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“ So years ago this came up with Eric Schmidt, who was CEO of Google through the GFC. After 2007, Google had selective layoffs (probably not in engineering) and

“ So years ago this came up with Eric Schmidt, who was CEO of Google through the GFC. After 2007, Google had selective layoffs (probably not in engineering) and slowed hiring. They also paused construction projects in Mountain View and probably elsewhere. Eric said when asked about it that it was a mistake. He said that if Google was healthy there was no need to have a kneejerk reaction to the slowdown. And this caused significant growing pains later.” Was this covered by the media? Having a hard time finding anything about it.

donalhunt 6y ago
Probably. I can't be bothered looking for a reference. I was an engineering program manager and people manager at Google previously and around 2010-2012, there were opportunities for the company to really accelerate revenue, product development but they couldn't hire fast enough to take advantage. This stemmed from many orgs freezing hiring for a significant period (maybe 12-18 months). At large companies, you have queues setup for most roles because you often growing the n count of that role by 5-10% per annum. Also very few orgs plan for attrition (I don't get why because it's always been in the range of 4-20% in my opinion). Freezing hiring means a company's ability to execute reduces. Sometimes that is needed but often you must backfill to keep the lights on. Guess the messaging is easy ("no hiring. No exceptions").