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Google cites 'durable cost savings' as CEO Sundar Pichai warns of more layoffs

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Re: Google cites 'durable cost savings' as CEO Sundar Pichai warns of more layoffs

#101

Post by latchkey »

Workaccount2 wrote: post #17

Sundar should have been let go years ago, but I guess the pandemic money explosion made it easy for him to show big returns. But look between the margins and it's clear google is rotting on the inside. Search sucks. Gemini a year behind (despite google inventing transformers). Canceling products left and right leaving no consumer faith in new offerings. Cloud platform being an absolute terrible experience, even if yo…

> Cloud platform being an absolute terrible experience, even if you have a rep inside too.

I've had a great experience using GCP over the last 14 years, and I didn't have a rep inside. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.

Re: Google cites 'durable cost savings' as CEO Sundar Pichai warns of more layoffs

#102

Post by alephnerd »

FirmwareBurner wrote: post #61
quadcore wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless you look at things with the money lense. Seems to me Search must be yielding like crazy. Android is too. User trust is high. Youtube is booming even though tiktok. I think the man is doing great. At least he is printing real money.

>Seems to me Search must be yielding like crazy. Android is too. User trust is high. Youtube is booming even though tiktok. None of which have been built or even improved during his tenure. He's just cashing in on the momentum of the money printers built by those before him. The products shipped under him had flopped.

> The products shipped under him had flopped

He was the PM for Google Chrome and Google Drive, and took over the Android org in 2013.

He has essentially proven himself with 2 major product releases and managing an additional major product line, but Google is a different company in 2024 compared to 2014, let alone 2004.

When you're a large public company who's stock is owned by major pension funds, 401k funds, sovereign wealth funds, PE funds, etc Investor Relations becomes the critical function of a CEO.

Re: Google cites 'durable cost savings' as CEO Sundar Pichai warns of more layoffs

#103

Post by flashgordon »

belter wrote: post #67
flashgordon wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

CEO did not know this was happening? The company is (sadly) it's leadership

And a Coach gets the wind behind the wings from its Players.

So it's fair that CEO is not going to know how an org does its hiring on a day to day basis. It is too much detail. But leadership is a lot about vision (point to where you want to go - with input of course), setting the culture (how do you wanna behave in getting there - ie be a dick? Don't be dicks?), rewarding the right behaviors (promo cultures, rubriks, leadership principles, bonuses etc). Yes they do it through their generals but you get the point.

When I was at Google, I noticed a very large emphasis on process and "homogeneity". Group think was absurdly high - down to the kind of language you were "encouraged" to use at different settings. Amazon in comparison felt like a more direct (albeit brutal) place. You could see the knife coming at you.

This culture may not have been initiated by Sundar but was highly tolerated by him. And he tolerated it because the cash cow wasn't under threat and they kept hoarding decent talent (and keeping them under utilized just so competition doesn't get them) despite not being the highest paying employer.

Yes the coasters and resters and vesters had fun but allowing them to do so is all leadership.

Re: Google cites 'durable cost savings' as CEO Sundar Pichai warns of more layoffs

#104

Post by belter »

epups wrote: post #98
belter wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Product Managers and Division Managers and Staff Engineers and Research Scientists do, and there are thousands of each of these at Google. Maybe the problem is deeper and stem from culture and hiring practices that privilege academia, instead of real world industry and engineering experience?

And who built Google as it is? Both founders were from academia.

This can be spin in any way somebody wants, but after 20 years, no budget limits, no lack of expertise inhouse, and no lack of time for experiments, the malaise is clear. It hints at fundamental cultural and organizational issues, that wont be solved either with layoffs or new management.

Until that is addressed, Google future trend is to become another IBM, only this time with others eating away their lunch much faster.

Re: Google cites 'durable cost savings' as CEO Sundar Pichai warns of more layoffs

#105

Post by foofie »

belter wrote: post #87
spacemadness wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re showing very little understanding for how the world works with this reply. Do you think developers have free rein in big companies?

