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Google Businesses

Google's Pichai Tells Staff Cuts Avoided 'Much Worse' Problems (bloomberg.com) 77

Posted by msmash from the how-about-that dept.
Google's chief executive officer told employees that cuts were made in a bid to act decisively as the company's growth slowed. From a report: In an internal meeting, Sundar Pichai, who is CEO of Google parent Alphabet, said he had consulted with the company's founders and board in making the decision for 6% cuts, according to remarks reviewed by Bloomberg. "If you don't act clearly and decisively and early, we can compound the problem and make it much worse," Pichai said. "These are decisions I needed to make." Further reading: An engineer laid off after over 16 years at Google says 'faceless' tech giants see staff as '100% disposable'.
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Google's Pichai Tells Staff Cuts Avoided 'Much Worse' Problems More

Google's Pichai Tells Staff Cuts Avoided 'Much Worse' Problems

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  • We know, we know... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Opportunist ( 166417 ) on Monday January 23, 2023 @05:26PM (#63233492)

    It could have endangered his bonus, and we can't have that.

  • much worse (Score:5, Funny)

    by systemd-anonymousd ( 6652324 ) on Monday January 23, 2023 @05:30PM (#63233496)

    "We could've had to dump 20 worthless $500k+ DEI execs and make all the top brass draw a reasonable salary. Can you imagine how bad that would've been?"

  • Oh God (Score:3)

    by OverlordQ ( 264228 ) on Monday January 23, 2023 @05:31PM (#63233502) Journal

    a bid to act decisively as the company's growth slowed.

    You mean a company can't grow indefinitely?

    • Why not? With enough nutrients, cancers do.

      Seriously though, the disappearance of the concept of natural limits to commerce growth is a bane on society these days.

      He could have cut salaries, benefits and hiring, like HP did in the 70s, and dug into cash reserves.

      • Re:Oh God (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 23, 2023 @05:52PM (#63233596)

        With enough nutrients, cancers do.

        At some point they kill the host.

      • Digging into cash reserves to pay for a workforce that's too large for current conditions - that can only work for a month or three. Beyond that, it'll just drain company resources that could have otherwise been used for something like R&D.

        Now, there are other issues here: executives are way overpaid for what they actually bring to a company, and companies are using too much spare cash for stock buybacks. But floating an overgrown workforce is usually a bad idea. Bite the bullet, lay off or furloug

      • "Why not? With enough nutrients, cancers do."

        No, they do not. If unchecked, eventually, they kill their hosts. Then they stop growing. *Nothing* can grow forever, by the simple fact that the universe is finite.

        • *Nothing* can grow forever, by the simple fact that the universe is finite.

          But what about the infinite universes theory?

          Seriously though, it's a damn shame we rested on our laurels after the space race, we could have had some industry in space by now and planning how we were going to continue growing the economy, instead of merely wallowing in our filth and destroying ourselves with it.

        • What I had in mind was the HeLa cancer cell line that continues to grow if (and only if) its provided nutrients artificially:
          https://www.hopkinsmedicine.or... [hopkinsmedicine.org]

          You may be right if "cancers" properly refer only to cells growing within a living body.

      • Sure, cut salaries. Even cut just exec salaries. That is not without consequences

        Cut across the board, and you risk losing top performers. Maybe not, but you also risk losing initiative. 'I got cut 15%, why am I working so hard?'

        Cut benefits. Same results.

        Cut hiring? I think they did that already. Oh, maybe still hiring the top .5% they desire for continued innovation.

        I've been through cuts, freezes, pay cuts, restructuring, reengineering, and it's all the same. Early action avoids much greater later pain.

        • Attrition without hiring would have achieved the same within 6 months. Sure, you might have to move people around a bit, but they can handle that.

          • Attrition is indiscriminate. You should be choosing. You should have intentions.

            If you do this, I hope I don't work in your organization. I'd at least want to be chosen for something other than random chance.

            • If you want to let the bottom 6% go, fine. By all accounts Google didn't do that. If you want to cancel a project, fine. The engineers can be reassigned. If you want to reduce headcount and you aren't doing either of the above, attrition seems as good as anything.
              • Specifically, it is better than destroying employee morale.

                • If you're working for a corporation in the scale of an international bank, or major technology platform, you should know there will be job losses. If your morale relies on the absolute certainty on uninterrupted employment, you're going to be disappointed, repeatedly. But you'll overcome that.

