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> I need to see these "I take full responsibility" people actually punished. At the very least, this sentence needs to be removed from their mouths. There's s

by jstx1 4y ago

> I need to see these "I take full responsibility" people actually punished. At the very least, this sentence needs to be removed from their mouths. There's some infantile obsession with this phrase in every layoff thread. "I take full responsibility" is partly a polite way to say that they aren't blaming anyone else for what's happening, it partly means "I'm the one making this decision" and it's partly ceremony for the sake of appearances - if you're outraged that the CEO of a multi-billion dollar company is using this language, that's a problem with you, not with them. It's like being indignant when a friend or a colleague replies with "I'm fine, thanks" when they aren't fine, or when they say "I can't complain" when they're in fact capable of complaining - it's perfectly normal language for the situation and it's understandable to anyone who has developed the skill of not taking every word literally.

LaGrange 4y ago
> There's some infantile obsession with this phrase in every layoff thread. "I take full responsibility" is partly a polite way to say that they aren't blaming anyone else for what's happening, it partly means "I'm the one making this decision" and it's partly ceremony for the sake of appearances Yes, we know, on the left we have a word for doing that, it's called "lying." > if you're outraged that the CEO of a multi-billion dollar company is using this language, that's a problem with you, not with them. The point of the comment is that we _should_ make it a _them_ problem. > It's like being indignant when a friend or a colleague replies with "I'm fine, thanks" when they aren't fine, or when they say "I can't complain" when they're in fact capable of complaining - it's perfectly normal language for the situation and it's understandable to anyone who has developed the skill of not taking every word literally. Yeah, sorry, but if someone does white lies and can't communicate, they ain't a friend.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
gmd63 4y ago
The point being made is that there are no negative consequences to being responsible, so it's an empty statement. It doesn't even mean anything. They're making the decision because they're being rewarded for it by maintaining a certain level of profitability in the financial reporting game.
- JumpCrisscross 4y ago
  > they’re making the decision This is what being responsible for something means.
  - ClumsyPilot 4y ago
    Thats what 'Power' means. You've got your dictionaries mixed up
  - hun3 4y ago
    Being responsible means two different things: 1. Causing something. 2. Being held accountable for something, and facing its consequences (e.g. compensating for damage) It's possible that someone can cause something while avoiding its consequences, deferring the responsibility of making up to someone else. This usually happens due to asymmetry of information or power. That said, we cannot say definitely in this particular instance that Sundar could have foreseen the financial circumstances or economic crisis of any kind, and it's also possible that Sundar might resign or get fired in the future as a consequence. Still, one can argue that the phrase "I'm taking full responsibility of [...]" is a bit overused in general, and used in a rhetorical manner without actually meaning it.
    - lexapro 4y ago
      The honest way to phrase this is "I'm the one who caused this." "Responsibility" is ambiguous as you said, and that's exactly why he chose that word.
- itsoktocry 4y ago
  >The point being made is that there are no negative consequences to being responsible What "negative consequences" would you like to see? You want to see executives fired over something like this? How do you think that would affect future hiring practices?
  - RHSeeger 4y ago
    So, if people lower in the totem pole mess up, they should never be fired? Because it might impact future hiring practices? The higher up on the totem pole you are, the less it seems to matter how well you actually do your job.
TomSwirly 4y ago
"If someone lies, it's your problem, not theirs." What sort of argument is that?! They are not "taking responsibility" to the slightest degree. It's an empty, enraging statement like, "Thoughts and prayers."
- JumpCrisscross 4y ago
  > are not "taking responsibility" to the slightest degree They’re not atoning to the internet’s satisfaction. But they are taking responsibility by saying as much. The infantilism charge is accurate. Taking responsibility doesn’t require symbolic atonement like standing in a corner. Recognition is sufficient. If they deleted that line, would anyone be satisfied?
  - mcv 4y ago
    What does responsibility mean without consequences? The consequences here are all for people who bear none of the responsibility.
- b112 4y ago
  The problem is, you do not like their actions. And that's perfectly fine! However, no matter what they say here, what platitudes, what attempts to comfort(or lack!), you will still find fault with the words. Stop complaining about the words, and people will stop arguing with you over them. The words are unimportant. Instead, complain solely about the act, leave the words out of it.
- darkerside 4y ago
  Empty? Yes. Enraging? That's your personal choice.
SilverBirch 4y ago
It's because of an asymmetry in role. As a normal employee when you are "responsible" for something you are fired if you fuck it up. You face consequences. Highlighting the fact that Sundar is responsible for this is saying two things- yes they were his decisions and it's his job to get them right, but secondly, he's going to face no consequences for getting that decision wrong. Instead, the employees- who clearly aren't responsible are going to face the consequences. So it points to a broken system, for the masses, you take responsibility and you take the consequences, for the elite you take the "responsibility" but the masses will still face the consequences.
