17 ms·

Letter to Sundar Pichai from TCI Fund Management [pdf]

152 points by Jcowell 4y ago

dippydipdips 4y ago
This seems to be removed from the front page. I see the title has changed from “Show HN: Letter…” to just “Letter”, but given the topic and it’s popularity, I’m a little surprised.
isthisthingon99 4y ago
These type of investors have been chomping at the bit to do this for about a decade. I sort of knew it was coming which is why I transitioned to become a trader of capital rather than a trader of my time. That being said, the salaries will still be great, just not "I make more than a surgeon" great.
- eshack94 4y ago
  What do you do these days?
  - isthisthingon99 4y ago
    Mostly, I try to be a better person. For a living, I trade futures and do contract software dev work.
- albertopv 4y ago
  US FAANG IT salaries are insane, well beyond normal, especially compared to european ones. I know these companies made an insane amount of money, but still they were outrageous.
  - isthisthingon99 4y ago
    Here is the thing... Person A and B create system X that is responsible for some % increase in revenue. Person A and B should be compensated well, so they don't go over there and create system Y. Especially given the FTC might be clamping down on non-competes, this is a plausible scenario. Person A and B eventually tired of maintaining system X, so they bring in new people. The new people, once they have earned the trust of persons A and B are now the successors. The successors should also be paid well for the same reasons. Scale this up, and you get the salaries. I know this because I spent my career becoming the new persons A and B, and the bean counters always hated people like me. The salaries are thus well deserved, but that is why the companies are trying to create electronic slaves that can be driven by a few persons A and B.
    - albertopv 4y ago
      That worked for big american tech companies only thanks to the insane amount of money they made, also thanks to the de facto oligopoly they have. Alphabet inc alone made 70B of net income in 2021. I know no other market like this.
  - pfarrell 4y ago
    Outrageous salaries are part of FAAMG’s* moat. It’s very hard to lure a googler away to your startup when you can only afford to pay them half their current salary. And even if said googler is interested, their lifestyle is now depends on that salary. * I don’t count Netflix as in league with the others
- ticviking 4y ago
  The basic problem of supply and demand for skilled labor doesn’t go away. This may make talent at the top end more tolerant of risks and willing to dive in and try and disrupt a company facing the inevitable morale and operational challenges that come after layoffs
  - isthisthingon99 4y ago
    Agreed. They are not letting go of major contributors. Note that this is not the same as "top talent". Leetcode is not that important.
saos 4y ago
150k headcount reduction ? Are they crazy? Edit: haha my bad. I was too furious reading the letter. Hate billionaires and their influence tbh.
- hestefisk 4y ago
  I think he meant reduce headcount to 150K, which would be approx 20% reduction. I hope this guy sleeps well at night.
- meindnoch 4y ago
  to 150k not by 150k
- doikor 4y ago
  Reduction to 150k. So around 38k reduction (so roughly 25k in addition to the already announced 12k)
- scotty79 4y ago
  Why did Alphabet acquired 30k employees in 2022? Why 100k over last 5 years? What do those people do? What marvels Google is working on?
  - sarchertech 4y ago
    Alphabet is actually working on some marvels. But mostly trying to find another cash printing machine before their current one runs out.
    - ysopex 4y ago
      They're giving the appearance that they're working on marvels. Given the amount of raw human intelligence they've hired over the years and the profoundly underwhelming output of the organization it's pretty clear it's was an illusion to trap investors.
      - sarchertech 4y ago
naijaboiler 4y ago
wow. the hubris and inhumanity. How can someone who isn't running the company day-to-day purport to know exactly what staffing levels ought to be. Also why is a billionaire begrudging people for making 300k/ year. wow hopefully this letter is fake
- cloutchaser 4y ago
  The headcount in tech recently grew way faster than the rest of the economy, and faster than the companies growth as well. As you get bigger headcount shouldn’t necessarily rise by more than the company is growing, which is what happened. In a full blown recession going back to the headcount of 2 years ago isn’t exactly some Gordon gecko capitalist evil. It’s pretty reasonable. Especially as it seems most tech companies are culling admin and hr staff, which is not where value is being created.
  - jacquesm 4y ago
    I disagree. I think that companies should have a strong obligation to back their employees during downturns otherwise it is just another form of externalization: make the profits when you can and saddle society with the costs when you can't. That leads to more and more wealth inequality.
    - cloutchaser 4y ago
      You could argue your point the other way round. When times were good these companies clearly overemployed staff. That is very unfair to investors. Cutting back at this time finally prioritizes investor goals, and it’s pretty minimal anyway. Not to mention the insane benefits these employees get, these are the best employers in the world. It’s clear employee happiness was much more important during good times than any investor sentiment. Investors just shut up as the business was still growing.
      - jacquesm 4y ago
        There is very little that a CEO can do that is unfair to investors short of defrauding them on purpose. Investors are a rule are smart enough to realize that they - by virtue of being 'passive' - allow people that know more about the business to run it. Back seat drivers are hardly ever welcome as investors, if you're that good you should go and run another company, surely that's a better use of your talent then than to try to run a diversified fund.
rel2thr 4y ago
I respect his point of view and also the point of view that says a highly profitable company doesn’t need layoffs. The middle ground that sundar took is weird I really don’t get the purpose of such a small layoff. Kills employee morale and doesn’t move the needle on costs
- scotty79 4y ago
  I guess it's more about sending the message to squeeze the rest.
  - yebyen 4y ago
    I think that. I am definitely feeling the squeeze myself. I don't like that this works but I cannot deny that it worked on me. Edit: I do not work at Google, can't say much about myself and my own situation more than what I've already shared here, but it seems that every company is going through this now.
- YLYvYkHeB2NRNT 4y ago
  Have a brief look on TikTok to see those showing their "work day" that's just goofing off.
  - kevingadd 4y ago
    Ah yes, one or two TikTok videos means that thousands of people at a company aren't working hard. Get real.
  - autophagian 4y ago
    Are you expecting people on tiktok to post videos of their actual workday of "Sat behind a screen for 8 hours, tapping on a keyboard"? I get its a bad look, but people purposefully curate their images and lives on social media platforms to look more fun/exciting/interesting than they actually are.
    - YLYvYkHeB2NRNT 4y ago
adrianmsmith 4y ago
This should not have "Show HN:" in the title: https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html
- ignoramous 4y ago
  >> Show HN is for something you've made that other people can play with. HN users can try it out, give you feedback, and ask questions in the thread. This would be a Show HN only when billionaire investor Chirstopher Hohn [0] himself posts this. If not, this perhaps is a Tell HN. [0] https://archive.is/8oghg https://archive.is/8oghg
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- Jcowell 4y ago
  Ah sorry!
Werewolf255 4y ago
"And another thing, employees keep using up a full allotment of oxygen every day. Consider half portions or cutting breathing gasses out of the budget entirely."
- jacquesm 4y ago
  The future according to Musk.
  - whamlastxmas 4y ago
    And Trump, am I right? Glad we can keep these two accountable regardless of context
- camgunz 4y ago
  "Due to supply chain issues, oxygen prices are at a decades-long peak. Consider mixing up to 30% CO2; also tout your commitment to combating climate change."
- manuelabeledo 4y ago
  "I lost a lot of money I put on Google stocks, someone else must pay for the consequences of my actions!"
- gus_massa 4y ago
  Note that this sentence does not apear in the pdf. Using quotes to post it here is confusing.
fbrncci 4y ago
Reducing headcount growth to a level 2 years ago, doesn't really sound that crazy in a recession. Also, headcount in tech, grew at a ridiculous fast pace over the past 3-4 years only. All these lay-offs aren't really surprising to me. What is surprising is the amount of people actually being surprised.
- gumby 4y ago
  What recession?
  - broast 4y ago
    The actual technical recession that started in Summer 2022 and then ended the next quarter could still have lingering effects, couldn't it?
    - bregma 4y ago
      A recession is defined as three consecutive quarters of negative growth. A single quarter of negative growth doe not meet that definition. Even technically.
      - rvz 4y ago
        > A recession is defined as three consecutive quarters of negative growth. Source?
        gumby 4y ago
        Generally, two succesive quarters, though the official determination in the US is made by the NBER https://www.bea.gov/help/glossary/recession https://www.bea.gov/help/glossary/recession
        rvz 4y ago
        > Generally, two succesive quarters, Exactly. There is no source for the unsubstantiated 'three successive quarters' claim. > though the official determination in the US is made by the NBER I would not wait for an entity to determine and tell us if it is too late. Hence why businesses are preparing now, even when they should have done in November 2021. And of course, I am not saying this in hindsight either, since the warning signs were there in [0] and finally when it happened [1]. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29508238 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29508238 [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33185591 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33185591
seanhunter 4y ago
You can see how important the salary reductions are by the fact Chris Hohn pays himself a mere 1m GBP per day. This man had the highest salary of anyone in the UK. https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/mar/05/the-very-private-life-of-the-man-on-britains-biggest-salary?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/mar/05/the-very-pr...
- doix 4y ago
  When I read your comment, I assumed he actually had a 365 million salary, which would be amazing. He'd be paying 50% tax on the majority of that. I'd actually give him some respect for that, actually paying tax "fairly" and not optimizing. But no, it's not his salary, it's dividends.
  - cloutchaser 4y ago
    Dividends are taxed at the same percent as income in the Uk. So he is paying a lot on that. Unless he isn’t resident in the Uk. Which I don’t know.
    - millennialmind 4y ago