                  • Most companies, yes. Google hasn't done anything like this since 2008, and it went on the record saying the layoffs that year were a mistake. Almost the entire workforce is FAA newer than that anyway. There was a reputation for being a different kind of company. A reputation it has sacrificed for what look to me like minimal actual savings.

              • Mostly I've read that groups and projects got displaced. Alpha has a way of flushing projects for whatever reasons. I've suffered a few disappointments when they killed of something I used. Given the economic situation they will and have killed off stuff they didn't want to carry.

      • What kind of endorsement of management can it be that they have a huge pile of cash and a large pool of talented people and they can't think of anything to do with them that would make money.

        Do they not have a list of "would do this if only we had the resources" projects that they can finally get rolling ? If not, why are these people worth so much

    • For a company and for the economy, growth is an accounting concept. Not a physical one. So yes, it can be infinite. I won't go as far as explaining to you that it means innovating, staying relevant, instead of being outdone by competition. Because you know that.

  • Hmm (Score:1, Insightful)

    by backslashdot ( 95548 )

    You couldn't think of something for thousands of engineers to do? If I had thousands of engineers at my disposal, I would build some cool shit. And it'd be profitable. Guaranteed. Whether or not my own idea works, we know it's possible to use those engineers, because there are millions of engineers in the world making profits for various companies. When a company has mass layoffs, it's because the executives failed at finding something for them to do.

    • Re:Hmm (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Petersko ( 564140 ) on Monday January 23, 2023 @05:38PM (#63233530)

      "If I had thousands of engineers at my disposal, I would build some cool shit. And it'd be profitable. Guaranteed."

      Good for you. I would never presume to make that guarantee. If I had thousands of engineers at my disposal, I would effectively use maybe a few dozen to a hundred, and waste the rest. I don't have enough "guaranteed profit" ideas in my hopper.

    • Ideas are a dime a dozen.

    • Most might not be engineers. Or even in Silicon Valley. Details are a bit scarce.
      I know near where I work Google moved into a set of buildings last month; today driving in I see that their parking is is pretty full. More so than Cisco which normally dominates the area. I don't see a slowdown at Google, though I haven't been driving around their Mountain View area.

      • Re:Hmm (Score:4, Insightful)

        by msauve ( 701917 ) on Monday January 23, 2023 @05:56PM (#63233618)
        Everyone's trying to look busy, in person, to avoid being laid off.
        • I doubt that. These are Google engineers they can get a job anywhere tomorrow. And not for much of a pay cut either. Heck most of them will probably see a pay raise from it. The only way you get ahead anymore is by going to another company.

          The only ones who are a little concerned are the h-1bs who have to find a job in 60 days or they go back home and get replaced by another H1B. Because you know they are only the best and brightest who have rare skills that are almost impossible to find so it's underst

    • Like build another chat service? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Somervillain ( 4719341 ) on Monday January 23, 2023 @06:43PM (#63233752)

      You couldn't think of something for thousands of engineers to do? If I had thousands of engineers at my disposal, I would build some cool shit. And it'd be profitable. Guaranteed. Whether or not my own idea works, we know it's possible to use those engineers, because there are millions of engineers in the world making profits for various companies. When a company has mass layoffs, it's because the executives failed at finding something for them to do.

      How about another chat service? Google could DEFINITELY use another one of those? Or better yet, take a beloved product, like Google Music, and make a competing service YouTube Music...that is a complete downgrade and discontinue the service people love. Why?...reasons!!!! You're Google...you're so fucking rich you can own and maintain 2 competing map apps for nearly a decade. Why?...reasons!!!!....let the smart kids figure it out....if you were smart enough to work at Google, you'd know precisely why we need 10 messaging apps and 2 maps apps, 2 music apps, etc.

    • You couldn't think of something for thousands of engineers to do? If I had thousands of engineers at my disposal, I would build some cool shit. And it'd be profitable. Guaranteed. Whether or not my own idea works, we know it's possible to use those engineers, because there are millions of engineers in the world making profits for various companies. When a company has mass layoffs, it's because the executives failed at finding something for them to do.

      You have projects that will bring in over one hundred million (maybe two hundred million) a month?

      Go talk to some angels. If your ideas are that good surely they'll give you enough money to hire a few of those laid off engineers to get started...

    • Google buys companies and funds startups for stuff like that. I wouldn’t be surprised if it turns out you can salary a bunch of engineers and have them prototype anything they feel like and make a lot of money off it but Google isn’t that kind of company anymore.