- rwmj 4y ago
  Wall St usually looks at cost reductions favourably, so his share options will likely go up making him many more millions. Those are the consequences for him. (Edit: Before the obvious replies of "but but Google stock is already down 30%", the whole market is down over the last year.)
  - roland35 4y ago
    This was a point that was brought up after the Meta layoffs. Yes the executives lost a lot of money before the layoffs - but they also benefited the most from the post layoff bounce! And none of them were laid off…
- Chris2048 4y ago
  > it's his job to get them right But he didn't say he got it wrong.
  - lexapro 4y ago
    >To match and fuel that growth, we hired for a different economic reality than the one we face today. He kinda did.
    - hgsgm 4y ago
      That's implying that he never intended these at-will employees to have tenure beyond the short term.
nindalf 4y ago
The best part about people who take every word literally and demand punishment is that no punishment will ever satisfy all of them. It wouldn’t matter if Sundar took a pay cut (like Tim Cook) because the same people would say he’s still worth hundreds of millions. It wouldn’t matter if he fired himself because there would be some other, equally fallible human being in the same role that he vacated. That person would be capable of making the same mistake Sundar did. Have these people never worked in a real organisation where people make mistakes? When an engineer causes an incident, we fixed it and then did a review to understand how we can improve the process to prevent such an incident in future. We didn’t point fingers, we didn’t demand punishment. Here’s the thing - Sundar is still probably the best person to helm Google, despite this mistake. In fact, a person who has had to lay off thousands will definitely think twice before going on a hiring spree in future. Exactly the sort of person you want in charge.
- discreteevent 4y ago
  > In fact, a person who has had to lay off thousands will definitely think twice before going on a hiring spree in future. Exactly the sort of person you want in charge. How about someone who doesn't have to lay off thousands to before they figure this out? Someone with imagination and foresight? Maybe they would be more of an exact match.
  - nindalf 4y ago
    Yes, I’d love to find the person who has never made a mistake to be the CEO. Undoubtedly you must be speaking from personal experience of being infallible?
- js8 4y ago
  Personally, I don't see taking a paycut or leaving a position of power to be "taking a responsibility". The baseline for ordinary people is not to be in the position of power or not to have a high salary. If you just reduce to the baseline, it's not really a punishment. Incompetent people shouldn't get the privileged position in the first place, so thinking of losing it as a punishment is absurd.
achow 4y ago
Also to add to your point, this "I" is very specific as opposed to "we leadership", it is out there in public. Board and/or shareholder can use this to cut Sundar's salary/bonus or whatever that is personal to him. Theoretically, this statement can also be used to fire or demote him, or sue him and not Google. All hypothetical I know, but he easily could have used some other non-committal words.
Ralfp 4y ago
It’s because guy „taking full responsibility” will still be able to carry on whith his life like nothing happened, having financial security for him and everybody in his family to live off the interest of his bank for generations, and people he just laid off will now need to wonder how many weeks or months will their savings last them before they can find a next gig letting them maintain their living. Or maybe thats impossible and they’ll have to relocate somewhere cheaper, potentially uprooting all their and their partnere and kids life and trying elsewhere?
- itsoktocry 4y ago
  >It’s because guy „taking full responsibility” will still be able to carry on whith his life like nothing happened Why is it that some people believe that people reach some level of success and become inhuman, robotic automatons? He had to fire a bunch of people. Have you ever had to fire someone? It sucks. I'm sure he's not happy about it. What else do you expect him to say or do? >having financial security for him and everybody in his family to live off the interest of his bank for generations If we're going to play the game of relative wealth, I don't think you're going to find much sympathy for the laid-off Google engineers; these people aren't going to be at the food bank any time soon.
  - Ralfp 4y ago
    > He had to fire a bunch of people. Have you ever had to fire someone? It sucks. He didn't fire anybody. He reduced a number in a spreadsheet. This is Dunbar's number at work: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunbar%27s_number https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunbar%27s_number
  - lexapro 4y ago
    Happy no, but he didn't fire them because he had to. He fired them because that's what's expected of a CEO, maximizing shareholder value. You know, he could have fired 11k instead of 12k. I'm sure he sleeps just fine and would have also been okay with 15k.
  - pessimizer 4y ago
    > I'm sure he's not happy about it. Why is it that some people make up internal states for people that they've never met? He may have fought for months internally in order to lay off 12K people. He may be disappointed to the point of despair that it wasn't 20K, as he may have originally recommended. Being against making up callousness shouldn't be responded to by making up concern.
