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The Google internal propaganda game must be crazy strong if the actual employees are believing random management explanations designed to keep people from panic

The Google internal propaganda game must be crazy strong if the actual employees are believing random management explanations designed to keep people from panicking. The US just formally entered a recession, in within a week of the economic turmoil multiple companies freeze hiring...

mikeyouse 4y ago
Aside from the debate about 'formally*' entering a recession - if you do abide by the strict two quarters of real GDP decline rule, the economy still added ~2 million jobs during those same two quarters and the economy grew at a nominal ~6%. I don't think we're quite to the "economic turmoil" phase of things.
- cmrdporcupine 4y ago
  Decision makers are now starting to openly push for moves to increase unemployment to get wage "inflation" down. I feel we're about to enter into a situation very similar to the early 90s, and we'll see a wave of pro-austerity politics and a lot of talk about "tightening our belts" -- slashing employee rights and social programs and cutting all kinds of social spending -- which is really about re-instilling labour discipline. I suspect here in Canada the temporary foreign worker program is about to have the floodgates opened. Employers, especially small businesses, are really not happy about having to pay more than minimum wage, and they're very unhappy about having their authority in the workplace undermined by workers with seemingly excessive bargaining power. The situation in the US is obviously more complicated by their messed up immigration system.
  - davidw 4y ago
    I have no idea what will happen myself, but it all feels a bit different. I think a lot of what's going on are still shocks from the pandemic, supply chains, and geopolitical stuff.
    - randomdata 4y ago
      Not to mention the middle boomers are entering retirement age right now. This exact scenario of boomers leaving their jobs and creating an employment vacuum in their wake is something I've been hearing about for 30 years.
- throw0101a 4y ago
  > Aside from the debate about 'formerly' entering a recession "Formally"? * https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/formal https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/formal
  - mikeyouse 4y ago
    Ha - yep. Just making my way through my coffee... definitely meant formally.
- Consultant32452 4y ago
  Now subtract the deficit spending including the stimulus package from that nominal 6% growth.
  - mikeyouse 4y ago
    Why? Government spending is a base component of GDP..
    - Consultant32452 4y ago
      Let me have a $10 Trillion deficit and I will show you tons of "growth" in GDP.
      - mikeyouse 4y ago
        Why is it any different if the government takes out a loan to pay for work instead of someone like GE doing the same? If someone takes out a loan, and then spends the money building a plant or hiring employees, the economic activity is real..
        Consultant32452 4y ago
        It's the age old problem of once you choose the system of measurement, it's going to get manipulated by the people who get measured by it. GE is not going to rack up a bunch of debt for the explicit purpose of making sure the GDP number goes up. When the government creates a bunch of money just to make sure the GDP number goes up, GDP stops being as useful at telling you how things are going.
phailhaus 4y ago
We entered a technical recession by the "two quarters of contracting GDP" rule of thumb, but labor numbers are still strong and that second quarter contracted less than the first [1], which is not what we've usually seen when entering a recession. [2] [1] https://www.bea.gov/news/2022/gross-domestic-product-second-quarter-2022-advance-estimate https://www.bea.gov/news/2022/gross-domestic-product-second-... [2] https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/USA/united-states/gdp-growth-rate https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/USA/united-states/gdp-...
- jfoster 4y ago
  If companies are doing hiring freezes and layoffs, will the labor numbers remain strong?
  - evan_ 4y ago
    Yeah probably, the tech layoffs amount to a couple thousand people in a labor force of hundreds of millions.
    - whimsicalism 4y ago
      Sure, but if you consider what is causing these layoffs: anticipated weaker aggregate demand -> less demand for ads but also less demand for workers -> weakening labor market. I mean, the Fed's goal right now is basically to slow wage growth so that average people are no longer bidding up the price of our limited supply.
- _gabe_ 4y ago
  I've never understood how strong labor numbers negate a recession. Like sure your money is worth less because of all the inflation, and your COL keeps increasing but your wages remain the same, but hey we have lots of people working. Maybe somebody smarter than me can explain how these two correlate lol.
  - xhrpost 4y ago
    Hopefully I'm not being snarky here, but if you looked at another country with a smaller economy, and then saw that they employee fewer people, would you be equally confused?
tenpies 4y ago
I don't think it's propaganda. Put yourself in place of a 30 year old who has only known a world where you're a highly in-demand whatever "in tech". You've never seen a day since you graduated where you're not flooded by recruiter emails. You've never worked a job that isn't 30 minutes of work and then the rest of the day is posting "day in the life of a FAANG employee" Tiktoks or being a paid activist. What's coming is nearly unimaginable. At some level you know it's theoretically possible, but before your eyes even accept that reality you're going to go through some painful stages, beginning with denial. I don't fault anyone, especially anyone who graduated in '10 or later for this. I just hope they are preparing for this.
- guiomie 4y ago
  Spot on. There is a huge sense of entitlement from SWEs in FAANGs right now, and from the various folks I know at FAANGs, Google is worst since mediocrity and unproductiveness are not confronted because folks are scared of being 'ungoogley'. Every company has its dead weight that others have to carry, I think Google has much more and has been getting away with it because of all its profits coming in.
  - whimsicalism 4y ago
    > I think Google has much more and has been getting away with it because of all its profits coming in. My sense would be that Google has such high $ earned / employee compared to other major tech employers it perhaps has less dead-weight.
  - cmrdporcupine 4y ago
    Google's definition of productivity is different than yours. In general: Code reviews are strict and long. Style and structure matters more than anywhere else I ever worked. Everything requires extensive testing. You better have a design doc / PRD, some tickets, good commenting, and unit tests. People will happily point out and roast you for any potential bugs, race conditions, deadlocks, bad style, and sloppy work. Mediocrity in this regard is not generally tolerated. The standard of development is much higher. But yes, it's slow. If that's your measure of productivity, they'll fail. Except it doesn't matter because the goal of a SWE at Google is mostly to keep the ship sailing.
dang 4y ago
We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32318067 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32318067.