      It is likely that the shares are held by a family trust or an offshore company registered in another jurisdiction, rather than being held personally by him. Although I am not familiar with the UK's tax laws, in other countries, loopholes exist that allow for taxable income from dividends of shares held personally to be reduced or eliminated through capital loss and depreciation deductions.
    - swarnie 4y ago
      Last i checked he was a non-dom....
    - seanhunter 4y ago
      I don't know anything about his tax arrangements but he lives in South Kensington (in London) I think. I seem to recall reading about one of those classic South Ken arguments with neighbours because of him building a basement swimming pool or something. He's our Prime Minister's old boss as well. Rishi Sunak used to work for TCI[1]. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/mar/08/rishi-sunak-took-part-in-controversial-us-corporate-raid-case https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/mar/08/rishi-sunak...
mkl95 4y ago
> The median salary at Alphabet in 2021 amounted to nearly $300000 Let's say the average salary of the 12k people they just fired was $300000. That's 3.6bn a year. Last time I checked Alphabet were burning ~180bn a year. I'm not saying 3.6bn is pocket change, but how is such a small % supposed to make a difference? For comparison, they were fined ~4bn in Europe recently.
- rubidium 4y ago
  2% improvement in opex. Demonstrating ability to trim staff without affecting revenue. Both matter to investors.
  - j16sdiz 4y ago
    > Demonstrating ability to trim staff without affecting revenue. That is, demonstrating the business was suboptimal? This is awarding incompetent.
    - cies 4y ago
      sub optimal for what? in a boom market you optimize for growth: spend some more to be ready to take on the next big thing. with a looming recession you optimize differently. basically they are showing they are prioritizing according to changing climate
      - phkahler 4y ago
        Funny. I interviewed at a company that doubled down on development in a downturn and subsequently ate their competitors when things came back. Maybe it's just doing what investors want, or using that as an excuse to trim some fat. But when you're profitable I'm not sure it actually makes sense to slow down just because the economy has.
    - matwood 4y ago
      C'mon. Suboptimal would be having staff be off by 20%-30%-50%. Google laid off what - 6%? It's terrible for the people laid off, but from a company standpoint that falls within normal fluctuation range.
sklargh 4y ago
Some of finance is valuable, it creates the opportunity to transform money over time. This isn’t finance, just a rent seeking guppy casually trying to move the Overton window on 20,000 families.
- valdiorn 4y ago
  How is it "rent seeking" to state the fact that Alphabet has too many employees, and is overpaying them. It's been a continuing meme on hacker news for the last decade, that Google/alphabet hoover up all the talent in the market and pay them "f*ck you money" with golden handcuff stock vesting schedules, in order to keep them off the job market and out of competitor's hands. that's been the understanding of the situation for 10 years. Alphabet has hoovered up some 180+ small businesses that threaten their monopolies over the last decade, only to throw away all the IP and bench the employees, just to keep their markets intact. Those are things to be upset about, and much more serious and manipulative business practices. Don't be upset that an investor has just pointed out Alphabet's bullshit and wants them to course correct, now that the free money has dried up, and you can no longer afford to feed an army of useless rest'n'vest employees. And the Overton window has absolutely nothing to do with this conversation.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- prox 4y ago
  What is interesting is that value creation isn’t discussed at all in the letter or comments. That would be a far more interesting cross section of Google to discuss.
auctoritas 4y ago
Twitter laying off 75% and still running fine is the elephant in the room here... How could investors see that and not agitate for more layoffs?
- CPLX 4y ago
  If American Airlines fired their heavy maintenance and aircraft purchasing divisions the planes wouldn’t just fall out of the sky.
- doikor 4y ago
  You don't have the headcount to keep the service(s) running. You have the headcount to develop new features and services. It still remains to be seen how the reduction will effect Twitter in the long term.
  - rubidium 4y ago
    No established company invests 75% of their people into new features and services. There was definitely bloat. The degree of bloat is the unknown.
    - kevingadd 4y ago
      There's always bloat somewhere, but some of that bloat is there to allow your company to weather unexpected occurrences. Sure you have two extra SREs you don't "need", and your HR department might be slightly overstaffed. But then one critical employee gets cancer and is off work for 6 months, and another employee has to go on maternity leave, and you don't have any extra employees in that department anymore. Hope you didn't fire your bloat!
  - emoII 4y ago
    Perhaps they should only have headcount to keep the service running. Twitters value proposition is still exactly the same as it was 10 years ago, and removing any new features since would not be noticed by most. Developing new features once the initial success has come could be considered making it worse if anything (e.g. reddit). Isn't the lack of new features one of the reasons we like HN?
anticristi 4y ago
I'm a bit unsure how to interpret these layoffs. Are they a consequence of recession? Or are they a consequence of recent anti-AdTech GDPR rulings? I'm referring to the recent fine applied to Facebook. The ruling is long, but TL;DR would be as follows: It will become impossible to pay with privacy in the EU. My crystal ball is as good as yours, but I guess this will significantly squeeze AdTech. I wouldn't be surprised if AdTech revenue, valuation and salaries drops to whatever "good" IT companies make these days.
Scubabear68 4y ago
Background on TCI and Hohn: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Children%27s_Investment_Fund_Management https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Children%27s_Investment_...
- lnsru 4y ago
  Thanks for the link. Simply disgusting.
  - b-team 4y ago
    What’s disgusting about it? I do not see anything objectionable in the Wikipedia article.
    - przemub 4y ago
      The fact that they kept the name implying they are a charity?
      - sz4kerto 4y ago
        Hm, one of the largest pension funds in the UK is Scottish Widows.
    - lnsru 4y ago
      Sure. Another very ethical charitable company.
donutloop 4y ago
Is this legal? Can we sue this guy?
- lotsofpulp 4y ago
  Why would it be illegal to express an opinion?
- SamWhited 4y ago
  Yes, sadly, there is nothing illegal about being a giant pile of <moderators will ban me for continuing this sentence>. Instead of suing, unionize and take a bit of the power we all ceded to the hedge fund managers back. It won't make things perfect, but at least you'll have federal protections and Weingarten rights and the like and the ability to push back and have the tiniest bit of power in your work place.
Scubabear68 4y ago
More detailed letter sent two months ago: https://www.tcifund.com/files/corporateengageement/alphabet/15th%20November%202022.pdf https://www.tcifund.com/files/corporateengageement/alphabet/...
sz4kerto 4y ago
Why do people view this with such vile? He's a shareholder, and he's in because he thinks the company will make lots of money. We should decide whether we like free market capitalism or not. What this guy is doing is very much the core of free market capitalism. He's also not doing something inhumane - it's not about funding new sweatshops or something, it's about not paying extremely high salaries to people if there's no need. I know we're mostly well-paid tech workers here on HN, and I think we're all a bit scared that power balance might change a bit. I get that - but it doesn't make this action that despicable in my opinion. He's just trying to make money, and a public letter to call our the management is just so much better than eg. releasing self-driving cars that cause accidents or even hyping up worthless "currencies" that'll make less informed and vulnerable people poor.
- b-team 4y ago
  People’s reactions suggest they too believe themselves to be overpaid. The harm to the laid off Googlers is they will not be able to find a job paying anywhere near as much because they are not each adding $300K plus benefits to the value of the company annually.
- sofixa 4y ago
  > We should decide whether we like free market capitalism or not. Nothing should be treated as absolute. The man considered as one of the fathers of free market capitalism, Adam Smith, directly appeals to humanity and sympathy in his other popular book, The Theory of Moral Sentiments. Yet for some it's like, either we have full on free market, with child labour, capital having all the power and all, or a command economy. How about a middle ground with a free* market with regulations restricting the worst abuses of the greedy human nature? That's what already exists btw, it just needs more tuning. With more regulations to stop newly found abuses - today it's not child labour, it's pollution of all sorts, or disregard for (near-)slave labour, or optimising for short term profits at any cost.
RcouF1uZ4gsC 4y ago
What would be interesting is if these layoffs ended up becoming the spark for widespread unionization within the tech industry. Even with the economic downturn, a lot of the companies that did these layoffs still were making massive profits. Maybe these companies need an organized counterweight to the activist investors in the form of a union.
newbie578 4y ago
Is this guy serious? Imagine having so much money and then being mad for other people trying to earn more money so that they don't have to work for 40 years. There is absolutely no accountability today. Is it not the CEO at fault if the company made a wrong decision? If he gets to reap the benefits his employees make which results in him getting obscene compensation, is it then not logical to also get a pay reduction if employees get fired. I have a feeling these CEOs would be a lot less willing to do firings on a whim, if by firing 20k people they lost 30% of their compensation. The older I get, the more I realize how much Nassim Taleb is right. All of the points made in his book are valid and are still standing the test of time. There is no Skin in The Game today, hedgies and C-execs just jump ship when it is time to face your consequences. There is a big difference between being a Founder and being a CEO. The former actually deserves some respect.
unyttigfjelltol 4y ago
Standard zero-sum business school stuff. Translation: focus on cost-cutting like a mature, stable utility or industrial company, not growth. Interesting argument for a purported long-term investor.
- nostrebored 4y ago
  Very weird to assume that Google is still a growth company. Advertising is slowing down and it’s only real business is ads. GCP might eventually make money but that doesn’t require a huge speculative investment. It should be treated like a utility.
bcd3169 4y ago
Classic: a billionare who never worked in his life wants to fire everyone or wants them to get min wage. The funny thing is his whole investment in google is just a tiny tiny fraction
