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It's a for profit company with a fiduciary responsibility to share holders. There is zero reason to find jobs for people regardless of the cash position.

downerending 7y ago
Here's a couple: 1. Google's tech staffers are supposed to be some of the top people in the world, and Google spends a considerable amount of resources hiring them. It seems foolish not to keep them on the bench a bit, unless Google foresees that it will be shrinking soon. 2. The people not laid off will very much notice their colleagues being zapped the moment they're not needed. They will rationally tilt towards leaving as well, if they get any whiff that they might be next. It's far better to leave first than to be laid off, if you're sharp.
- kortilla 7y ago
  > Google's tech staffers are supposed to be some of the top people in the world That ended about 7 years ago when Google decided to expand as rapidly as possible. Alphabet employees over 100k people now. It’s just a younger IBM at this point. There will be thousands of people that will suck and should be laid off rather than kept.
  - chrisseaton 7y ago
    I think you still need to be at the very top of your field to get past that famous interview. It’s completely out of reach for all but the most elite engineers even if they’re already doing brilliantly somewhere else.
    - ALittleLight 7y ago
      Google would like their engineers to believe that, I'm sure, but I doubt it. A large company is just incompatible with the idea of being elite. "Regression to the mean" says that as Google adds engineers they will more closely resemble the general population of engineers.
    - kortilla 7y ago
      That’s completely false. The skills to get through the “famous interview” aren’t related to software engineering practices at all. Let that sink in. Their interview process is loaded with false negative and false positive rates, despite what they claim. If you don’t think they have false positives, just look at the poor quality of so many google products. An interview process that an algorithms/data structure obsessed senior in college can easily pass is clearly not related to elite engineers. It’s sad that people have been tricked into thinking otherwise.
      - thebean11 7y ago
        > If you don’t think they have false positives, just look at the poor quality of so many google products. I don't disagree with the point you're making, but that's a bad argument. Good engineers are capable of building a bad product if the conditions are right.
- stygiansonic 7y ago
  The thing is, if they bench too many workers, they will also be ridiculed: https://www.networkworld.com/article/2920903/google-really-keeps-employees-on-the-bench-like-in-hbos-silicon-valley.html https://www.networkworld.com/article/2920903/google-really-k... In fact, this action is probably part of a conscious effort to move away from "benching".
  - lonelappde 7y ago
    The article is about VPs getting a forced sabbatical after a reorg. No one changes their business tactics due to jokes on a TV show. It's totally normal and nothing anyone is moving a way from. It has nothing to do with rank and file people getting laid off.
- scarface74 7y ago
  You haven’t heard about Netflix’s policy.... https://www.slideshare.net/reed2001/culture-1798664 https://www.slideshare.net/reed2001/culture-1798664 “We’re a team, not a family.” They “hire, develop, and cut smartly”. It doesn’t seem to have hurt their recruitment.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - bcrosby95 7y ago
    "People who have been stars for us, and hit a bad patch, get a near term pass because we think they are likely to become stars for us again". Source: your link.
    - kortilla 7y ago