  • What much worse? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by null etc. ( 524767 ) on Monday January 23, 2023 @05:53PM (#63233602)

    Much worse refers to declining shareholder stock value, of course. Gotta keep those shareholders happy! Give'm profits before they're dead!

    • Strangely enough, this also impacts the people who got laid off. If the shares go down in value because of decreased profitability, those people lose a good chunk of their earnings.

      Google pays most senior and above level engineers and especially managers with lots of stock -- it can be 25-80% of compensation (see levels.fyi for detail). So, if stock goes down, both those who stay and who have left lose a chunk of their net worth.

      Of course this impacts Wall Street and Google executives/large sharehold

    • Tech is making sacrifices to lords of monetary policy. This could be much worse in some minds. Productivity will increase as fear of getting marked for removal. Lower expectations on pay increases and other benefits. Now is also herd safety, industry as a whole sacking. Pichai, I goofed , u lose your job, oops sorry better u than me. But they did get Google experience which has some recognition. Just less so in softening economy.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Njovich ( 553857 )

      Someone at Google for 16 years typically has millions in its stock and probably wouldn't mind some shareholder service.

  • I bet they will spend a big chunk of cash soon completely slapping these people in the face.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by 602 ( 652745 )
      Google/Alpha bought back $15billion in stock in 2022. That's enough to pay the laid off people over $100,000 a year for 10 years.
  • I'd have to use my fist.

    And like a battered housewife we thank them for the belt.

    • We who?

      Google would never hire you and these people were all 6 and 7 figure employees. You're not.

      The guy in the article has been there getting promotions since 2 years ago they IPO'd. He's likely worth $50m or more today. And his line about oh these tech companies see us all,as disposable, Wah! Jfc, that's true at every company. What a baby. Except you don't get $50m in stock over 16 years at most companies to hang out in the feee cafeteria.

  • how much in enough? answer=MORE! (Score:4, Insightful)

    by sdinfoserv ( 1793266 ) on Monday January 23, 2023 @06:35PM (#63233708)
    Alphabet experienced a NET income of $13.9B 3rd quarter of 2022. https://abc.xyz/investor/stati... [abc.xyz]
    Sure, it's down from 2021 for the same period, but it's still almost $14,000,000,000 of positive net income in only 3 months. Let's potentially destroy the lives of 12,000 families because, you know, they need MORE!!!
    So much of for "don't be evil" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

  • I used to to think that a claim like that was "mostly true but not always". Now I think that's probably nearly "always" true. Even if you're the top 0.1% of engineers... that still mean there are thousands of people as capable. The number of truly irreplaceable people is as close to zero as you can get without actually being zero. In fact, a business that fails to protect itself from being irreparably damaged by attrition deserves to be out of business.

  • "We are all temporary employees" (Score:3)

    by Moof123 ( 1292134 ) on Monday January 23, 2023 @06:42PM (#63233750)

    After probably on the ~5th round of layoff's I saw in my career the Directory of Engineering gathered the survivors in a room.

    There are less bad ways to talk to a group of folks who just had friends and colleagues lose their jobs, but the way this guy handled it was memorable and a good life lesson.

    He starts by telling us that everyone still in the room still have their job (good, people need re-assurance). Then he repeats three or four time "We are ALL temporary employees", as if it some great bit of Zen wisdom. Finally he finishes by telling us that if we have anything we want to discuss to do it now, and not in the hallways. He wants zero grousing in the hallways after we leave the room. Riiiight....

    I polished up the old resume and left a few months later, but the whole "We are ALL temporary employees" bit has stuck with me. He avoided eye contact with my after I gave my two week notice and the immature man-child he was.

    • Why complain that he ignored you for 2 weeks?

      You got 2 full weeks of pay and benefits to hang out, chat with your work mates, spread toxic morale killing commentary and then take off to greener pastures.

      What's so bad about that?

      • It was hilarious actually.

        He was in one meeting where I sat on the corner next to him. He would not respond when I brought things up and would not turn his head toward my side of the table when he spoke. Later he came around the corner in a hallway going the opposite direction, and his gaze just dove for the floor to avoid making eye contact. It was like he was panic avoiding a social interaction he didn't know how to handle, like the workplace equivalent of climbing out the bathroom window to escape a b

        • I've had pretty much the same thing happen except I gave 4 weeks notice because I felt there was so much I had to transition and I wanted to be professional about it and not leave anyone hanging.

          I was really irritated that my docs and info transfer meetings etc got dismissed and ignored the first few days then realized I was getting paid to hang out, eat the free food and make a pest of myself. It was kinda fun being a ghost. A paid ghost.

