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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

#841

Post by maronato »

Kon5ole wrote: post #804

Google makes me kind of sad. They used to be so cool, pushing technology forward, making it accessible to the masses, doing things that seemed almost impossible and making it mainstream. Ads were the money stream but they did it tastefully. Now the main page is all ads, dark patterns are everywhere in everything Google does. They've basically become one of the ethically worst technology companies around. Is it inevit…

> company constitution

IANAL either, but I feel like the closest we had to something like this was the non profit part of OpenAI, which should’ve had the power to fire the CEO. Reality was a bit more messy than that, and profit won over ethics.

I can’t imagine Google shareholders not throwing a fit for not being allowed their cash cow to grow, and eventually finding a way to bypass the constitution.

Re: Google Cuts Jobs in Engineering and Other Divisions

#842

Post by tomoyoirl »

Joker_vD wrote: post #819
seuraughty wrote: post #793

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I imagine they’re just doing their best to adapt to a non-zero interest rate world.

So, when the interest rates go up, you shrink the production because it shrinks your gross earnings which makes it easier to pay off the interest— wait, it doesn't. And usually the interest on the loan already taken doesn't change, does it?

The interest rate isn’t about loans you’ve taken. The interest rate on Treasuries is essentially the price of money.

The value of an enterprise is the sum total of its discounted future cash flows. If interest rates are at 0% then a dollar in 10 years from some pie in the sky AI is worth about the same as a dollar today. If interest rates are 10% for a risk free Treasury bond, then a risk free dollar in 10 years is worth about $0.38. You invest accordingly.

Re: Google Cuts Jobs in Engineering and Other Divisions

#843

Post by teen »

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?

People who make too much money for their role, or entire divisions that are wildly unprofitable

Re: Google Cuts Jobs in Engineering and Other Divisions

#844

Post by mynameishere »

Joker_vD wrote: post #819
seuraughty wrote: post #793

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I imagine they’re just doing their best to adapt to a non-zero interest rate world.

So, when the interest rates go up, you shrink the production because it shrinks your gross earnings which makes it easier to pay off the interest— wait, it doesn't. And usually the interest on the loan already taken doesn't change, does it?

When a company's existing debt is at 3 percent and they have to roll it over at 6 percent (they are rarely going to pay it off) their costs go up without anything else changing. They will have to cut expenses somewhere else. For forty years, the US (and much of the world) had the opposite phenomenon: 12 percent debt rolled into 11, rolled into 10, and more and more money was seemingly made through no extra effort.

Re: Google Cuts Jobs in Engineering and Other Divisions

#845

Post by hasty_pudding »

InitialLastName wrote: post #788
hasty_pudding wrote: post #763

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The company used the developer that year and made the profit that year. It doesn't make sense to me why they would they have to expense it over 5 years.

It's not like the developer is a plumber, where the company gets paid per toilet they can replace in a year. The IP that the developer developed is an asset that will keep earning a return in ensuing years; in every other field of business, yearly depreciation is how you account for the cost of your assets.

Not all but a good chunk of my career has been digital plumbing whether I'm in a developer or an ops role.

And then theres engineers devoted to maintenance of the systems full-time.

Do ops/infra people fall under this?

Re: Google Cuts Jobs in Engineering and Other Divisions

#846

Post by freedomben »

forward1 wrote: post #834
kentm wrote: post #826

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm beginning to believe that it's just impossible to do advertising ethically. The hypothesis is that an advertising firm that attempts to do so will perform worse than ones doing unethical things, and eventually lose customers.

All business is inherently unethical and relies on hiding and externalizing costs of production unto the environment, a vulnerable population, or other forms of legal/tax trickery. Advertising is no more evil than the for-profit healthcare system in the US, or the food industry, or really any other industry, when you really stop to consider it. People who think they are operating or working for an "ethical" business…

what's the ethical alternative? everybody must produce everything they want/need without any sort of trading, and without owning any land? or does the government just force people to work and distribute everything anybody needs?

Re: Google Cuts Jobs in Engineering and Other Divisions

#848

Post by forward1 »

freedomben wrote: post #846
forward1 wrote: post #834

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All business is inherently unethical and relies on hiding and externalizing costs of production unto the environment, a vulnerable population, or other forms of legal/tax trickery. Advertising is no more evil than the for-profit healthcare system in the US, or the food industry, or really any other industry, when you really stop to consider it. People who think they are operating or working for an "ethical" business…

what's the ethical alternative? everybody must produce everything they want/need without any sort of trading, and without owning any land? or does the government just force people to work and distribute everything anybody needs?

Must there be an alternative? What if the world is not ethical by design? What does the evidence say about it?

Re: Google Cuts Jobs in Engineering and Other Divisions

#849

Post by endisneigh »

TriangleEdge wrote: post #813

Google doesn't innovate anymore. The last attempt at an innovation I saw was Stadia (RIP). But, most Google products have a replacement now; Google can finally die.

You seem to define innovation as having no replacement. What’s innovative then?

Re: Google Cuts Jobs in Engineering and Other Divisions

#850

Post by no_wizard »

foxyv wrote: post #827
Kon5ole wrote: post #804

Google makes me kind of sad. They used to be so cool, pushing technology forward, making it accessible to the masses, doing things that seemed almost impossible and making it mainstream. Ads were the money stream but they did it tastefully. Now the main page is all ads, dark patterns are everywhere in everything Google does. They've basically become one of the ethically worst technology companies around. Is it inevit…

It's just Goodhart's law. Our economy is profit centric. The way public companies are structured, the only metric anyone cares about is profit. Everything else just sloughs off over time.

Seems like a great argument for companies to remain private, no?

Absolute control is the only way.

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