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I think this is more of sliding the levers to keep the earnings good. There was a massive amount of money dumped into the economy over the last couple of years.

I think this is more of sliding the levers to keep the earnings good. There was a massive amount of money dumped into the economy over the last couple of years. Companies produced record earnings, and their stock prices correspondingly increased. Now to keep "growing" they need to decrease spending to keep earnings at the same or higher levels. It is also an opportunity to cut some cruft. A lot of good people get swept up too but most large tech companies have had huge layoffs in the past. They can then cite the necessity to do it as "everyone is having to tighten up" Google could still be profitable without cutting staff, but their profit would drop and be perceived as not "growing"

jbay808 4y ago
I think it's beyond that -- with interest rates rising, companies need to increase earnings or else decrease their expenditures, in order to maintain their valuation.
candiodari 4y ago
I'm not sure about this. Here's WHO is asking for this: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/nov/15/major-investor-calls-on-google-owner-to-aggressively-cut-staff-and-pay https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/nov/15/major-inv... His first argument is bullshit, because Google is effectively debt-free. So Google can choose what to do with its money. He is quite open about that it's simply HIM wanting money: "TCI also called on Alphabet to increase its already substantial share repurchase programme to run down its $116bn of cash, given that large-scale mergers and acquisitions are limited owing to regulatory scrutiny. It urged it to copy Apple’s approach and become “cash neutral” over time." His style described in the article sounds like "corporate raiding" from the 80s. One might point out corporate raiding caused a financial crash ...