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Google Cuts Jobs in Engineering and Other Divisions

nytimes.com

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Re: Google Cuts Jobs in Engineering and Other Divisions

#771

Post by Solvency »

vkou wrote: post #769
Solvency wrote: post #768

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?

The connective thread is that tech growth has slowed/stopped and Wall Street is looking to make cuts, because salaries are expensive, and shit, if they have the option between more expenses and less expenses, they will keep taking 'less expenses', until it clearly and incontroversially affects the bottom line.

Right but where are Atlassian's layoffs, Asana, or any of the other hundreds of "lower" tier tech companies? It's unusual that they're all skating by, to me.

Re: Google Cuts Jobs in Engineering and Other Divisions

#772

Post by Nezteb »

Solvency wrote: post #768

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?

The only suggestion I've seen that would make some sense is Section 174: https://newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/p/the-pulse-75

Re: Google Cuts Jobs in Engineering and Other Divisions

#773

Post by willsmith72 »

Solvency wrote: post #771
vkou wrote: post #769

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The connective thread is that tech growth has slowed/stopped and Wall Street is looking to make cuts, because salaries are expensive, and shit, if they have the option between more expenses and less expenses, they will keep taking 'less expenses', until it clearly and incontroversially affects the bottom line.

Right but where are Atlassian's layoffs, Asana, or any of the other hundreds of "lower" tier tech companies? It's unusual that they're all skating by, to me.

Atlassian had layoffs just last year.

Re: Google Cuts Jobs in Engineering and Other Divisions

#774

Post by ttmb »

Solvency wrote: post #771
vkou wrote: post #769

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The connective thread is that tech growth has slowed/stopped and Wall Street is looking to make cuts, because salaries are expensive, and shit, if they have the option between more expenses and less expenses, they will keep taking 'less expenses', until it clearly and incontroversially affects the bottom line.

Right but where are Atlassian's layoffs, Asana, or any of the other hundreds of "lower" tier tech companies? It's unusual that they're all skating by, to me.

The bigger companies used their cash during the pandemic to go on a hiring spree, both bloating their headcount and their overall salaries.

The smaller/lower tier companies did not have the cash to compete with this, and now do not have as much to fix.

Also the layoffs in smaller companies just aren't big news.

Re: Google Cuts Jobs in Engineering and Other Divisions

#775

Post by gamblor956 »

anonymouse008 wrote: post #755
nojvek wrote: 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.

Funny enough, this is already a response to a tax. 174 capitalizes software and general unproven R&D as the default now… ruining the cash position of many businesses that “made taxable GAAP profits” The rules of the game have changed. We were allowed to expense all employee compensation tied to software or R&D in the year in which we paid it. Now we can only expense a small fraction of that because we have to capital…

Now we can only expense a small fraction of that because we have to capitalize the expense.

This is how other businesses have always had to treat the work product of their IP generated from R&D...

Software businesses were exploiting a loophole, which was fine when they were limiting themselves to their own turf. When they started encroaching into and destroying other industries, it no longer made sense to keep this loophole in place. So basically, the software industry has only itself to blame for this.

Re: Google Cuts Jobs in Engineering and Other Divisions

#776

Post by vkou »

Solvency wrote: post #771
vkou wrote: post #769

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The connective thread is that tech growth has slowed/stopped and Wall Street is looking to make cuts, because salaries are expensive, and shit, if they have the option between more expenses and less expenses, they will keep taking 'less expenses', until it clearly and incontroversially affects the bottom line.

Right but where are Atlassian's layoffs, Asana, or any of the other hundreds of "lower" tier tech companies? It's unusual that they're all skating by, to me.

There's micro-scale reasons for why particular firms aren't affected by this, but that gets into the weeds of particular companies' roadmaps and balance sheets.

The macro-scale of 2010-2020 was 'growth, growth, growth', the macro-scale of 2020-2022 was 'hire, hire, hire', and the macro-scale of 2023 and 2024 is 'freezes, layoffs, cuts'.

Re: Google Cuts Jobs in Engineering and Other Divisions

#777

Post by kccqzy »

alexeiz wrote: post #759
madeofpalk wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google sells approximately zero Pixel phones. Every year they'll say "we're serious this time" and promise to dump money into marketing, but it really goes nowhere and carriers continue to push other phones.

Pixel phones are OK. They are just not priced competitively. They are priced like iPhones. But who are you kidding? Pixel phones are nowhere near iPhones.

Pixel phones actually take better photos than iPhones. See for example a recent test https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=VRoTOE3FqT0

OTOH I browse JavaScript heavy websites on my phone and I believe due to single-threaded performance, Chrome on Android is noticeably worse than Safari on iPhone.

My point is, Pixels are better than iPhones for some use cases and vice versa.

Re: Google Cuts Jobs in Engineering and Other Divisions

#778

Post by mynameisnoone »

vkou wrote: post #769
Solvency wrote: post #768

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?

The connective thread is that tech growth has slowed/stopped and Wall Street is looking to make cuts, because salaries are expensive, and shit, if they have the option between more expenses and less expenses, they will keep taking 'less expenses', until it clearly and incontroversially affects the bottom line.

It's an "and me too" business fad despite profits being already at record levels. The entire point is to suppress tech worker wages if not by explicitly-agreed conspiracy then by independently-stochastic layoffs.[0]

0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-Tech_Employee_Antitrust_L...

Edit: One way out for both stability and fair compensation is worker-owned co-ops. Unionizing within publicly-traded or private-equity-owned corporations is still building a sandcastle in the tidal zone.

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