- blondin 4y ago
  > The funny thing is his whole investment in google is just a tiny tiny fraction but still big enough to get the CEO on the phone.
KyeRussell 4y ago
I mean, IMO he’s right for the wrong reasons. The head count of Big Tech companies is - to me - absurd. I…imagine that there are some negative societal precipitations of orgs being that big, of all of that human effort pouring into some shit Google is going to - at best - launch and axe a moment later, instead of something with more use and longevity, all subsidised by squeezing more and more from their ad business. I don’t give a rats about Google’s profitability though. Even if Google’s engineering ranks are filled with incredibly privileged highly paid people, I’m all for them sucking the company dry if it perturbs people like this investor. I’ve also got the privilege of nobody caring what I think. If there were an iota of a chance that me writing this comment changed the head count at Google, I’d keep my mouth shut. This guy can suck a lemon.
javajosh 4y ago
[flagged]
- UncleMeat 4y ago
  He's worth 8b. That's $80,000 for each of those 100,000 people. For one person. Sickening.
ttyyzz 4y ago
A little bit off topic here but this guy must be fun at parties....
brap 4y ago
On one hand, and I know that this is an unpopular opinion here: Google is a for-profit company. Its goal is to maximize profit. Not to maximize employment. Or employee happiness. Google is not daycare for adults. It’s not about “making the world a better place”, it never was, it’s all about making money, from day 1. Enough with all the corp-speak bullshit, we need to be honest about this. And making money is a wonderful thing. There’s a reason why people choose to work at Google and not, say, at non-profit orgs or for government. At Google you get to work on cool shit, be compensated very well, be surrounded by super talented and smart people, have great work-life balance, etc., and this only exists because Google is super profitable. So I, for one, welcome this. And let’s not kid ourselves, there’s plenty of fat at Google, more than 10% even. So if you understand the reality of Google only caring about the bottom line (which is great, in my opinion) and if you recognize that there’s some fat to trim, then you accept that layoffs are perfectly rational and even welcomed. Finally, to the people worried about losing their job (or having lost their job), this truly sucks, and I sincerely am sorry, but let me be blunt: Google doesn’t owe you shit. Google is not your friend or family, it’s your employer. You have a contract, and Google is allowed to terminate that contract if they see fit (and guess what, so can you!). /unpopular opinion Having said that... Do investors like this at all consider the impact of firing 12K humans (abruptly, and apparently at random) has on things like morale? This has actual, real world, financial consequences that hurt Google's bottom line: * Damage to productivity * Damage to employee retention * Damage to ability to hire new talent * Damage to PR * Damage to long term planning Google had a reputation of being super stable (no layoffs ever, not even during dotcom), which means the best and the brightest were much more inclined to work (and stay) at Google. This reputation is now gone. And what is Google, if not the talented people working there? How much is this damage to Google's best asset worth? Does it really justify saving a marginal cost? Maybe there are better ways to trim fat? Or maybe some fat is worth having in the grand scheme of things? I understand that an outside investor may not think this way, but from Google execs I would have expected more.
- throwaway_43793 4y ago
  I understand your unpopular opinion. But here is another unpopular opinion. Behind every for-profit business, and a out-of-touch with reality hedge-fund billionaire -- are the people who actually get shit done. And those people, who get shit done - are humans. And while layoffs suck, and it's inevitable they will happen, the distinction will always be between humane approach and greedy-billionaire approach. This letter, if it's real, is written from a very very very high tree, by someone who belongs to 1% (or even less) of society in terms of the amount of money he makes. And this out-of-touch with reality, hedge-fund billionaire - is not longer seeing anything humane in humans. For him, humans, are an expense in his ledger. The same way as let's say groceries. </unpopular-opinion>
crispyambulance 4y ago
It’s easy to blame the company for cutting jobs, but maybe the bigger problem here is hiring too many people too quickly in the first place, and worse, at stratospheric compensation levels. Not that I want to defend a greedy investor but he has a point. Outside of Silicon Valley $300K/year median for rank-and-file employees is a number that just makes people’s jaw drop. Is that the actual median compensation?
- gorbachev 4y ago
  In another time that same greedy investor would be hounding the CEOs of big tech companies about how they can't hire talented software engineers, if they didn't offer stratospheric compensation, and how competing for talent is the most important thing in the world. It wouldn't surprise me at all to also find letters from these assholes to Silicon Valley city councils complaining about how the councils insisting on spending valuable real estate for affordable housing is hurting the region, because that's poor use of capital and they should instead build office buildings for tech companies.
PuppyTailWags 4y ago
This is the kind of bullshit that a union should be fighting. Wish we had some kind of organized labor for the employees so billionaires like this can't play with familys' visas to line their own pockets.
billyraejohnson 4y ago
[flagged]
billyraejohnson 4y ago
[flagged]
- dippydipdips 4y ago
  Not just you, I came back and noticed the same.
  - billyraejohnson 4y ago
    Funny, almost as if there was an active attempt at hiding this discussion...
    - dippydipdips 4y ago
      It could possibly be due to the newness of your account, but I’m just speculating.
      - billyraejohnson 4y ago
        No, I meant, almost as if HN admins took the thread off of the frontpage intentionally.
- dang 4y ago
  The thread was flagged by users and downweighted by moderators, probably for similar reasons: it's not clear how this is a significantly new story, given that the topics it relates to are already getting tons of coverage on HN. This is standard moderation here. HN is a curated site; it always has been. One of the things we have to do, to keep it interesting, is to prevent it from getting too repetitive. If you want to understand more about the principles that this place operates by, here are some links to past explanations. If you read some of those and still have a question that isn't answered there, I'd be happy to take a crack at it. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=by%3Adang%20curated%20site&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu... https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=follow-up%20downweight&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que... https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=curiosity%20repetition%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so... https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=%22significant%20new%20information%22%20by%3Adang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so...
roncesvalles 4y ago
It seems when a stock price is depressed, all manner of armchair experts crawl out of the woodwork to tell the company how to do its job. Even though the stock price fell because of nothing that Google management did wrong.
bsuvc 4y ago
This is probably risky saying this here, but here goes: HN is crying a river about a bunch of millionaires losing their jobs. 99% of these people will land another job without any problem. Sure maybe they will have to accept a more normal salary (shock! How will they survive on less than $300k per year!) Believe me, I'm not one to play the "you're privileged" card, but: you're privileged
- ryandrake 4y ago
  I mean, this is a standard class warfare tactic: Billionaires get thousandaires to fight millionaires as if they're the problem.
  - bsuvc 4y ago
    I'm not a thousandaire, but I still think it is ridiculous
equity 4y ago
TCI is not even close for median "salary". 300k is way too high. This may be right for median total compensation for engineers (factoring in stock appreciation), which is salary+bonus+stock, but the company has a lot of other lower paying job functions. Overall, I suspect the 300k median is not accurate. Levels.fyi tends to be in the right ballpark. However, the equity number has to be understood in that Google gives out $X RSUs vested over 4 years and the stock number there factors in stock growth, which can vary a lot by person and hire date. The L5 salary on levels.fyi is near the upper end of the range, at around $196k in MTV. The engineering ladder is very lopsided, with most people being in the L3-L5 range. I am a longtime Googler, not impacted by layoffs. I also dispute all the other comments here that Googlers are overpaid. Now, I certainly can only speak from what I see. In my experience, Googlers tend to work very hard, including extra hours on nights and weekends. Expectations are very high, and unlike many other companies, the engineers don't get a lot of top-down direction, so often have to figure out what they work on by themselves.
kehinde905050 4y ago
https://share.voomly.com/f/cvvB8_Z7o https://share.voomly.com/f/cvvB8_Z7o The link above is a mini-MBA made with animation. Go out there, gain the business knowledge to take on these so-called tech giants.
jmathai 4y ago
It's important to note that Larry and Sergey control over 50% of voting shares. Whatever share this investor owns, it's a minority share of votes.
- zoklet-enjoyer 4y ago
  This letter from November says they have over $6 billion worth of shares. I think that's less than half a percent of Google shares. Alphabet - TCI Fund Management https://www.tcifund.com/files/corporateengageement/alphabet/15th%20November%202022.pdf https://www.tcifund.com/files/corporateengageement/alphabet/...
  - MisterBastahrd 4y ago
    They have 51.3% of the voting power. Their shares have 10x the voting power of other voting shares.
  - xbar 4y ago
    I like little fund managers that think they understand anything about the actual operations of the companies they invest in based on metrics like "median salary."
    - toomuchtodo 4y ago
      Gotta justify your fee for not beating index funds. https://seekingalpha.com/article/4567705-chris-hohn-tci-fund-management-13f-portfolio-q3-2022-update https://seekingalpha.com/article/4567705-chris-hohn-tci-fund... > This quarter, TCI Fund Management's 13F portfolio value decreased ~10% from $31.60B to $28.58B. The number of positions decreased from 12 to 9. The top three holdings are at ~53% while the top five are close to ~79% of the 13F assets: Alphabet, Microsoft, Canadian National Railway, Canadian Pacific Railway, and Visa. This is down from ~$44B 1H2022. https://seekingalpha.com/article/4522800-chris-hohns-tci-fund-management-13f-portfolio-q1-2022-update https://seekingalpha.com/article/4522800-chris-hohns-tci-fun...
      - 4y ago
zoklet-enjoyer 4y ago
This is ridiculous. His yearly dividend payments are greater than the combined pay of 6,000 of these Google employees he's trying to get fired.
