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Google to reduce workforce by 12k

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Re: Google to reduce workforce by 12k

#571

Post by falcrist »

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.

As a sort of corollary to what you said: being loyal to a company is foolish because companies cannot return that loyalty.

There may be some borderline exceptions with very small companies (less than 10 employees), but in general a company isn't capable of being loyal to individual employees. Just keep in mind that in your relationship with your employer, you only have value insofar as you generate profit for them.

Re: Google to reduce workforce by 12k

#572

Post by bumby »

FlyingSnake wrote: post #550
EthanHeilman wrote: post #543

The Google of 2005 wouldn't do this. The Google of 2005 would use this as opportunity to monopolize all the talent and move into some new space and eat everything with fantastic software. * I had a good seat to watch google obliterate mapquest and yahoomaps with amazing javascript maps. It was day and night. Yahoo was penny pinching their mapping engineers while Google was buying geographic satellite companies and in…

Whatever’s happening is a prime example of how disruptions happen in tech industry. Previous giants become fossils and new incumbents take the spot. IBM -> GE -> Google etc will all follow the same trajectory towards irrelevance.

>Previous giants become fossils and new incumbents take the spot.

Or, alternatively, the giants focus on maintenance and "innovate" through acquiring the new incumbents.

Re: Google to reduce workforce by 12k

#573

Post by bananapub »

newsclues wrote: post #523
chippiewill wrote: post #494

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google don't have to worry about such activist shareholders in the same way that other companies do. Larry Page and Sergey Brin have the controlling share in Alphabet thanks to their Class B shares. They only have a fiduciary responsibility to the other shareholders.

Still there is pressure to bow to big money investors to continue having access to investment capital.

> Still there is pressure to bow to big money investors to continue having access to investment capital.

what "investment capital"? Facebook and Google aren't making up new stock to sell to banks or hedge funds or whatever.

actions like this are to keep the existing stock price up, which doesn't benefit the company directly at all, except indirectly by not pissing off employees with number-of-share-denominated stock grants and not having "wall street analysts" claim a company failed for not making it's numbers match the numbers the analysts made up and publicised before results came out.

Re: Google to reduce workforce by 12k

#576

Post by dumpsterlid »

tempsy wrote: post #245
eCa wrote: post #51

I guess someone has to write this comment: > I take full responsibility for the decisions that led us here As usual, he says nothing more what the consequences for him are. It seems like all of the FAANGs have made severe strategic cockups when it comes to hiring lately. I wonder if it will affect their longterm attraction as employers.

People really don’t seem to understand that the fact employment is at will and people are not unionized is the reason why tech salaries are so high to begin with The concept of being a lifer is very rare. Not many people expect to stay at one company forever, many not even more than a few years at most.

[dead]

Re: Google to reduce workforce by 12k

#577

Post by acdha »

bumby wrote: post #553
EthanHeilman wrote: post #543

The Google of 2005 wouldn't do this. The Google of 2005 would use this as opportunity to monopolize all the talent and move into some new space and eat everything with fantastic software. * I had a good seat to watch google obliterate mapquest and yahoomaps with amazing javascript maps. It was day and night. Yahoo was penny pinching their mapping engineers while Google was buying geographic satellite companies and in…

Are your examples also examples of survivorship bias? I was reading in the WSJ how all tech seems to be paring back their moonshot programs. I think the Google example was a program cut that had $1B in revenue but $6B in costs. (forgive me if the exact numbers are wrong). It seems like prioritizing and cutting back on programs that lose money (despite being innovative or inspiring) is a natural consequence of economi…

There’s definitely some risk of that but I’d put it more at 2008: that’s when Google acquired DoubleClick, and the sea change away from building products which people wanted to use seemed to start a bit later when the ad focus had set in. It’s hard to think of something they’ve done since then which has been a popular success.

Re: Google to reduce workforce by 12k

#578

Post by htrp »

dimva wrote: post #302
eCa wrote: post #51

I guess someone has to write this comment: > I take full responsibility for the decisions that led us here As usual, he says nothing more what the consequences for him are. It seems like all of the FAANGs have made severe strategic cockups when it comes to hiring lately. I wonder if it will affect their longterm attraction as employers.

He has already "suffered" the consequences. Google stock is down ~35% from its highs, so his compensation (which is mostly stock) has already been reduced by that amount. Following the layoff announcement, it is up by ~3% in premarket trading, so he is being rewarded for laying off these people. This is how the system works, designed entirely for the benefit of holders of capital.

It would be except he will get makeup grants in the next year or two to bring him back to where he needs to be.

Re: Google to reduce workforce by 12k

#579

Post by spicymaki »

tempsy wrote: post #245
eCa wrote: post #51

I guess someone has to write this comment: > I take full responsibility for the decisions that led us here As usual, he says nothing more what the consequences for him are. It seems like all of the FAANGs have made severe strategic cockups when it comes to hiring lately. I wonder if it will affect their longterm attraction as employers.

People really don’t seem to understand that the fact employment is at will and people are not unionized is the reason why tech salaries are so high to begin with The concept of being a lifer is very rare. Not many people expect to stay at one company forever, many not even more than a few years at most.

> People really don’t seem to understand that the fact employment is at will and people are not unionized is the reason why tech salaries are so high to begin with

What is your evidence for that?

> The concept of being a lifer is very rare.

This was the norm up until the neoliberal era. The trend of everyone becoming a gig worker only to be made obsolete by technology is a choice not destiny.

Re: Google to reduce workforce by 12k

#580

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

FlyingSnake wrote: post #550
EthanHeilman wrote: post #543

The Google of 2005 wouldn't do this. The Google of 2005 would use this as opportunity to monopolize all the talent and move into some new space and eat everything with fantastic software. * I had a good seat to watch google obliterate mapquest and yahoomaps with amazing javascript maps. It was day and night. Yahoo was penny pinching their mapping engineers while Google was buying geographic satellite companies and in…

Whatever’s happening is a prime example of how disruptions happen in tech industry. Previous giants become fossils and new incumbents take the spot. IBM -> GE -> Google etc will all follow the same trajectory towards irrelevance.

I think this is an old myth that is no longer relevant. Sure, it might happen, but many companies now fully understand "the disruption game" and know how to adjust, primarily through acquisitions. The only way to break this is with more muscular antitrust, which (at least for now) seems to be happening.

For example, Microsoft is famously still doing quite well despite desktop operating systems no longer being the most important game in town. Furthermore, dominant companies actually rarely get disrupted in the sense that someone comes along to take their business, it's that new markets open up that make the old business obsolete. But IBM is still the leader in mainframes, Microsoft still has dominance for desktop operating systems, Google is still dominant in search despite what feels like weekly articles about how search quality has gone down.

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