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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

#851

Post by treyd »

kentm wrote: post #826
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…

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.

I've come to this conclusion a long time ago. If consumers have perfect information about a class of product from different producers then advertising would be completely useless and the market for that product would be completely efficient (on the consumer side). Of course consumers don't have perfect information, and that's what the marketing industry claims their purpose is to address.

But really the role that the marketing industry (at least for typical products and services) actually plays is to selectively give information to consumers to influence their buying decisions against how they would behave in an efficient market. And then it's a very short and slippery slope to just straight up lying about products and manipulating consumers through their insecurities, which we see happening all the time with how the marketing industry has developed for the last few decades especially with online advertisements.

Re: Google Cuts Jobs in Engineering and Other Divisions

#852

Post by tiffanyh »

> "Google parent firm Alphabet employed 182,381 employees"

I'm always sad to hear when someone loses their jobs, but the headline borders on being click-bait.

If Google laid off ~3k of it's 182k employee base, that's only 1.5% of it's workforce.

It wasn't long ago that companies had a standing rule to let go it's bottom 5% annually.

Re: Google Cuts Jobs in Engineering and Other Divisions

#853

Post by devjab »

hiq wrote: post #564
devjab wrote: post #426

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Denmark we rarely perform tech interviews the way you Americans do. Part of this is because of how available education is, so virtually everyone who’s applying for a tech job comes with some sort of academic education, meaning that they’ve proven their worth to get it. I’ve worked a side gig as an external examiner for a decade now, I’ve got good confidence in anyone I haven’t failed. Another part is that tech int…

That means that from the start, you rule out people who don't have this academic education. Then there's the question of the relevance of this education: either you only take CS graduates, in which case your applicant pool is quite small if you want to hire thousands of employees (but this might work if you only need to hire a few people). Or you broaden it, and you then have no guarantee that people will actually be…

Well yes, but as education is freely available, you’ll even get paid to study by the government, almost every applicant is going to have a relevant education. Or in the case of some people who’ve changed careers an education to show that they are capable of getting a degree and then a work history to show how they’ve transitioned into CS.

That being said your point isn’t completely without merit. But think about it from the management perspective, as I said, the wrong hire is the most expensive mistake you’ll make in middle management, so it’s more about risk management. If you get 10 good applicants, and pick the top 4-5 of those, then you’re likely left with 5 people who will each be a good hire. It’s not so much about finding the perfect hire, you’re just looking for a good hire, and part of the process of selecting those 4-5 people will be choosing people with good educations, or very good work histories. That might sort some people that are excellent out of the pile, but it also lowers the risk significantly.

Re: Google Cuts Jobs in Engineering and Other Divisions

#854

Post by no_wizard »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #830
Pentamerous wrote: post #787

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's still real people who suffer when the numbers tell a different story - not charity cases.

It’s the government’s job to provide support in the event of loss of income. , i.e. a floor for quality of life.

Which in turn, corporations including Google, lobby to make sure that taxes are as small as possible, and we aren't reasonably funding unemployment benefits. They haven't even kept up with inflation, let alone substitute a standard of living that's even approximately close to middle class. Unemployment is a hell hole of despair in the US. Its not some "blip" or something, like in other countries that have better safety nets, people lose their homes, get kicked out of their rentals and all other things. It can be really damaging for people, even FAANG engineers

Re: Google Cuts Jobs in Engineering and Other Divisions

#855

Post by opportune »

tomoyoirl wrote: post #842
Joker_vD wrote: post #819

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 w…

And to further explain, if you don’t increase your near-term profits/shift priorities from future growth to present returns as interest rates increase, under the discounted FCF model your current value decreases. AKA the price of the stock goes down, which shareholders and executives tend not to like.

Re: Google Cuts Jobs in Engineering and Other Divisions

#856

Post by radiator »

forward1 wrote: post #848
freedomben wrote: post #846

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

This is quite deep. And delivered in socratic style, nonetheless.

Re: Google Cuts Jobs in Engineering and Other Divisions

#857

Post by hipadev23 »

username135 wrote: post #790

It seems like all these corps laying off people are trying to self fulfill a recession.

Overpaid FAANG techbros losing their jobs wont cause a recession. Wake me when housing in Nashville, Raleigh, or Boise corrects then we can talk about a recession.

Re: Google Cuts Jobs in Engineering and Other Divisions

#858

Post by wolverine876 »

seuraughty wrote: post #798
Pentamerous wrote: post #787

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's still real people who suffer when the numbers tell a different story - not charity cases.

I agree, but the mission of private business is not to keep as many people employed as possible.

It's also not to only serve shareholders each quarter. It's none of those extremes: like everything in life, we must balance multiple stakeholders and responsibilities.

Re: Google Cuts Jobs in Engineering and Other Divisions

#859

Post by hyperliner »

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…

[dead]

Re: Google Cuts Jobs in Engineering and Other Divisions

#860

Post by kikokikokiko »

maronato wrote: post #841
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.

A "company constitution", just like every constitution, is just a bunch of paper where someone drawed some letters. If there's something to be gained by changing it or trowing it out altogether, it will happen eventually.
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