- junofan 4y ago
  How? Google’s never paid a dividend.
  - gundmc 4y ago
    The fund he manages, TCI, pays a dividend, not Google.
    - tejtm 4y ago
      I am starting to think he just manages the fund for money and not for passion
      - drblastoff 4y ago
        He manages the fund to pay himself the highest annual compensation in the UK, $200M-$450M+ a year.
        kitd 4y ago
        Look him up. Out of that compensation, he funds some interesting causes, like Extinction Rebellion.
        drblastoff 4y ago
        Looked him up, it says he kept $7.9B for himself.
        zoklet-enjoyer 4y ago
        Why should I care how he spends his money? This guy is sucking up wealth while trying to get people fired. Why does he want them fired? So he can keep more for himself
rendall 4y ago
Google achieved market dominance in large part due to its decision to hire and compensate very talented people very well. I'm not sure how a salary contraction would even work, but that would risk Google losing its lustre for talented programmers.
- philliphaydon 4y ago
  is that really true tho? A lot of people have no faith in Google to create anything new. They just bin it after a few years.
  - rendall 4y ago
    Is what really true?
    - philliphaydon 4y ago
      > Google achieved market dominance in large part due to its decision to hire and compensate very talented people very well. They built an advertising empire. They have gmail. And android had no real competition. But over hiring and throwing mud at a wall to see what sticks hasn’t worked out to very much in the last 10 years…
      - rendall 4y ago
        Sorry, I don't see how the last part of your statement, even if true, relates to the quote. They built an advertising empire, yes? By compensating people very well.
        moomoo11 4y ago
        Except it’s at risk now. Ad spending is down. And if MSFT can enhance bing search with GPT to give you actual answers instead of ad based links that usually suck (how many times have you seen HN posts complaining about the drop in google search result quality?) then Google’s core competency is at huge risk. Windows is still the dominant player when it comes to consumer desktop. End of the day it’s the consumers who make Google spin by visiting google.com from whatever browser they use. If MSFT can knee cap them on search result quality that actually gives you an answer instead of a link… I mean think about it. Why would you use google to be linked to SO when bing can just tell you the answer and also provide source.. and don’t get me started on atrocious recipe websites. Personally? I like GCP. It’s way better to use than AWS imo. I’d rather google focus on empowering developers and technology. Ads were cool and can still remain a solid part of their revenue. But if they can grow GCP and various dx things like Go, workspace, and firebase as well.
shmerl 4y ago
That's sick.
blindriver 4y ago
TCI was taking advantage of the layoffs as a way to try to fool people into thinking they have sway with Google leadership. They don't. They own 0.5% which is nothing compared to other investors. The lion share are still owned by Brin and Page. I'm sure Google leadership humored their call with TCI but it means nothing to them. He didn't even meet with Sundar as far as I heard, but he makes it seems like he did.
- adam_arthur 4y ago
  Corporate activism isn’t about having the biggest stake, its about rallying other shareholders around your cause. All else equal a bigger stake gives you more leverage, but its still possible to influence company decision making with a smaller stake by getting other shareholders on your side
  - nostromo 4y ago
    Well, they're going to need to sway two big investors named Page and Brin, who still own 51% of voting rights. They designed it this way to prevent activist shareholders who tend to be very focused on the short-term.
    - voakbasda 4y ago
      Instead, they hired managers and executives that focused on short-term ad revenue. Who needs activism when you can self-sabotage.
      - vuln 4y ago
        It would take so long Google to bleed itself dry through self sabotage. I'd imagine they're both checked out, they have enough money to be really comfy for the rest of their lives.
      - ryloric 4y ago
        It sucks but still better than having pieces of them spin-off and sold by some private equity people.
oh_sigh 4y ago
Is that median salary actually the salary, or the total comp? If it is total comp, is it adjusted for the fact that googlers are provided with RSUs and not dollars?(ie, a googler given "$70k" worth of stock in 2019 for 2 years out would receive $150k in stock in 2021.
a1371 4y ago
Let me take a stab at this with a viewpoint that's not "stingy rich f$*k wants to take away worker's money". The letter is macro level, doesn't really bring up the reasoning, but the data points tell a story. > Over the last 5 years the headcount has doubled That's coincidentally been as long as I have used their business and cloud services. I can hardly tell a difference between Google's offering of 2018 versus today. At least not as much as it would explain 2x the employees. Same for their search and other services. And their customer service still sucks. > Median salary is $300,000. Average is higher. This is truly a win for tech workers. But an investor might see this and feel people come to Google for money, not passion. I think from an investor perspective, these data points are interesting, in context. This person is recommending what they understand; that the headcount and salaries must go down. Is that a solution to the dysfunctionality implied here? What do you folks think?
- gieksosz 4y ago
  Do investors come to Alphabet for money or passion?
  - a1371 4y ago
    Why should there be a comparison here?
- easytiger 4y ago
  There are wider examples were people get hired in certain geos to provide political leverage. e.g. in Ireland google employs between 5000 & 9000 people. Mostly well paid too but the purpose is twofold. "high tech" employment with well paying jobs is well protected by politicians in a country that until the late 90s/2000s had limited opportunities. This in turn "buys" political protection via Ireland's government's EU veto rights. [if you don't know in the EU single market you currently only have to recognise revenue in whichever member state you claim to be based]. It in turn ensured highly profitable exceptional tax deals, as should be Ireland's sovereign right to negotiate.
- birdymcbird 4y ago
  Same story at Amazon. have kindle, fire stick, prime subscription, and alexa echo puck. prime shopping worse today than 5 years ago. many item take longer than 2 day promise. too many scam items, like shopping at some flea market. reviews unreliable. me kindle same thing as what I purchase in 2017 or 2016. in past two year they update some screen so feel more like android style but its otherwise exact same product. alexa is timer and alarm clock. sometime use for weather but it always say “by the way” and try to sell something stupid. ok now we discuss aws. “hey we give like nothing to open source community but let us take you open source project, create our own fork, and sell your hard work as managed service.” ok but what aws really even do that big in past 5 year? s3..lambda.. ecs decent. redshift basically eat hole in your wallet. but all this stuff available 5 years ago. no significant disruption or amazing feature. ok AWS at least make money. rest of they business is low or no margin. massive grift from amazon friends brag about rest and vest.
paxys 4y ago
Keep an eye on the smaller tech companies that are snapping up all the laid off talent right now. They will be the next Google/Facebook/Microsoft/Amazon, while all of those will eventually shift to the IBM/Cisco/Oracle tier over the next decade. That's exactly what happens when the company is taken over by MBAs and activist investors while engineering is just a replaceable resource.
- _rs 4y ago
  Any companies come to mind? I could certainly use a change of pace
  - nostromo 4y ago
    They'd be a startup now. Maybe OpenAI or similar. Apple is the odd-man-out right now amongst tech giants with no layoffs. They also didn't spend like drunken sailors on new hires for the past two years though.
- subradios 4y ago
  Doubt, those companies are in an even worse position - all the money that rushed in to fund them just got turned off. The ones that will do well for the coming economic cycle are the ones that are the IBM/Oracle/Cisco tier. Microsoft and Amazon have never had operating losses, not ever. Google and Facebook did. But they are the product of a very blue ocean for their respective markets. The first people who did it will were going to absolutely clean up, and both of their current strategies are focused on finding the next market that works that way and get there first. That business model isn't plausible in a high rate environment.
  - ipaddr 4y ago
    Amazon? Not so sure about that one. This chart shows a loss in 2014 and in the 2000s they were always at a loss but doubling size. https://cdn.geekwire.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/amzn-wo-aws-1.png https://cdn.geekwire.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/amzn-wo-... Microsoft: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2015/07/22/technology/microsoft-earnings-q4.amp.html https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2015/07/22/tech...
hit8run 4y ago
Capitalism is broken by design. The richest of the richest optimize a percentile of their numbers by ruining the lives of thousands. Hardcore wealth monopolization will lead to an uprising. The broken system will come to an end when more and more people get replaced by robots and AI. What will replace it is the question. Maybe communism gets a renaissance.
- jgaa 4y ago
  That's why the super-rich have ranches in New Zealand now. When the revolution comes, they'll flee to safety far, far away, and let their pet politicians go up against the wall all alone.
  - fileeditview 4y ago
    If it really comes to all of that I doubt they can hide in their ranches.. and even if they can, what will they do there for months or years? These ranches seem more like a symbol.. to show the people with less money: "See, I can go there and you cannot."
- ablatt89 4y ago
  Communism isn't better; you replace elites with another set elites who control power and those who can produce goods and value have zero incentive to produce. Communism has been tried regardless if people come up with hypothetical governments and assert, without evidence, that these controls would lead to better outcomes for the average person. In fact, tried communism has led to the deaths of millions as there's zero controls to regulate the government when its the only system that contains power.
  - hit8run 4y ago
    Production will increase. Only this time driven by robots and AI instead of humans. Therefore there is no need for incentives because there are no jobs left for most humans anyways.
- astrange 4y ago
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
Avlin67 4y ago
did they hire 10 bs jobs per 1 developer jon as most french companies ?
skc 4y ago
As is their right. Gotta pay the piper.
SuperSandro2000 4y ago
Chris, have a warm f** you from me.
flandish 4y ago
As a wage earner currently exploited so people in his class can profit: Fuck. You. Buddy.