ClumsyPilot 4y ago
> you're outraged that the CEO of a multi-billion dollar company is using this language, that's a problem with you, not with them Not so long ago, if you got raped, it was your problem, not the rapists. No saying the situations are identical, but the language used is equivalent and so is the logical rigour behind both statemets.
smcl 4y ago
What's "infantile" about it?
- fullshark 4y ago
  Thinking words mean things and aren't just tools of manipulation is childish.
jsiepkes 4y ago
> it's perfectly normal language for the situation and it's understandable to anyone who has developed the skill of not taking every word literally. That's imposing US cultural norms on the rest of the world.
- phpisthebest 4y ago
  Given that we are talking about a US Citizen working as a CEO of US Company...
  - jsiepkes 4y ago
    So all of those 12K people are going to be in US offices? Noone outside of the US is going to get fired?
tryagainynot 4y ago
You're right, what they should say is, "Mea culpa! You just lost your house, your family will have to uproot its life, your credit rating is about to be ruined and we booted your ass out in the worst tech job market in a decade. The good news is I can still afford two buy a new private G40 this year! Wahoo!"
- allarm 4y ago
  > You just lost your house, your family will have to uproot its life, your credit rating is about to be ruined Except nothing of this happened to me when I was laid off in 2020. And I was not making 500k/y, not even close. I have full sympathy to those who are getting laid off now, but I assume googlers will be fine.
  - tryagainynot 4y ago
    Yes, this is called survivorship bias. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias
    - allarm 4y ago
      My point is that a person who earns 500k/y and have Google in their resume will most likely suffer much less than many many others. Too much drama about it honestly.
    - Sebb767 4y ago
      If anything, it's actually a faulty generalization: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faulty_generalization https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faulty_generalization
  - pessimizer 4y ago
    [flagged]
    - allarm 4y ago
      Being laid off and being shot is not even remotely comparable.
andyjohnson0 4y ago
> perfectly normal language for the situation and it's understandable to anyone who has developed the skill of not taking every word literally. I think that depends on how you view the situation. If you see it as twelve thousand people have just had their personal and financial circumstances very significantly disrupted, then this choice of language is very much not normal. I suspect that most normal people would be of the view that taking personal responsibility for such a damaging act would normally be accompanied by actually demonstrating some personal contrition, or accepting a sanction of some kind. I don't think that this pov is infantile or indignant. If you see it as an exercise in cost reduction then I guess the way it is expressed is pretty normal - but only because abstracting-out the human consequences of such business decisions has been intentionally normalised by corporations. I suspect what Pichai is really saying here is that he accepts responsibility for the hiring decision because he is taking credit for the firing decision. It's as simple as that. For him, at least.
lr4444lr 4y ago
No, it's more like a soft version of the Monty Python line: "Some of you will die ... but that's a sacrifice I am prepared to make!" Saying you "take responsibility" is hollow if you don't suffer at all for your alleged failure.
- evan_ 4y ago
  > the Monty Python line: "Some of you will die ... but that's a sacrifice I am prepared to make!" That’s from Shrek
speakfreely 4y ago
> it's understandable to anyone who has developed the skill of not taking every word literally. HN is going to be a tough place for you. A mild, undiagnosed case of autism is not uncommon around here and a non-trivial amount of people seem to mistake that as some superpower for "seeing things how they really are".
- ethbr0 4y ago
  > undiagnosed case of autism Autism is actually... (/s; couldn't resist; your points are absolutely true)
prettyStandard 4y ago
I'm more inclined to agree with parent for the reasons stated by child. I would be more impressed if they did something like this: 1. internally decide we need to trim the fat 2. Announce the problem and what they need to target, and give the employees a deadline to hit that target 3. Encourage employees to look for new jobs on the job 4. or encourage people to take early retirement 4. or take the plunge on starting their own startup, 5. or let them switch to part time even. I'm sure many of these people are married and switch to their spouses insurance. They all have Google on their resume, it's not going to take long. These companies are the top of the food chain, they could at least act like it. This turns it back into every other business problem we solve day in and day out. The big dogs at the top are the deciders, and the ones at the bottom are the do'ers.
Nullabillity 4y ago
Saying "I'm fine" when you aren't doesn't usually involve abruptly robbing thousands of people of their livelihoods.
PaulHoule 4y ago
I would like to see him take responsibility for the Google Pay fiasco. Here you have a perfectly good payments system, but between some combination of FOMO and reverse imperialism (writers like E.F. Schumacher have talked about inappropriate developed world technologies failing in the developing world, here is an example of the opposite) they wrecked it for themselves and their users. I'd like to see some responsibility taken for this.

