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Google Cuts Jobs in Engineering and Other Divisions

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Re: Google Cuts Jobs in Engineering and Other Divisions

#794

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is still a business - not a charity.

It's still real people who suffer when the numbers tell a different story - not charity cases.

Wow, those poor ex-Google employees. Now that they have been laid off, they must be experiencing true suffering.

Re: Google Cuts Jobs in Engineering and Other Divisions

#795
post #747
post #736

Google is almost a 2T company. The amount of wealth that big google shareholders hold in the 1T+ tech companies is mind boggling. Perhaps US should consider raising capital gains tax.

When it comes to large shareholders that wouldn't actually do anything. Nobody sells in these new blue chips; they just borrow against their positions. I've thought about this for a long time. If we wanted to actually tax this wealth, we should just make people pay capital gains on marked-to-market positions every 10 years. Now before everyone starts shouting "yea, but the valuations aren't value," you could easily t…

You could generate a lot of revenue via a rule (enforcement TBD) that requires people to establish a reasonable valuation on an asset before they can use the asset as collateral for a loan.

Then anyone who wanted material benefit off of their wealth would be required to pay taxes on it, rather than "benefit now, leave the gains to my estate".

Re: Google Cuts Jobs in Engineering and Other Divisions

#796

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not going to happen in the US as healthcare is not portable and its too expensive to purchase on your own.

Well, this is one of the reasons you charge more as a freelancer. It's ~$2k/mo for a family; even if I charged exactly the same as my market rate as an FTE, that would be less than the tax benefit I get from operating through a properly set up LLC taxed as an S-corporation. LTD and E&O insurance are other big expenses, but they're not prohibitive given the delta in hourly rate between FTE and C2C.

[deleted]

Re: Google Cuts Jobs in Engineering and Other Divisions

#797
post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's interesting that you think this is lower risk. Maybe that's a US thing? Typically employees are harder to cut than simply choosing not to extend contracts with consultants.

There are different kinds is of risks, but generally, earning $100k each from 5 customers is less risky than earning $500k from 1 customer. Whether or not it is extra work or if it is worth the extra work is dependent on the individual.

I would hope they make 3-10x running their own consultancy compared to working as an employee. The risk is still much higher, but it’s offset by the large reward.

Re: Google Cuts Jobs in Engineering and Other Divisions

#798

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is still a business - not a charity.

It's still real people who suffer when the numbers tell a different story - not charity cases.

I agree, but the mission of private business is not to keep as many people employed as possible.

Re: Google Cuts Jobs in Engineering and Other Divisions

#799
post #747

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When it comes to large shareholders that wouldn't actually do anything. Nobody sells in these new blue chips; they just borrow against their positions. I've thought about this for a long time. If we wanted to actually tax this wealth, we should just make people pay capital gains on marked-to-market positions every 10 years. Now before everyone starts shouting "yea, but the valuations aren't value," you could easily t…

If you wanted to tax the wealth.. have a wealth tax? It's a thing in countries including Norway and Switzerland, and similar things exist in others (e.g. Italy taxes assets in some weird non linear way).

Makes sense to me. We already have a wealth tax of sorts. It’s called “property tax” which is mostly a house tax. We can tax other property too, including virtual assets such as shares.

Re: Google Cuts Jobs in Engineering and Other Divisions

#800

Between Discord, Twitch, Amazon+Prime, and Google... what's the layoff pattern here? Are we talking about social community teams? Streaming/networking engineers? Or is there no connective thread between these four companies? Are there other corporate layoffs that round out this intrigue?

Not saying this is the reason at all, but personally speaking sell me something that is not a subscription based service. I will make a handful of exceptions but not more. All these companies relying on Nitro, Prime, Premium, Plus as if anyone wants to add yet another subscription to their bill. Meanwhile companies like Apple and Nvidia are releasing new high-end products that I can buy and not think about.
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