152 points by Jcowell 4y ago

This seems to be removed from the front page. I see the title has changed from “Show HN: Letter…” to just “Letter”, but given the topic and it’s popularity, I’m a little surprised.

isthisthingon99 4y ago

These type of investors have been chomping at the bit to do this for about a decade. I sort of knew it was coming which is why I transitioned to become a trader of capital rather than a trader of my time. That being said, the salaries will still be great, just not "I make more than a surgeon" great.

eshack94 4y ago
What do you do these days?
- isthisthingon99 4y ago
  Mostly, I try to be a better person. For a living, I trade futures and do contract software dev work.
albertopv 4y ago
US FAANG IT salaries are insane, well beyond normal, especially compared to european ones. I know these companies made an insane amount of money, but still they were outrageous.
- isthisthingon99 4y ago
  Here is the thing... Person A and B create system X that is responsible for some % increase in revenue. Person A and B should be compensated well, so they don't go over there and create system Y. Especially given the FTC might be clamping down on non-competes, this is a plausible scenario. Person A and B eventually tired of maintaining system X, so they bring in new people. The new people, once they have earned the trust of persons A and B are now the successors. The successors should also be paid well for the same reasons. Scale this up, and you get the salaries. I know this because I spent my career becoming the new persons A and B, and the bean counters always hated people like me. The salaries are thus well deserved, but that is why the companies are trying to create electronic slaves that can be driven by a few persons A and B.
  - albertopv 4y ago
    That worked for big american tech companies only thanks to the insane amount of money they made, also thanks to the de facto oligopoly they have. Alphabet inc alone made 70B of net income in 2021. I know no other market like this.
- pfarrell 4y ago
  Outrageous salaries are part of FAAMG’s* moat. It’s very hard to lure a googler away to your startup when you can only afford to pay them half their current salary. And even if said googler is interested, their lifestyle is now depends on that salary. * I don’t count Netflix as in league with the others
ticviking 4y ago
The basic problem of supply and demand for skilled labor doesn’t go away. This may make talent at the top end more tolerant of risks and willing to dive in and try and disrupt a company facing the inevitable morale and operational challenges that come after layoffs
- isthisthingon99 4y ago
  Agreed. They are not letting go of major contributors. Note that this is not the same as "top talent". Leetcode is not that important.