by jstx1 4y ago

LaGrange 4y ago

> There's some infantile obsession with this phrase in every layoff thread. "I take full responsibility" is partly a polite way to say that they aren't blaming anyone else for what's happening, it partly means "I'm the one making this decision" and it's partly ceremony for the sake of appearances Yes, we know, on the left we have a word for doing that, it's called "lying." > if you're outraged that the CEO of a multi-billion dollar company is using this language, that's a problem with you, not with them. The point of the comment is that we _should_ make it a _them_ problem. > It's like being indignant when a friend or a colleague replies with "I'm fine, thanks" when they aren't fine, or when they say "I can't complain" when they're in fact capable of complaining - it's perfectly normal language for the situation and it's understandable to anyone who has developed the skill of not taking every word literally. Yeah, sorry, but if someone does white lies and can't communicate, they ain't a friend.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

gmd63 4y ago

The point being made is that there are no negative consequences to being responsible, so it's an empty statement. It doesn't even mean anything. They're making the decision because they're being rewarded for it by maintaining a certain level of profitability in the financial reporting game.

JumpCrisscross 4y ago
> they’re making the decision This is what being responsible for something means.
- ClumsyPilot 4y ago
  Thats what 'Power' means. You've got your dictionaries mixed up
- hun3 4y ago
  Being responsible means two different things: 1. Causing something. 2. Being held accountable for something, and facing its consequences (e.g. compensating for damage) It's possible that someone can cause something while avoiding its consequences, deferring the responsibility of making up to someone else. This usually happens due to asymmetry of information or power. That said, we cannot say definitely in this particular instance that Sundar could have foreseen the financial circumstances or economic crisis of any kind, and it's also possible that Sundar might resign or get fired in the future as a consequence. Still, one can argue that the phrase "I'm taking full responsibility of [...]" is a bit overused in general, and used in a rhetorical manner without actually meaning it.
  - lexapro 4y ago
    The honest way to phrase this is "I'm the one who caused this." "Responsibility" is ambiguous as you said, and that's exactly why he chose that word.
itsoktocry 4y ago
>The point being made is that there are no negative consequences to being responsible What "negative consequences" would you like to see? You want to see executives fired over something like this? How do you think that would affect future hiring practices?
- RHSeeger 4y ago
  So, if people lower in the totem pole mess up, they should never be fired? Because it might impact future hiring practices? The higher up on the totem pole you are, the less it seems to matter how well you actually do your job.

TomSwirly 4y ago

"If someone lies, it's your problem, not theirs." What sort of argument is that?! They are not "taking responsibility" to the slightest degree. It's an empty, enraging statement like, "Thoughts and prayers."

JumpCrisscross 4y ago
> are not "taking responsibility" to the slightest degree They’re not atoning to the internet’s satisfaction. But they are taking responsibility by saying as much. The infantilism charge is accurate. Taking responsibility doesn’t require symbolic atonement like standing in a corner. Recognition is sufficient. If they deleted that line, would anyone be satisfied?
- mcv 4y ago
  What does responsibility mean without consequences? The consequences here are all for people who bear none of the responsibility.
b112 4y ago
The problem is, you do not like their actions. And that's perfectly fine! However, no matter what they say here, what platitudes, what attempts to comfort(or lack!), you will still find fault with the words. Stop complaining about the words, and people will stop arguing with you over them. The words are unimportant. Instead, complain solely about the act, leave the words out of it.
darkerside 4y ago
Empty? Yes. Enraging? That's your personal choice.