Product Managers and Division Managers and Staff Engineers and Research Scientists do, and there are thousands of each of these at Google. Maybe the problem is deeper and stem from culture and hiring practices that privilege academia, instead of real world industry and engineering experience?

Your diatribe makes little sense. A healthy company has Product Managers in charge of each product, and in complex products its customary to break them off further into feature sets and even markets, each managed exclusively by a Product Manager.

Staff engineers are the result of having a hierarchical org where you need highly specialized and experienced people to take the lead of technical projects. What problem do you exactly see in this?

Researchers focus in research. What problem do you see in this, exactly?

It sounds like you are desperately trying to find something to complain about in spite of not having any grasp on the subject you're discussing.

Re: Google cites 'durable cost savings' as CEO Sundar Pichai warns of more layoffs

#106

Post by belter »

effingwewt wrote: post #95
belter wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And a Coach gets the wind behind the wings from its Players.

Ah yes, I love this argument! So CEO's are supposed to be magical super-rare humans who do nothing but are worth 1000s of regular workers and take all credit for good returns... Until things go bad and then it's all the worker's fault! The ship was too big to steer! If CEOs are worth as much as they think they are then they should have no problems taking all of their comp in stock, and bonuses (if any!) should be han…

I did not argue that CEO's are deserving of their absurd pay, I argued to look into the overall Team results and the players before simply blaming the Coach.

Re: Google cites 'durable cost savings' as CEO Sundar Pichai warns of more layoffs

#107

Post by belter »

foofie wrote: post #105
belter wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Product Managers and Division Managers and Staff Engineers and Research Scientists do, and there are thousands of each of these at Google. Maybe the problem is deeper and stem from culture and hiring practices that privilege academia, instead of real world industry and engineering experience?

Your diatribe makes little sense. A healthy company has Product Managers in charge of each product, and in complex products its customary to break them off further into feature sets and even markets, each managed exclusively by a Product Manager. Staff engineers are the result of having a hierarchical org where you need highly specialized and experienced people to take the lead of technical projects. What problem do…

The results speak for itself. I offered my diagnostic. Why don't you indulge us with yours?

Re: Google cites 'durable cost savings' as CEO Sundar Pichai warns of more layoffs

#108

Post by belter »

Log_out_ wrote: post #99
from-nibly wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. You can't just hire a bunch of smart people and be surprised when a product doesn't get made. That's not how building stuff works.

Actually purely stochasticaly if you would distribute cash among them and add a reward function, you should at least have VC performance.

Finally a metric we can work with.

Re: Google cites 'durable cost savings' as CEO Sundar Pichai warns of more layoffs

#109

Post by thiht »

Workaccount2 wrote: post #17

Sundar should have been let go years ago, but I guess the pandemic money explosion made it easy for him to show big returns. But look between the margins and it's clear google is rotting on the inside. Search sucks. Gemini a year behind (despite google inventing transformers). Canceling products left and right leaving no consumer faith in new offerings. Cloud platform being an absolute terrible experience, even if yo…

> Cloud platform being an absolute terrible experience

How so? I’ve used it for a while and really liked the experience. It was wayyyy more intuitive than AWS for example (services are named correctly!). The UI is consistent and it even displays the commands to run and Terraform config on each config.

What’s wrong with GCP?

Re: Google cites 'durable cost savings' as CEO Sundar Pichai warns of more layoffs

#110

Post by racl101 »

hangonhn wrote: post #75
racl101 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least Ballmer was funny and charismatic.

I've actually met one of his high school friends once. He made a really interesting comment about Ballmer: He was the only guy who was on both the football team and the math club. In fact at Harvard, he was the manager of the football team and got a degree in applied mathematics. He was a nerd who was also really athletic or vice versa. Oh and he's a first generation college graduate. Maybe he wasn't the best CEO for…

Out of all the billionaires he seems to be one of the most under-the-radar ones while living his best life kind of person.
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