saos 4y ago

150k headcount reduction ? Are they crazy? Edit: haha my bad. I was too furious reading the letter. Hate billionaires and their influence tbh.

hestefisk 4y ago
I think he meant reduce headcount to 150K, which would be approx 20% reduction. I hope this guy sleeps well at night.
meindnoch 4y ago
to 150k not by 150k
doikor 4y ago
Reduction to 150k. So around 38k reduction (so roughly 25k in addition to the already announced 12k)
scotty79 4y ago
Why did Alphabet acquired 30k employees in 2022? Why 100k over last 5 years? What do those people do? What marvels Google is working on?
- sarchertech 4y ago
  Alphabet is actually working on some marvels. But mostly trying to find another cash printing machine before their current one runs out.
  - ysopex 4y ago
    They're giving the appearance that they're working on marvels. Given the amount of raw human intelligence they've hired over the years and the profoundly underwhelming output of the organization it's pretty clear it's was an illusion to trap investors.
    - sarchertech 4y ago

naijaboiler 4y ago

wow. the hubris and inhumanity. How can someone who isn't running the company day-to-day purport to know exactly what staffing levels ought to be. Also why is a billionaire begrudging people for making 300k/ year. wow hopefully this letter is fake

cloutchaser 4y ago
The headcount in tech recently grew way faster than the rest of the economy, and faster than the companies growth as well. As you get bigger headcount shouldn’t necessarily rise by more than the company is growing, which is what happened. In a full blown recession going back to the headcount of 2 years ago isn’t exactly some Gordon gecko capitalist evil. It’s pretty reasonable. Especially as it seems most tech companies are culling admin and hr staff, which is not where value is being created.
- jacquesm 4y ago
  I disagree. I think that companies should have a strong obligation to back their employees during downturns otherwise it is just another form of externalization: make the profits when you can and saddle society with the costs when you can't. That leads to more and more wealth inequality.
  - cloutchaser 4y ago
    You could argue your point the other way round. When times were good these companies clearly overemployed staff. That is very unfair to investors. Cutting back at this time finally prioritizes investor goals, and it’s pretty minimal anyway. Not to mention the insane benefits these employees get, these are the best employers in the world. It’s clear employee happiness was much more important during good times than any investor sentiment. Investors just shut up as the business was still growing.
    - jacquesm 4y ago
      There is very little that a CEO can do that is unfair to investors short of defrauding them on purpose. Investors are a rule are smart enough to realize that they - by virtue of being 'passive' - allow people that know more about the business to run it. Back seat drivers are hardly ever welcome as investors, if you're that good you should go and run another company, surely that's a better use of your talent then than to try to run a diversified fund.

rel2thr 4y ago

I respect his point of view and also the point of view that says a highly profitable company doesn’t need layoffs. The middle ground that sundar took is weird I really don’t get the purpose of such a small layoff. Kills employee morale and doesn’t move the needle on costs

scotty79 4y ago
I guess it's more about sending the message to squeeze the rest.
- yebyen 4y ago
  I think that. I am definitely feeling the squeeze myself. I don't like that this works but I cannot deny that it worked on me. Edit: I do not work at Google, can't say much about myself and my own situation more than what I've already shared here, but it seems that every company is going through this now.
YLYvYkHeB2NRNT 4y ago
Have a brief look on TikTok to see those showing their "work day" that's just goofing off.
- kevingadd 4y ago
  Ah yes, one or two TikTok videos means that thousands of people at a company aren't working hard. Get real.
- autophagian 4y ago
  Are you expecting people on tiktok to post videos of their actual workday of "Sat behind a screen for 8 hours, tapping on a keyboard"? I get its a bad look, but people purposefully curate their images and lives on social media platforms to look more fun/exciting/interesting than they actually are.
  - YLYvYkHeB2NRNT 4y ago

adrianmsmith 4y ago

This should not have "Show HN:" in the title: https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html

ignoramous 4y ago
>> Show HN is for something you've made that other people can play with. HN users can try it out, give you feedback, and ask questions in the thread. This would be a Show HN only when billionaire investor Chirstopher Hohn [0] himself posts this. If not, this perhaps is a Tell HN. [0] https://archive.is/8oghg https://archive.is/8oghg
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
Jcowell 4y ago
Ah sorry!

Werewolf255 4y ago

"And another thing, employees keep using up a full allotment of oxygen every day. Consider half portions or cutting breathing gasses out of the budget entirely."

jacquesm 4y ago
The future according to Musk.
- whamlastxmas 4y ago
  And Trump, am I right? Glad we can keep these two accountable regardless of context
camgunz 4y ago
"Due to supply chain issues, oxygen prices are at a decades-long peak. Consider mixing up to 30% CO2; also tout your commitment to combating climate change."
manuelabeledo 4y ago
"I lost a lot of money I put on Google stocks, someone else must pay for the consequences of my actions!"
gus_massa 4y ago
Note that this sentence does not apear in the pdf. Using quotes to post it here is confusing.

fbrncci 4y ago

Reducing headcount growth to a level 2 years ago, doesn't really sound that crazy in a recession. Also, headcount in tech, grew at a ridiculous fast pace over the past 3-4 years only. All these lay-offs aren't really surprising to me. What is surprising is the amount of people actually being surprised.

gumby 4y ago
What recession?
- broast 4y ago
  The actual technical recession that started in Summer 2022 and then ended the next quarter could still have lingering effects, couldn't it?
  - bregma 4y ago
    A recession is defined as three consecutive quarters of negative growth. A single quarter of negative growth doe not meet that definition. Even technically.
    - rvz 4y ago
      > A recession is defined as three consecutive quarters of negative growth. Source?
      - gumby 4y ago
        Generally, two succesive quarters, though the official determination in the US is made by the NBER https://www.bea.gov/help/glossary/recession https://www.bea.gov/help/glossary/recession
        rvz 4y ago
        > Generally, two succesive quarters, Exactly. There is no source for the unsubstantiated 'three successive quarters' claim. > though the official determination in the US is made by the NBER I would not wait for an entity to determine and tell us if it is too late. Hence why businesses are preparing now, even when they should have done in November 2021. And of course, I am not saying this in hindsight either, since the warning signs were there in [0] and finally when it happened [1]. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29508238 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29508238 [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33185591 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33185591

seanhunter 4y ago

You can see how important the salary reductions are by the fact Chris Hohn pays himself a mere 1m GBP per day. This man had the highest salary of anyone in the UK. https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/mar/05/the-very-private-life-of-the-man-on-britains-biggest-salary?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/mar/05/the-very-pr...

doix 4y ago
When I read your comment, I assumed he actually had a 365 million salary, which would be amazing. He'd be paying 50% tax on the majority of that. I'd actually give him some respect for that, actually paying tax "fairly" and not optimizing. But no, it's not his salary, it's dividends.
- cloutchaser 4y ago
  Dividends are taxed at the same percent as income in the Uk. So he is paying a lot on that. Unless he isn’t resident in the Uk. Which I don’t know.
  - millennialmind 4y ago
    It is likely that the shares are held by a family trust or an offshore company registered in another jurisdiction, rather than being held personally by him. Although I am not familiar with the UK's tax laws, in other countries, loopholes exist that allow for taxable income from dividends of shares held personally to be reduced or eliminated through capital loss and depreciation deductions.
  - swarnie 4y ago
    Last i checked he was a non-dom....
  - seanhunter 4y ago
    I don't know anything about his tax arrangements but he lives in South Kensington (in London) I think. I seem to recall reading about one of those classic South Ken arguments with neighbours because of him building a basement swimming pool or something. He's our Prime Minister's old boss as well. Rishi Sunak used to work for TCI[1]. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/mar/08/rishi-sunak-took-part-in-controversial-us-corporate-raid-case https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/mar/08/rishi-sunak...