SilverBirch 4y ago

It's because of an asymmetry in role. As a normal employee when you are "responsible" for something you are fired if you fuck it up. You face consequences. Highlighting the fact that Sundar is responsible for this is saying two things- yes they were his decisions and it's his job to get them right, but secondly, he's going to face no consequences for getting that decision wrong. Instead, the employees- who clearly aren't responsible are going to face the consequences. So it points to a broken system, for the masses, you take responsibility and you take the consequences, for the elite you take the "responsibility" but the masses will still face the consequences.

rwmj 4y ago
Wall St usually looks at cost reductions favourably, so his share options will likely go up making him many more millions. Those are the consequences for him. (Edit: Before the obvious replies of "but but Google stock is already down 30%", the whole market is down over the last year.)
- roland35 4y ago
  This was a point that was brought up after the Meta layoffs. Yes the executives lost a lot of money before the layoffs - but they also benefited the most from the post layoff bounce! And none of them were laid off…
Chris2048 4y ago
> it's his job to get them right But he didn't say he got it wrong.
- lexapro 4y ago
  >To match and fuel that growth, we hired for a different economic reality than the one we face today. He kinda did.
  - hgsgm 4y ago
    That's implying that he never intended these at-will employees to have tenure beyond the short term.

nindalf 4y ago

The best part about people who take every word literally and demand punishment is that no punishment will ever satisfy all of them. It wouldn’t matter if Sundar took a pay cut (like Tim Cook) because the same people would say he’s still worth hundreds of millions. It wouldn’t matter if he fired himself because there would be some other, equally fallible human being in the same role that he vacated. That person would be capable of making the same mistake Sundar did. Have these people never worked in a real organisation where people make mistakes? When an engineer causes an incident, we fixed it and then did a review to understand how we can improve the process to prevent such an incident in future. We didn’t point fingers, we didn’t demand punishment. Here’s the thing - Sundar is still probably the best person to helm Google, despite this mistake. In fact, a person who has had to lay off thousands will definitely think twice before going on a hiring spree in future. Exactly the sort of person you want in charge.

discreteevent 4y ago
> In fact, a person who has had to lay off thousands will definitely think twice before going on a hiring spree in future. Exactly the sort of person you want in charge. How about someone who doesn't have to lay off thousands to before they figure this out? Someone with imagination and foresight? Maybe they would be more of an exact match.
- nindalf 4y ago
  Yes, I’d love to find the person who has never made a mistake to be the CEO. Undoubtedly you must be speaking from personal experience of being infallible?
js8 4y ago
Personally, I don't see taking a paycut or leaving a position of power to be "taking a responsibility". The baseline for ordinary people is not to be in the position of power or not to have a high salary. If you just reduce to the baseline, it's not really a punishment. Incompetent people shouldn't get the privileged position in the first place, so thinking of losing it as a punishment is absurd.

achow 4y ago

Also to add to your point, this "I" is very specific as opposed to "we leadership", it is out there in public. Board and/or shareholder can use this to cut Sundar's salary/bonus or whatever that is personal to him. Theoretically, this statement can also be used to fire or demote him, or sue him and not Google. All hypothetical I know, but he easily could have used some other non-committal words.

Ralfp 4y ago

It’s because guy „taking full responsibility” will still be able to carry on whith his life like nothing happened, having financial security for him and everybody in his family to live off the interest of his bank for generations, and people he just laid off will now need to wonder how many weeks or months will their savings last them before they can find a next gig letting them maintain their living. Or maybe thats impossible and they’ll have to relocate somewhere cheaper, potentially uprooting all their and their partnere and kids life and trying elsewhere?

itsoktocry 4y ago
>It’s because guy „taking full responsibility” will still be able to carry on whith his life like nothing happened Why is it that some people believe that people reach some level of success and become inhuman, robotic automatons? He had to fire a bunch of people. Have you ever had to fire someone? It sucks. I'm sure he's not happy about it. What else do you expect him to say or do? >having financial security for him and everybody in his family to live off the interest of his bank for generations If we're going to play the game of relative wealth, I don't think you're going to find much sympathy for the laid-off Google engineers; these people aren't going to be at the food bank any time soon.
- Ralfp 4y ago
  > He had to fire a bunch of people. Have you ever had to fire someone? It sucks. He didn't fire anybody. He reduced a number in a spreadsheet. This is Dunbar's number at work: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunbar%27s_number https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunbar%27s_number
- lexapro 4y ago
  Happy no, but he didn't fire them because he had to. He fired them because that's what's expected of a CEO, maximizing shareholder value. You know, he could have fired 11k instead of 12k. I'm sure he sleeps just fine and would have also been okay with 15k.
- pessimizer 4y ago
  > I'm sure he's not happy about it. Why is it that some people make up internal states for people that they've never met? He may have fought for months internally in order to lay off 12K people. He may be disappointed to the point of despair that it wasn't 20K, as he may have originally recommended. Being against making up callousness shouldn't be responded to by making up concern.