mikeyouse 4y ago

Aside from the debate about 'formally*' entering a recession - if you do abide by the strict two quarters of real GDP decline rule, the economy still added ~2 million jobs during those same two quarters and the economy grew at a nominal ~6%. I don't think we're quite to the "economic turmoil" phase of things.

cmrdporcupine 4y ago
Decision makers are now starting to openly push for moves to increase unemployment to get wage "inflation" down. I feel we're about to enter into a situation very similar to the early 90s, and we'll see a wave of pro-austerity politics and a lot of talk about "tightening our belts" -- slashing employee rights and social programs and cutting all kinds of social spending -- which is really about re-instilling labour discipline. I suspect here in Canada the temporary foreign worker program is about to have the floodgates opened. Employers, especially small businesses, are really not happy about having to pay more than minimum wage, and they're very unhappy about having their authority in the workplace undermined by workers with seemingly excessive bargaining power. The situation in the US is obviously more complicated by their messed up immigration system.
- davidw 4y ago
  I have no idea what will happen myself, but it all feels a bit different. I think a lot of what's going on are still shocks from the pandemic, supply chains, and geopolitical stuff.
  - randomdata 4y ago
    Not to mention the middle boomers are entering retirement age right now. This exact scenario of boomers leaving their jobs and creating an employment vacuum in their wake is something I've been hearing about for 30 years.
throw0101a 4y ago
> Aside from the debate about 'formerly' entering a recession "Formally"? * https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/formal https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/formal
- mikeyouse 4y ago
  Ha - yep. Just making my way through my coffee... definitely meant formally.
Consultant32452 4y ago
Now subtract the deficit spending including the stimulus package from that nominal 6% growth.
- mikeyouse 4y ago
  Why? Government spending is a base component of GDP..
  - Consultant32452 4y ago
    Let me have a $10 Trillion deficit and I will show you tons of "growth" in GDP.
    - mikeyouse 4y ago
      Why is it any different if the government takes out a loan to pay for work instead of someone like GE doing the same? If someone takes out a loan, and then spends the money building a plant or hiring employees, the economic activity is real..
      - Consultant32452 4y ago
        It's the age old problem of once you choose the system of measurement, it's going to get manipulated by the people who get measured by it. GE is not going to rack up a bunch of debt for the explicit purpose of making sure the GDP number goes up. When the government creates a bunch of money just to make sure the GDP number goes up, GDP stops being as useful at telling you how things are going.