mkl95 4y ago

> The median salary at Alphabet in 2021 amounted to nearly $300000 Let's say the average salary of the 12k people they just fired was $300000. That's 3.6bn a year. Last time I checked Alphabet were burning ~180bn a year. I'm not saying 3.6bn is pocket change, but how is such a small % supposed to make a difference? For comparison, they were fined ~4bn in Europe recently.

rubidium 4y ago
2% improvement in opex. Demonstrating ability to trim staff without affecting revenue. Both matter to investors.
- j16sdiz 4y ago
  > Demonstrating ability to trim staff without affecting revenue. That is, demonstrating the business was suboptimal? This is awarding incompetent.
  - cies 4y ago
    sub optimal for what? in a boom market you optimize for growth: spend some more to be ready to take on the next big thing. with a looming recession you optimize differently. basically they are showing they are prioritizing according to changing climate
    - phkahler 4y ago
      Funny. I interviewed at a company that doubled down on development in a downturn and subsequently ate their competitors when things came back. Maybe it's just doing what investors want, or using that as an excuse to trim some fat. But when you're profitable I'm not sure it actually makes sense to slow down just because the economy has.
  - matwood 4y ago
    C'mon. Suboptimal would be having staff be off by 20%-30%-50%. Google laid off what - 6%? It's terrible for the people laid off, but from a company standpoint that falls within normal fluctuation range.

sklargh 4y ago

Some of finance is valuable, it creates the opportunity to transform money over time. This isn’t finance, just a rent seeking guppy casually trying to move the Overton window on 20,000 families.

valdiorn 4y ago
How is it "rent seeking" to state the fact that Alphabet has too many employees, and is overpaying them. It's been a continuing meme on hacker news for the last decade, that Google/alphabet hoover up all the talent in the market and pay them "f*ck you money" with golden handcuff stock vesting schedules, in order to keep them off the job market and out of competitor's hands. that's been the understanding of the situation for 10 years. Alphabet has hoovered up some 180+ small businesses that threaten their monopolies over the last decade, only to throw away all the IP and bench the employees, just to keep their markets intact. Those are things to be upset about, and much more serious and manipulative business practices. Don't be upset that an investor has just pointed out Alphabet's bullshit and wants them to course correct, now that the free money has dried up, and you can no longer afford to feed an army of useless rest'n'vest employees. And the Overton window has absolutely nothing to do with this conversation.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
prox 4y ago
What is interesting is that value creation isn’t discussed at all in the letter or comments. That would be a far more interesting cross section of Google to discuss.

auctoritas 4y ago

Twitter laying off 75% and still running fine is the elephant in the room here... How could investors see that and not agitate for more layoffs?

CPLX 4y ago
If American Airlines fired their heavy maintenance and aircraft purchasing divisions the planes wouldn’t just fall out of the sky.
doikor 4y ago
You don't have the headcount to keep the service(s) running. You have the headcount to develop new features and services. It still remains to be seen how the reduction will effect Twitter in the long term.
- rubidium 4y ago
  No established company invests 75% of their people into new features and services. There was definitely bloat. The degree of bloat is the unknown.
  - kevingadd 4y ago
    There's always bloat somewhere, but some of that bloat is there to allow your company to weather unexpected occurrences. Sure you have two extra SREs you don't "need", and your HR department might be slightly overstaffed. But then one critical employee gets cancer and is off work for 6 months, and another employee has to go on maternity leave, and you don't have any extra employees in that department anymore. Hope you didn't fire your bloat!
- emoII 4y ago
  Perhaps they should only have headcount to keep the service running. Twitters value proposition is still exactly the same as it was 10 years ago, and removing any new features since would not be noticed by most. Developing new features once the initial success has come could be considered making it worse if anything (e.g. reddit). Isn't the lack of new features one of the reasons we like HN?

anticristi 4y ago

I'm a bit unsure how to interpret these layoffs. Are they a consequence of recession? Or are they a consequence of recent anti-AdTech GDPR rulings? I'm referring to the recent fine applied to Facebook. The ruling is long, but TL;DR would be as follows: It will become impossible to pay with privacy in the EU. My crystal ball is as good as yours, but I guess this will significantly squeeze AdTech. I wouldn't be surprised if AdTech revenue, valuation and salaries drops to whatever "good" IT companies make these days.

Scubabear68 4y ago

Background on TCI and Hohn: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Children%27s_Investment_Fund_Management https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Children%27s_Investment_...

lnsru 4y ago
Thanks for the link. Simply disgusting.
- b-team 4y ago
  What’s disgusting about it? I do not see anything objectionable in the Wikipedia article.
  - przemub 4y ago
    The fact that they kept the name implying they are a charity?
    - sz4kerto 4y ago
      Hm, one of the largest pension funds in the UK is Scottish Widows.
  - lnsru 4y ago
    Sure. Another very ethical charitable company.

donutloop 4y ago

Is this legal? Can we sue this guy?

lotsofpulp 4y ago
Why would it be illegal to express an opinion?
SamWhited 4y ago
Yes, sadly, there is nothing illegal about being a giant pile of <moderators will ban me for continuing this sentence>. Instead of suing, unionize and take a bit of the power we all ceded to the hedge fund managers back. It won't make things perfect, but at least you'll have federal protections and Weingarten rights and the like and the ability to push back and have the tiniest bit of power in your work place.

Scubabear68 4y ago

More detailed letter sent two months ago: https://www.tcifund.com/files/corporateengageement/alphabet/15th%20November%202022.pdf https://www.tcifund.com/files/corporateengageement/alphabet/...

sz4kerto 4y ago

Why do people view this with such vile? He's a shareholder, and he's in because he thinks the company will make lots of money. We should decide whether we like free market capitalism or not. What this guy is doing is very much the core of free market capitalism. He's also not doing something inhumane - it's not about funding new sweatshops or something, it's about not paying extremely high salaries to people if there's no need. I know we're mostly well-paid tech workers here on HN, and I think we're all a bit scared that power balance might change a bit. I get that - but it doesn't make this action that despicable in my opinion. He's just trying to make money, and a public letter to call our the management is just so much better than eg. releasing self-driving cars that cause accidents or even hyping up worthless "currencies" that'll make less informed and vulnerable people poor.

b-team 4y ago
People’s reactions suggest they too believe themselves to be overpaid. The harm to the laid off Googlers is they will not be able to find a job paying anywhere near as much because they are not each adding $300K plus benefits to the value of the company annually.
sofixa 4y ago
> We should decide whether we like free market capitalism or not. Nothing should be treated as absolute. The man considered as one of the fathers of free market capitalism, Adam Smith, directly appeals to humanity and sympathy in his other popular book, The Theory of Moral Sentiments. Yet for some it's like, either we have full on free market, with child labour, capital having all the power and all, or a command economy. How about a middle ground with a free* market with regulations restricting the worst abuses of the greedy human nature? That's what already exists btw, it just needs more tuning. With more regulations to stop newly found abuses - today it's not child labour, it's pollution of all sorts, or disregard for (near-)slave labour, or optimising for short term profits at any cost.