    • Something like this happened to me once: There was a confidence crisis in the company and 4 of the 6 partners left, including our main project manager. The main owner - a billionaire - called me to her office and asked me to assume the manager position. I asked her what would be my pay raise to take this new position and - boy - she started a shit show telling me in a really aggressive way how she was deeply offended by my question. I ended the meeting and 2 weeks later I was working in a new company. But

    • I had a neat 2 weeks once where the manager pulled the entire department, and it was a big department, into a room to literally scream obscenities at us about what worthless fucks we were and how ungrateful we were and on and on. Something like two hours and change later, he let us out of the room and I walked up and gave my two weeks. He got panicky looking, and went, "Shit! I didn't know you were in here!" I had a different job than most in the department, and had been in the habit of coming in at 5AM and

  • When you go to work for a company like google, start collecting material that might be interesting to the SEC or other external government divisions. Figure out where the dead bodies are and keep tabs of it. When the time comes that you might be showed the door, remind your manager the secrets you are keeping and see if they would like to reevaluate their decision.

    Companies look at every employee below C suite as being disposable unless there is a big enough downside to make them reconsider. Sometimes you h

    • You win by treating your job as a job, not a lifestyle. Save like your future depends on it, work on things that make you broadly employable, and keep your nose clean. Only once you have saved enough to never need to work again you can drop the act. Before that you can find yourself effectively black-listed if you end up fired, sued, or have anything else slightly amiss show up on a background check. Future employers are risk adverse by default, so don't be one.

      Dreams of blackmailing your employer are a

    • You're assuming your manager has any say in it.

    • If that is your approach to things you might want to avoid certain places like...

      ...open windows on high floors of buildings

      ...rooftops

      ...going to the beach

      ...communal showers and bath houses

      ...railway platforms

      ...your own automobile

      ...walks in the park and along busy sidewalks

      You would be surprised to know how many people have "accidents"

      • Nobody knows I conceal carry every day, but they do know I am big into MMA fighting and have completed multiple local exhibition fighting matches. They can go watch my matches on youtube if they so desired. I'm always prepared for anyone to step at me.

  • not so quietly sacked?

  • A failure of management... (Score:3)

    by IHTFISP ( 859375 ) on Monday January 23, 2023 @07:12PM (#63233846)

    Any large-scale layoffs are a failure of management.

    If they did not see this coming and hadn't prepared by anticipating letting the lowest performers go, then they were not paying attention and were not doing due diligence.

    Everywhere I've worked as an engineer (for 20+ years) that resorts to layoffs of core engineers later regrets it (to varying degrees) and comes to realize they should have laid off more executives & high-level managers who dropped the ball... and are paid disproportionately to those who actually sustain the company's business.

    Live and learn... but they will never learn.

  • "that some who had lost their jobs had been earning between $500,000 and $1 million a year."

    I predict some serious readjustments,.

  • It's not great when a company lays you off but the way Google handled it was atrocious; Pichai needs to get the same treatment he gave these workers by the Google board but of course, he has a management contract and would get a hefty parachute to go along with it. You don't get rid of people who have committed to your company, some for half their working life with an e-mail; they deserve better than that. However, this is not unprecedented because Aerospace companies do the same, albeit with a bit more

  • The company is still growing, it's still making a profit every year but despite that they feel the need to lay off thousands of staff? That is just greed for greeds sake.

    It's beyond time that we the public let these companies know that we don't find such behaviour acceptable and it seems that as the only thing they seem to be concerned about is money that we deny them that money. We can do that from two fronts, both by no longer buying their products, using adblockers and not using their browser or search

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by Alascom ( 95042 )

      The company is still growing, it's still making a profit every year but despite that they feel the need to lay off thousands of staff? That is just greed for greeds sake.

      No this is greed for MY sake. This is greed for Teacher Union's sake. This is greed for millions of American's pension sake. This is greed for millions of American's 401k index funds sake.

      I am a private shareholder with a significant stake in Goog. I worked hard my entire life to earn the money which I have put at risk by investing with Google.

      Speaking on behalf of myself, unions, pensions, and others... This is OUR money at risk, OUR money being spent, OUR money being wasted on floundering projects and em

  • For the managerial/executive leeches, who will be able to get their outsized bonuses yet again?

  • The cold hard reality is that any established tech firm has tons of cash and near-cash reserves, and he just didn't want his golf buddies in the exec suite to have to cut their outrageous compensation packages.

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