Live data from Hacker News

Morale plummets at Google as workers complain bosses are 'inept' and 'boring'

sfgate.com

21–30 of 401 posts

Re: Morale plummets at Google as workers complain bosses are 'inept' and 'boring'

#21
post #16
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know, /s, but: If you have someone who aimlessly kills products and fires people but lacks vision or a decent plan, you could find someone much cheaper, and save tens of millions on executive compensation. If operating margin is so crucial now, then it seems cutting pay of top executives is the easiest way to achieve that with the least damage to the company.

Firing people actually helps raising a stock price [0]. 0 - https://money.com/tech-layoffs-affect-stock-prices/

Raising stock price makes so many people happy than firing a few wealthy individuals does some small harm for the greater good of many.

/s

Re: Morale plummets at Google as workers complain bosses are 'inept' and 'boring'

#22
post #13
post #11

Outside of ads, and maybe LLM work, what projects are going on at Google that are interesting, to both the top brass and to line level engineers, that might lead people to feel differently? Google has been a rudderless ship cruising on ad dollars for years, with mid level managers launching one unimpressive product after another. Products that get canned by Google months later and only serve to benefit said managers…

designing a new music app and/or chat app every 2 years sounds pretty fun

But then you might have to watch it get killed right before your eyes. And the lack of new features and general support for a lot of their products makes me think there are a lot of employees wishing they could continue work on the products they've built, but can't.

Re: Morale plummets at Google as workers complain bosses are 'inept' and 'boring'

#25
post #11

Outside of ads, and maybe LLM work, what projects are going on at Google that are interesting, to both the top brass and to line level engineers, that might lead people to feel differently? Google has been a rudderless ship cruising on ad dollars for years, with mid level managers launching one unimpressive product after another. Products that get canned by Google months later and only serve to benefit said managers…

I don't expect it to take over the world, but I really do hope Starline becomes a "thing"

https://blog.google/technology/research/project-starline/

Re: Morale plummets at Google as workers complain bosses are 'inept' and 'boring'

#28

I think you're just in for a rude awakening if you expect the Google from 20 years ago. It's no longer a scrappy startup, it's closer to Microsoft at this point.

I'd be happy with the Google from 5 years ago.

Re: Morale plummets at Google as workers complain bosses are 'inept' and 'boring'

#29

"And I just want to clarify that, through these changes, people feel it on the ground and sometimes people write back and say, ‘Thank you for simplifying.’" Is there any mandatory training for CEOs to first understand when somebody is kissing up, second evaluate how devastating is cherry picking rare positive feedback to the company's morale? I can't believe top people can be so inept.

This is a serious problem. There will always been a handful of "career-oriented' sycophants who will tell the top bosses exactly what they want to hear. That let's those bosses ignore complaints (if people dare complain) or simply assume everything must be wonderful since they keep getting such positive feedback.

Re: Morale plummets at Google as workers complain bosses are 'inept' and 'boring'

#30
post #20

Google does plenty of stuff well, but what's their last big exciting new product or even new feature? Bard is good but they're chasing OpenAI. Same story with the Pixel phones and Samsung. Or YouTube Shorts and Tiktok. It all seems directionless or stagnant, like the bad old days of Microsoft.

Do you mean, Google is one CEO change away from turning it around, like Microsoft did ?
Post reply on HN