      The difference is the timescale. Netflix won’t let you cruise doing nothing for 3 months while you troll an internal job board begging people to take you.
  - nomel 7y ago
    I'm all for this mentality. It's extremely rare, but there's nothing that makes my job satisfaction drop more than having someone incompetent (in no way related to experience) on the team, or being lead by someone incompetent. I come to work to get cool stuff done, and sometimes people just don't fit with that goal. These thoughts are in no way related to the topic.
    - scarface74 7y ago
      It’s not only about incompetence, it’s about letting someone go who did their job very well, but are no longer needed and keeping them around anyway. The story is legendary about all of the infrastructure guys that were let go at Netflix whose job was to migrate them to AWS. Is that a bad thing? Can you imagine the opportunities you could have if you said that you were instrumental in the largest cloud migration in history? I can’t remember her name but there was a top ranking official at Netflix hired by Hastings personally. She was instrumental in helping Netflix in the DVD era. But she knew she was going to be laid off when they started focusing on streaming because that wasn’t her area of expertise. She went in and got “quit fired”. She said there were no hard feelings. I first heard about this with an interview she did on the Internet History Podcast.
- mateo411 7y ago
  > It's far better to leave first than to be laid off, if you're sharp. I think it's better to have a good exit strategy, such as another job offer, then get laid off. If you get laid off at a big company, there is usually a severance package.
- skj 7y ago
  No one got laid off. Mobility within the company is very good, they just need to find a new role. That's not always trivial, and I'm sure some will leave the company, but none have to if they don't want to.
chrisseaton 7y ago
How much does it cost to find and hire a Google-tier worker? Many hundreds of thousands of dollars. If you're talking about financial duty surely their duty is to retain the elite workers they've already got.
- goatherders 7y ago
  Agree completely. I was simply responding to what I read as a "they have the money, give them jobs" sentiment.
- kortilla 7y ago
  Given the market’s performance over the last 4 years, it’s most certainly cheaper to fire people who aren’t actively involved in any projects so Google gets the unvested stock back and then hire fresh at current stock price. Someone who was hired 2 years ago with 500k of stock vesting over 4 years could have enough unvested stock leftover to fund two employees RSU grants... Hiring google employees is still cheaper than keeping the senior ones.
  - thebean11 7y ago
    I don't work for Google, but I think you're making bold assumptions about how much a year or two of domain knowledge is worth to Google compared to a couple hundred k of stock. If these employees are transitioning to wildly different roles within the company maybe the math changes a bit, but I'm not sure how much. Edit: not to mention the trust erosion aspect. If I see people getting laid off cause their stock has appreciated, am I going to stay? Basically means stock appreciation is capped. People wouldn't take kindly to that.
    - kortilla 7y ago
      > don't work for Google, but I think you're making bold assumptions about how much a year or two of domain knowledge is worth to Google compared to a couple hundred k of stock. I did. Google is so large the vast majority of engineers contain domain knowledge that is mainly just useful to their group. And if their group is undergoing layoffs, their domain knowledge isn’t too useful. About the only useful things that a long-time googler will know when joining a new group over a noogler is the test infra and code review process.

