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Google to reduce workforce by 12k

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Re: Google to reduce workforce by 12k

#341

Post by kybernetyk »

ergonaught wrote: post #234

I need to see these "I take full responsibility" people actually punished. At the very least, this sentence needs to be removed from their mouths. Alphabet had 116 billion USD "cash on hand" at the end of September 2022. Even if the full cost of each of those 12K employees is 500K per year, that's "only" 6 billion dollars to keep those "great" people that they "love" working with around. Net income for that quarter w…

>Sorry, but these antics require revolution.

Maybe it just requires people not buying that rosy corporate lingo BS in the first place.

Re: Google to reduce workforce by 12k

#342

Post by flanked-evergl »

treeman79 wrote: post #300
ergonaught wrote: post #234

I need to see these "I take full responsibility" people actually punished. At the very least, this sentence needs to be removed from their mouths. Alphabet had 116 billion USD "cash on hand" at the end of September 2022. Even if the full cost of each of those 12K employees is 500K per year, that's "only" 6 billion dollars to keep those "great" people that they "love" working with around. Net income for that quarter w…

Should companies keep paying people they don’t need or want ?

No, but they also don't have to bullshit people by saying "I take full responsibility" when the responsiblity is shared between them and the employees that are now sacked. Nobody insists they say this, and it is just bullshit. I think it is fine that google fired them, but just own up.

Instead of:

> The fact that these changes will impact the lives of Googlers weighs heavily on me, and I take full responsibility for the decisions that led us here.

Just say:

> The fact that these changes will impact the lives of Googlers weighs heavily on me, and I admit that decisions I made have led us here.

But even this is probably wrong, because while the CEO is the top executive, he does not make decisions in a vacuum or operate in a vacuum.

To be fair though I think that his statement is fine in some specific sense of the word responsibility, i.e. sense 1.b.2 from https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/responsible

> being the cause or explanation

It is just that in every other sense of the word it is not really accurate.

Re: Google to reduce workforce by 12k

#343

Post by ClumsyPilot »

jstx1 wrote: post #278
ergonaught wrote: post #234

I need to see these "I take full responsibility" people actually punished. At the very least, this sentence needs to be removed from their mouths. Alphabet had 116 billion USD "cash on hand" at the end of September 2022. Even if the full cost of each of those 12K employees is 500K per year, that's "only" 6 billion dollars to keep those "great" people that they "love" working with around. Net income for that quarter w…

> I need to see these "I take full responsibility" people actually punished. At the very least, this sentence needs to be removed from their mouths. There's some infantile obsession with this phrase in every layoff thread. "I take full responsibility" is partly a polite way to say that they aren't blaming anyone else for what's happening, it partly means "I'm the one making this decision" and it's partly ceremony for…

> you're outraged that the CEO of a multi-billion dollar company is using this language, that's a problem with you, not with them

Not so long ago, if you got raped, it was your problem, not the rapists.

No saying the situations are identical, but the language used is equivalent and so is the logical rigour behind both statemets.

Re: Google to reduce workforce by 12k

#345

Post by blastonico »

ergonaught wrote: post #234

I need to see these "I take full responsibility" people actually punished. At the very least, this sentence needs to be removed from their mouths. Alphabet had 116 billion USD "cash on hand" at the end of September 2022. Even if the full cost of each of those 12K employees is 500K per year, that's "only" 6 billion dollars to keep those "great" people that they "love" working with around. Net income for that quarter w…

Gavin Belson feelings.

Silicon Valley (the TV series) should be re-categorized as documentary.

Re: Google to reduce workforce by 12k

#346

Post by profstasiak »

sillysaurusx wrote: post #135
makach wrote: post #104

Not a bad email, and a decent follow up on the ones that are affected. It is also a reminder that killing yourself slowly at the workplace is meaningless. Management has no responsibility to you, and no promise is certain. It’s your responsibility to take care of yourself. My take, don’t be bitter. Take the severance as soon as possible and get back on your feet. Having Google on your resume is a very good thing.