ClumsyPilot 4y ago

> you're outraged that the CEO of a multi-billion dollar company is using this language, that's a problem with you, not with them Not so long ago, if you got raped, it was your problem, not the rapists. No saying the situations are identical, but the language used is equivalent and so is the logical rigour behind both statemets.

smcl 4y ago

What's "infantile" about it?

fullshark 4y ago
Thinking words mean things and aren't just tools of manipulation is childish.

jsiepkes 4y ago

> it's perfectly normal language for the situation and it's understandable to anyone who has developed the skill of not taking every word literally. That's imposing US cultural norms on the rest of the world.

phpisthebest 4y ago
Given that we are talking about a US Citizen working as a CEO of US Company...
- jsiepkes 4y ago
  So all of those 12K people are going to be in US offices? Noone outside of the US is going to get fired?

tryagainynot 4y ago

You're right, what they should say is, "Mea culpa! You just lost your house, your family will have to uproot its life, your credit rating is about to be ruined and we booted your ass out in the worst tech job market in a decade. The good news is I can still afford two buy a new private G40 this year! Wahoo!"

allarm 4y ago
> You just lost your house, your family will have to uproot its life, your credit rating is about to be ruined Except nothing of this happened to me when I was laid off in 2020. And I was not making 500k/y, not even close. I have full sympathy to those who are getting laid off now, but I assume googlers will be fine.
- tryagainynot 4y ago
  Yes, this is called survivorship bias. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias
  - allarm 4y ago
    My point is that a person who earns 500k/y and have Google in their resume will most likely suffer much less than many many others. Too much drama about it honestly.
  - Sebb767 4y ago
    If anything, it's actually a faulty generalization: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faulty_generalization https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faulty_generalization
- pessimizer 4y ago
  [flagged]
  - allarm 4y ago
    Being laid off and being shot is not even remotely comparable.

andyjohnson0 4y ago

> perfectly normal language for the situation and it's understandable to anyone who has developed the skill of not taking every word literally. I think that depends on how you view the situation. If you see it as twelve thousand people have just had their personal and financial circumstances very significantly disrupted, then this choice of language is very much not normal. I suspect that most normal people would be of the view that taking personal responsibility for such a damaging act would normally be accompanied by actually demonstrating some personal contrition, or accepting a sanction of some kind. I don't think that this pov is infantile or indignant. If you see it as an exercise in cost reduction then I guess the way it is expressed is pretty normal - but only because abstracting-out the human consequences of such business decisions has been intentionally normalised by corporations. I suspect what Pichai is really saying here is that he accepts responsibility for the hiring decision because he is taking credit for the firing decision. It's as simple as that. For him, at least.

lr4444lr 4y ago

No, it's more like a soft version of the Monty Python line: "Some of you will die ... but that's a sacrifice I am prepared to make!" Saying you "take responsibility" is hollow if you don't suffer at all for your alleged failure.

evan_ 4y ago
> the Monty Python line: "Some of you will die ... but that's a sacrifice I am prepared to make!" That’s from Shrek

speakfreely 4y ago

> it's understandable to anyone who has developed the skill of not taking every word literally. HN is going to be a tough place for you. A mild, undiagnosed case of autism is not uncommon around here and a non-trivial amount of people seem to mistake that as some superpower for "seeing things how they really are".

ethbr0 4y ago
> undiagnosed case of autism Autism is actually... (/s; couldn't resist; your points are absolutely true)

prettyStandard 4y ago

I'm more inclined to agree with parent for the reasons stated by child. I would be more impressed if they did something like this: 1. internally decide we need to trim the fat 2. Announce the problem and what they need to target, and give the employees a deadline to hit that target 3. Encourage employees to look for new jobs on the job 4. or encourage people to take early retirement 4. or take the plunge on starting their own startup, 5. or let them switch to part time even. I'm sure many of these people are married and switch to their spouses insurance. They all have Google on their resume, it's not going to take long. These companies are the top of the food chain, they could at least act like it. This turns it back into every other business problem we solve day in and day out. The big dogs at the top are the deciders, and the ones at the bottom are the do'ers.

Nullabillity 4y ago

Saying "I'm fine" when you aren't doesn't usually involve abruptly robbing thousands of people of their livelihoods.

PaulHoule 4y ago

I would like to see him take responsibility for the Google Pay fiasco. Here you have a perfectly good payments system, but between some combination of FOMO and reverse imperialism (writers like E.F. Schumacher have talked about inappropriate developed world technologies failing in the developing world, here is an example of the opposite) they wrecked it for themselves and their users. I'd like to see some responsibility taken for this.