downerending 7y ago

Here's a couple: 1. Google's tech staffers are supposed to be some of the top people in the world, and Google spends a considerable amount of resources hiring them. It seems foolish not to keep them on the bench a bit, unless Google foresees that it will be shrinking soon. 2. The people not laid off will very much notice their colleagues being zapped the moment they're not needed. They will rationally tilt towards leaving as well, if they get any whiff that they might be next. It's far better to leave first than to be laid off, if you're sharp.

kortilla 7y ago
> Google's tech staffers are supposed to be some of the top people in the world That ended about 7 years ago when Google decided to expand as rapidly as possible. Alphabet employees over 100k people now. It’s just a younger IBM at this point. There will be thousands of people that will suck and should be laid off rather than kept.
- chrisseaton 7y ago
  I think you still need to be at the very top of your field to get past that famous interview. It’s completely out of reach for all but the most elite engineers even if they’re already doing brilliantly somewhere else.
  - ALittleLight 7y ago
    Google would like their engineers to believe that, I'm sure, but I doubt it. A large company is just incompatible with the idea of being elite. "Regression to the mean" says that as Google adds engineers they will more closely resemble the general population of engineers.
  - kortilla 7y ago
    That’s completely false. The skills to get through the “famous interview” aren’t related to software engineering practices at all. Let that sink in. Their interview process is loaded with false negative and false positive rates, despite what they claim. If you don’t think they have false positives, just look at the poor quality of so many google products. An interview process that an algorithms/data structure obsessed senior in college can easily pass is clearly not related to elite engineers. It’s sad that people have been tricked into thinking otherwise.
    - thebean11 7y ago
      > If you don’t think they have false positives, just look at the poor quality of so many google products. I don't disagree with the point you're making, but that's a bad argument. Good engineers are capable of building a bad product if the conditions are right.
stygiansonic 7y ago
The thing is, if they bench too many workers, they will also be ridiculed: https://www.networkworld.com/article/2920903/google-really-keeps-employees-on-the-bench-like-in-hbos-silicon-valley.html https://www.networkworld.com/article/2920903/google-really-k... In fact, this action is probably part of a conscious effort to move away from "benching".
- lonelappde 7y ago
  The article is about VPs getting a forced sabbatical after a reorg. No one changes their business tactics due to jokes on a TV show. It's totally normal and nothing anyone is moving a way from. It has nothing to do with rank and file people getting laid off.
scarface74 7y ago
You haven’t heard about Netflix’s policy.... https://www.slideshare.net/reed2001/culture-1798664 https://www.slideshare.net/reed2001/culture-1798664 “We’re a team, not a family.” They “hire, develop, and cut smartly”. It doesn’t seem to have hurt their recruitment.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- bcrosby95 7y ago
  "People who have been stars for us, and hit a bad patch, get a near term pass because we think they are likely to become stars for us again". Source: your link.
  - kortilla 7y ago
    The difference is the timescale. Netflix won’t let you cruise doing nothing for 3 months while you troll an internal job board begging people to take you.
- nomel 7y ago
  I'm all for this mentality. It's extremely rare, but there's nothing that makes my job satisfaction drop more than having someone incompetent (in no way related to experience) on the team, or being lead by someone incompetent. I come to work to get cool stuff done, and sometimes people just don't fit with that goal. These thoughts are in no way related to the topic.
  - scarface74 7y ago
    It’s not only about incompetence, it’s about letting someone go who did their job very well, but are no longer needed and keeping them around anyway. The story is legendary about all of the infrastructure guys that were let go at Netflix whose job was to migrate them to AWS. Is that a bad thing? Can you imagine the opportunities you could have if you said that you were instrumental in the largest cloud migration in history? I can’t remember her name but there was a top ranking official at Netflix hired by Hastings personally. She was instrumental in helping Netflix in the DVD era. But she knew she was going to be laid off when they started focusing on streaming because that wasn’t her area of expertise. She went in and got “quit fired”. She said there were no hard feelings. I first heard about this with an interview she did on the Internet History Podcast.
mateo411 7y ago
> It's far better to leave first than to be laid off, if you're sharp. I think it's better to have a good exit strategy, such as another job offer, then get laid off. If you get laid off at a big company, there is usually a severance package.
skj 7y ago
No one got laid off. Mobility within the company is very good, they just need to find a new role. That's not always trivial, and I'm sure some will leave the company, but none have to if they don't want to.

chrisseaton 7y ago

How much does it cost to find and hire a Google-tier worker? Many hundreds of thousands of dollars. If you're talking about financial duty surely their duty is to retain the elite workers they've already got.

goatherders 7y ago
Agree completely. I was simply responding to what I read as a "they have the money, give them jobs" sentiment.
kortilla 7y ago
Given the market’s performance over the last 4 years, it’s most certainly cheaper to fire people who aren’t actively involved in any projects so Google gets the unvested stock back and then hire fresh at current stock price. Someone who was hired 2 years ago with 500k of stock vesting over 4 years could have enough unvested stock leftover to fund two employees RSU grants... Hiring google employees is still cheaper than keeping the senior ones.
- thebean11 7y ago
  I don't work for Google, but I think you're making bold assumptions about how much a year or two of domain knowledge is worth to Google compared to a couple hundred k of stock. If these employees are transitioning to wildly different roles within the company maybe the math changes a bit, but I'm not sure how much. Edit: not to mention the trust erosion aspect. If I see people getting laid off cause their stock has appreciated, am I going to stay? Basically means stock appreciation is capped. People wouldn't take kindly to that.
  - kortilla 7y ago
    > don't work for Google, but I think you're making bold assumptions about how much a year or two of domain knowledge is worth to Google compared to a couple hundred k of stock. I did. Google is so large the vast majority of engineers contain domain knowledge that is mainly just useful to their group. And if their group is undergoing layoffs, their domain knowledge isn’t too useful. About the only useful things that a long-time googler will know when joining a new group over a noogler is the test infra and code review process.