phailhaus 4y ago

We entered a technical recession by the "two quarters of contracting GDP" rule of thumb, but labor numbers are still strong and that second quarter contracted less than the first [1], which is not what we've usually seen when entering a recession. [2] [1] https://www.bea.gov/news/2022/gross-domestic-product-second-quarter-2022-advance-estimate https://www.bea.gov/news/2022/gross-domestic-product-second-... [2] https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/USA/united-states/gdp-growth-rate https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/USA/united-states/gdp-...

jfoster 4y ago
If companies are doing hiring freezes and layoffs, will the labor numbers remain strong?
- evan_ 4y ago
  Yeah probably, the tech layoffs amount to a couple thousand people in a labor force of hundreds of millions.
  - whimsicalism 4y ago
    Sure, but if you consider what is causing these layoffs: anticipated weaker aggregate demand -> less demand for ads but also less demand for workers -> weakening labor market. I mean, the Fed's goal right now is basically to slow wage growth so that average people are no longer bidding up the price of our limited supply.
_gabe_ 4y ago
I've never understood how strong labor numbers negate a recession. Like sure your money is worth less because of all the inflation, and your COL keeps increasing but your wages remain the same, but hey we have lots of people working. Maybe somebody smarter than me can explain how these two correlate lol.
- xhrpost 4y ago
  Hopefully I'm not being snarky here, but if you looked at another country with a smaller economy, and then saw that they employee fewer people, would you be equally confused?

tenpies 4y ago

I don't think it's propaganda. Put yourself in place of a 30 year old who has only known a world where you're a highly in-demand whatever "in tech". You've never seen a day since you graduated where you're not flooded by recruiter emails. You've never worked a job that isn't 30 minutes of work and then the rest of the day is posting "day in the life of a FAANG employee" Tiktoks or being a paid activist. What's coming is nearly unimaginable. At some level you know it's theoretically possible, but before your eyes even accept that reality you're going to go through some painful stages, beginning with denial. I don't fault anyone, especially anyone who graduated in '10 or later for this. I just hope they are preparing for this.

guiomie 4y ago
Spot on. There is a huge sense of entitlement from SWEs in FAANGs right now, and from the various folks I know at FAANGs, Google is worst since mediocrity and unproductiveness are not confronted because folks are scared of being 'ungoogley'. Every company has its dead weight that others have to carry, I think Google has much more and has been getting away with it because of all its profits coming in.
- whimsicalism 4y ago
  > I think Google has much more and has been getting away with it because of all its profits coming in. My sense would be that Google has such high $ earned / employee compared to other major tech employers it perhaps has less dead-weight.
- cmrdporcupine 4y ago
  Google's definition of productivity is different than yours. In general: Code reviews are strict and long. Style and structure matters more than anywhere else I ever worked. Everything requires extensive testing. You better have a design doc / PRD, some tickets, good commenting, and unit tests. People will happily point out and roast you for any potential bugs, race conditions, deadlocks, bad style, and sloppy work. Mediocrity in this regard is not generally tolerated. The standard of development is much higher. But yes, it's slow. If that's your measure of productivity, they'll fail. Except it doesn't matter because the goal of a SWE at Google is mostly to keep the ship sailing.

dang 4y ago

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32318067 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32318067.