Hear hear re: not letting work consume your life. Seeing someone else say that was very refreshing. It’s so true that when you’re gone, the company hardly notices. Being let go with no severance and zero days notice was the last straw for me to ever put my soul into a soulless company again. Luckily there are cool ones out there worth putting yourself into. I managed to find one. Weirdly I now seem to enjoy staying u…

it's amazing how you contradict yourself in two paragraphs

> Hear hear re: not letting work consume your life

> Weirdly I now seem to enjoy staying up till crazy o’clock hacking away or doing stuff over the weekend.

Re: Google to reduce workforce by 12k

#347

Post by kybernetyk »

raverbashing wrote: post #60
dzonga wrote: post #30

I blame companies for blaming with people's lives like this: not market dynamics. companies are the ones that decided to overhire, overpay - based on covid demand, cheap money that was floating around. companies not the market, resulted in a war over talent. now it's a war on talent. and of course everyone and their grandma will want to work at these tech companies where life is laid back and you get all the benefits…

Yeah, I also wonder how much of the current layoffs are "we need to fire people as to look good on paper for the market"

More like: Oh shit, helicopter money has come to an end. The bottom line actually starts to matter. Let's get rid of the dead weight.

Re: Google to reduce workforce by 12k

#348

Post by roncesvalles »

newsclues wrote: post #227
DrBazza wrote: post #110

Another multi-billion dollar company making billions of dollars of profit dumps thousands of staff on the streets. There are two approaches here. Firstly, attrition, simply don't replace those that leave. Given the sheer size of the company, a hiring freeze and attrition would gradually reduce the size of the workforce. I'd be astonished if a company with a market cap of $1.2 trillion would be likely to collapse if i…

3, these decisions are made by the financial institutions and even the biggest tech companies are beholden to big money. Seems like Big Money wants a recession.

Big Money wants the Feds to hear the ship creaking loud and clear.

Re: Google to reduce workforce by 12k

#349

Post by ClumsyPilot »

roncesvalles wrote: post #316
ergonaught wrote: post #234

I need to see these "I take full responsibility" people actually punished. At the very least, this sentence needs to be removed from their mouths. Alphabet had 116 billion USD "cash on hand" at the end of September 2022. Even if the full cost of each of those 12K employees is 500K per year, that's "only" 6 billion dollars to keep those "great" people that they "love" working with around. Net income for that quarter w…

Layoffs are not about saving money. It's all theatre to appease the powers that be. "What explains why so many companies are laying large numbers of their workforce off? The answer is simple: copycat behavior."[1] [1] https://news.stanford.edu/2022/12/05/explains-recent-tech-la...

Thank you, this is a great link.

> "The tech industry layoffs are basically an instance of social contagion, in which companies imitate what others are doing. If you look for reasons for why companies do layoffs, the reason is that everybody else is doing it. Layoffs are the result of imitative behavior and are not particularly evidence-based.

I’ve had people say to me that they know layoffs are harmful to company well-being, let alone the well-being of employees, and don’t accomplish much, but everybody is doing layoffs and their board is asking why they aren’t doing layoffs also."

For most business people I come across, 80% of decisions of behaviour is imitating what other business people do. There is no rigourous fundamentals behind most of it

Re: Google to reduce workforce by 12k

#350

Post by smcl »

jstx1 wrote: post #278
ergonaught wrote: post #234

I need to see these "I take full responsibility" people actually punished. At the very least, this sentence needs to be removed from their mouths. Alphabet had 116 billion USD "cash on hand" at the end of September 2022. Even if the full cost of each of those 12K employees is 500K per year, that's "only" 6 billion dollars to keep those "great" people that they "love" working with around. Net income for that quarter w…

> I need to see these "I take full responsibility" people actually punished. At the very least, this sentence needs to be removed from their mouths. There's some infantile obsession with this phrase in every layoff thread. "I take full responsibility" is partly a polite way to say that they aren't blaming anyone else for what's happening, it partly means "I'm the one making this decision" and it's partly ceremony for…

What's "infantile" about it?
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