while I was there -- was Patrick Pichette leaving as CFO and Ruth Porat coming on. And then the subsequent "Alphabetization" which... it was so bungled and mismanaged... and it was clear at that point L&S were c…

(I was there 2009-2014 and again 2020-present. Worked with several single/double-digit employee number Googlers.) IMHO the "eras" of Google were: 1.) 1998-2001. Origins. Larry was CEO, company was still basically in the garage or the PayPal offices in Palo Alto, everything was an ad-hoc scrappy startup. 2.) 2001-2004. Growth. Eric was CEO. They moved into the Googleplex. Exploring new lines of business (Groups, AdSen…

"7.) 2020+. Post-COVID. Culture was hurt significantly by remote work, it's very hard to realign the company to adapt to outside changes."

Agreed. I left end of 2021 after a year and a half of struggling with bad execution on WFH. Some teams did better than others but company as a whole I think lost out on that.

WFH can work. But it didn't work at Google, really.

And when the office was open during those times I went in, and the whole situation was just... crap. Floating reserved desks. Take away meh, food. Nobody else in the office. Ghost town but somehow the parking situation still sucked.

Re: Google was beloved as an employer for years. Then it laid off thousands by email

#102

Post by mc32 »

munificent wrote: post #88
deltree7 wrote: post #35

The only thing that matters in a layoff is "severance package" Everything else is useless. If your co-workers liked you and wanted to say goodbye, they will call and throw a party. If I'm fired, there is no reason for me to log on to my workstation. All relevant documents are given to you anyway. Your personal items will be shipped to you.

This is true for spherical employed human resource units in a vacuum. It is less true for living breathing members of Homo sapiens .

For a small organization with single digit employees, it's possible to give the layoffs a human touch. For mass layoffs that does not scale.

Then there is the aspect where we can't have nice things because someone somewhere took advantage of some discretion and now HR sees any discretion as a potential liability so they don't afford that discretion but for rare exceptions.

Re: Google was beloved as an employer for years. Then it laid off thousands by email

#104

Post by temende »

akozak wrote: post #72
kcmastrpc wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not that the things you mentioned don't matter, it's that employee employer relationships are transactional. While I maintain a friendly relationship with all the people I work with, very few are actually friends. If they are, we'll still talk after the relationship with my employer ends. Unless you have a contract with your employer around the severing of that relationship, neither parties are beholden to each…

Not everyone sees work in that way. Human psychology is complex and often times it's difficult to reduce workplace relationships down to simple economic relationships. You might argue that people should view all work relationships as transactional, but I'm not ready to agree with that (I think it is better to see coworkers as complete human beings), and in any case that just isn't how many people think as a matter of…

The point is that if you view them as anything other than an economic relationship, you'll be emotionally spurned by layoffs like this article alludes to. Also, the economic relationship is between that of employee and employer, not as much about relationships between co-workers.

Re: Google was beloved as an employer for years. Then it laid off thousands by email

#105

Post by nigelk »

nostrademons wrote: post #90
cmrdporcupine wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wasn't there in 2007, didn't get there til 2011, but looking at the facts think 2007/2008 era it seems like a juncture from one Google to the next, for sure. The other, really major, shift -- which happened while I was there -- was Patrick Pichette leaving as CFO and Ruth Porat coming on. And then the subsequent "Alphabetization" which... it was so bungled and mismanaged... and it was clear at that point L&S were c…

(I was there 2009-2014 and again 2020-present. Worked with several single/double-digit employee number Googlers.) IMHO the "eras" of Google were: 1.) 1998-2001. Origins. Larry was CEO, company was still basically in the garage or the PayPal offices in Palo Alto, everything was an ad-hoc scrappy startup. 2.) 2001-2004. Growth. Eric was CEO. They moved into the Googleplex. Exploring new lines of business (Groups, AdSen…

As someone who was there start of 2007 to end of 2010, this resonated. My first two years were very different to the last two.

Re: Google was beloved as an employer for years. Then it laid off thousands by email

#106

Post by akozak »

temende wrote: post #104
akozak wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not everyone sees work in that way. Human psychology is complex and often times it's difficult to reduce workplace relationships down to simple economic relationships. You might argue that people should view all work relationships as transactional, but I'm not ready to agree with that (I think it is better to see coworkers as complete human beings), and in any case that just isn't how many people think as a matter of…

The point is that if you view them as anything other than an economic relationship, you'll be emotionally spurned by layoffs like this article alludes to. Also, the economic relationship is between that of employee and employer, not as much about relationships between co-workers.

Yes it's true! People with non-economic viewpoints are vulnerable to being hurt or taken advantage of by management. It sucks.

Re: Google was beloved as an employer for years. Then it laid off thousands by email

#107

Post by drstewart »

sokoloff wrote: post #60
drstewart wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>the same thing is happening all over tech - go down to a reduced staff of essential contributors and re-hire later for much lower comp If supply and demand stay the same, then why do you think the price will change?

Isn’t >100K cumulative layoffs in the industry and widespread hiring freezes exactly a reduction in demand? Do you think the demand for SWEs will be the same in April of 2023 as it was in April of 2021?

If they're just hiring them back, then yes, demand is the same?

Re: Google was beloved as an employer for years. Then it laid off thousands by email

#108

Post by turdprincess »

cromwellian wrote: post #49
turdprincess wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You get excited for one reason and one reason only - the money. FAANG jobs pay between double and triple of normal software gigs. Some folks want to optimize for interesting work, or groundbreaking products or autonomy. Thats cool - you might not find that at a FAANG. Some folks optimize for the biggest paycheck. For that its basically two options - FAANG (and adjacent) or High Frequency Trading. To each their own!

I used to believe that, but searching for a job now, I see many non-FAANG companies with compensation in-line, or better, with the exception of those who aren't public. OpenAI for example, has base salaries in the $400k range for ML jobs at $250k range elsewhere at like an IC5 level, because of non-public equity.

Yes, I think FAANG grouping is too narrow. The true group is "big tech" - with the regular FAANGS, as well as Uber, Airbnb, Stripe, Pinterest, etc...

While each company has some unique qualities, my guess is that being an engineer in any of these places would be pretty similar and include:

* A lot of engineers and teams

* Lots of organizational / promo based manuevering and social engineering

* Problems at scale - some technology, but mainly "number of cooks in the kitchen"

* Work which might not be very interesting

* high compensation

My guess is that the OP's concerns would hold true at most of these big tech places that pay top dollar.

Re: Google was beloved as an employer for years. Then it laid off thousands by email

#109

Post by sokoloff »

drstewart wrote: post #107
sokoloff wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn’t >100K cumulative layoffs in the industry and widespread hiring freezes exactly a reduction in demand? Do you think the demand for SWEs will be the same in April of 2023 as it was in April of 2021?

If they're just hiring them back, then yes, demand is the same?

You and I appear to disagree on the April 2023 vs 2021 demand. I think April 2023 will have a lot less demand for SWEs than 2021.

Re: Google was beloved as an employer for years. Then it laid off thousands by email

#110

Post by newaccount2023 »

vineyardmike wrote: post #95
newaccount2023 wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I haven’t seen it talked about anywhere. I’m an ex-googler from layoffs Why would you hear about a confidential layoff plan??

People have been notified about their “delayed exit”. Like you get an email that says “your job ends in October” type of notice. It’s not confidential, afaik, since people were told about it. I’m surprised no one offers up their status as part of it in discussions.

so he can just announce another delayed exit...

every layoff so far has had a month or more between announcement and implementation

Post reply on HN