RcouF1uZ4gsC 4y ago

What would be interesting is if these layoffs ended up becoming the spark for widespread unionization within the tech industry. Even with the economic downturn, a lot of the companies that did these layoffs still were making massive profits. Maybe these companies need an organized counterweight to the activist investors in the form of a union.

newbie578 4y ago

Is this guy serious? Imagine having so much money and then being mad for other people trying to earn more money so that they don't have to work for 40 years. There is absolutely no accountability today. Is it not the CEO at fault if the company made a wrong decision? If he gets to reap the benefits his employees make which results in him getting obscene compensation, is it then not logical to also get a pay reduction if employees get fired. I have a feeling these CEOs would be a lot less willing to do firings on a whim, if by firing 20k people they lost 30% of their compensation. The older I get, the more I realize how much Nassim Taleb is right. All of the points made in his book are valid and are still standing the test of time. There is no Skin in The Game today, hedgies and C-execs just jump ship when it is time to face your consequences. There is a big difference between being a Founder and being a CEO. The former actually deserves some respect.

unyttigfjelltol 4y ago

Standard zero-sum business school stuff. Translation: focus on cost-cutting like a mature, stable utility or industrial company, not growth. Interesting argument for a purported long-term investor.

nostrebored 4y ago
Very weird to assume that Google is still a growth company. Advertising is slowing down and it’s only real business is ads. GCP might eventually make money but that doesn’t require a huge speculative investment. It should be treated like a utility.

bcd3169 4y ago

Classic: a billionare who never worked in his life wants to fire everyone or wants them to get min wage. The funny thing is his whole investment in google is just a tiny tiny fraction

blondin 4y ago
> The funny thing is his whole investment in google is just a tiny tiny fraction but still big enough to get the CEO on the phone.

KyeRussell 4y ago

I mean, IMO he’s right for the wrong reasons. The head count of Big Tech companies is - to me - absurd. I…imagine that there are some negative societal precipitations of orgs being that big, of all of that human effort pouring into some shit Google is going to - at best - launch and axe a moment later, instead of something with more use and longevity, all subsidised by squeezing more and more from their ad business. I don’t give a rats about Google’s profitability though. Even if Google’s engineering ranks are filled with incredibly privileged highly paid people, I’m all for them sucking the company dry if it perturbs people like this investor. I’ve also got the privilege of nobody caring what I think. If there were an iota of a chance that me writing this comment changed the head count at Google, I’d keep my mouth shut. This guy can suck a lemon.

javajosh 4y ago

[flagged]

UncleMeat 4y ago
He's worth 8b. That's $80,000 for each of those 100,000 people. For one person. Sickening.

ttyyzz 4y ago

A little bit off topic here but this guy must be fun at parties....

brap 4y ago

On one hand, and I know that this is an unpopular opinion here: Google is a for-profit company. Its goal is to maximize profit. Not to maximize employment. Or employee happiness. Google is not daycare for adults. It’s not about “making the world a better place”, it never was, it’s all about making money, from day 1. Enough with all the corp-speak bullshit, we need to be honest about this. And making money is a wonderful thing. There’s a reason why people choose to work at Google and not, say, at non-profit orgs or for government. At Google you get to work on cool shit, be compensated very well, be surrounded by super talented and smart people, have great work-life balance, etc., and this only exists because Google is super profitable. So I, for one, welcome this. And let’s not kid ourselves, there’s plenty of fat at Google, more than 10% even. So if you understand the reality of Google only caring about the bottom line (which is great, in my opinion) and if you recognize that there’s some fat to trim, then you accept that layoffs are perfectly rational and even welcomed. Finally, to the people worried about losing their job (or having lost their job), this truly sucks, and I sincerely am sorry, but let me be blunt: Google doesn’t owe you shit. Google is not your friend or family, it’s your employer. You have a contract, and Google is allowed to terminate that contract if they see fit (and guess what, so can you!). /unpopular opinion Having said that... Do investors like this at all consider the impact of firing 12K humans (abruptly, and apparently at random) has on things like morale? This has actual, real world, financial consequences that hurt Google's bottom line: * Damage to productivity * Damage to employee retention * Damage to ability to hire new talent * Damage to PR * Damage to long term planning Google had a reputation of being super stable (no layoffs ever, not even during dotcom), which means the best and the brightest were much more inclined to work (and stay) at Google. This reputation is now gone. And what is Google, if not the talented people working there? How much is this damage to Google's best asset worth? Does it really justify saving a marginal cost? Maybe there are better ways to trim fat? Or maybe some fat is worth having in the grand scheme of things? I understand that an outside investor may not think this way, but from Google execs I would have expected more.

throwaway_43793 4y ago
I understand your unpopular opinion. But here is another unpopular opinion. Behind every for-profit business, and a out-of-touch with reality hedge-fund billionaire -- are the people who actually get shit done. And those people, who get shit done - are humans. And while layoffs suck, and it's inevitable they will happen, the distinction will always be between humane approach and greedy-billionaire approach. This letter, if it's real, is written from a very very very high tree, by someone who belongs to 1% (or even less) of society in terms of the amount of money he makes. And this out-of-touch with reality, hedge-fund billionaire - is not longer seeing anything humane in humans. For him, humans, are an expense in his ledger. The same way as let's say groceries. </unpopular-opinion>

crispyambulance 4y ago

It’s easy to blame the company for cutting jobs, but maybe the bigger problem here is hiring too many people too quickly in the first place, and worse, at stratospheric compensation levels. Not that I want to defend a greedy investor but he has a point. Outside of Silicon Valley $300K/year median for rank-and-file employees is a number that just makes people’s jaw drop. Is that the actual median compensation?

gorbachev 4y ago
In another time that same greedy investor would be hounding the CEOs of big tech companies about how they can't hire talented software engineers, if they didn't offer stratospheric compensation, and how competing for talent is the most important thing in the world. It wouldn't surprise me at all to also find letters from these assholes to Silicon Valley city councils complaining about how the councils insisting on spending valuable real estate for affordable housing is hurting the region, because that's poor use of capital and they should instead build office buildings for tech companies.

PuppyTailWags 4y ago

This is the kind of bullshit that a union should be fighting. Wish we had some kind of organized labor for the employees so billionaires like this can't play with familys' visas to line their own pockets.

billyraejohnson 4y ago

[flagged]

billyraejohnson 4y ago

[flagged]

dippydipdips 4y ago
Not just you, I came back and noticed the same.
- billyraejohnson 4y ago
  Funny, almost as if there was an active attempt at hiding this discussion...
  - dippydipdips 4y ago
    It could possibly be due to the newness of your account, but I’m just speculating.
    - billyraejohnson 4y ago
      No, I meant, almost as if HN admins took the thread off of the frontpage intentionally.
dang 4y ago
The thread was flagged by users and downweighted by moderators, probably for similar reasons: it's not clear how this is a significantly new story, given that the topics it relates to are already getting tons of coverage on HN. This is standard moderation here. HN is a curated site; it always has been. One of the things we have to do, to keep it interesting, is to prevent it from getting too repetitive. If you want to understand more about the principles that this place operates by, here are some links to past explanations. If you read some of those and still have a question that isn't answered there, I'd be happy to take a crack at it. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=by%3Adang%20curated%20site&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu... https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=follow-up%20downweight&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que... https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=curiosity%20repetition%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so... https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=%22significant%20new%20information%22%20by%3Adang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so...

roncesvalles 4y ago

It seems when a stock price is depressed, all manner of armchair experts crawl out of the woodwork to tell the company how to do its job. Even though the stock price fell because of nothing that Google management did wrong.

bsuvc 4y ago

This is probably risky saying this here, but here goes: HN is crying a river about a bunch of millionaires losing their jobs. 99% of these people will land another job without any problem. Sure maybe they will have to accept a more normal salary (shock! How will they survive on less than $300k per year!) Believe me, I'm not one to play the "you're privileged" card, but: you're privileged

ryandrake 4y ago
I mean, this is a standard class warfare tactic: Billionaires get thousandaires to fight millionaires as if they're the problem.
- bsuvc 4y ago
  I'm not a thousandaire, but I still think it is ridiculous

equity 4y ago

TCI is not even close for median "salary". 300k is way too high. This may be right for median total compensation for engineers (factoring in stock appreciation), which is salary+bonus+stock, but the company has a lot of other lower paying job functions. Overall, I suspect the 300k median is not accurate. Levels.fyi tends to be in the right ballpark. However, the equity number has to be understood in that Google gives out $X RSUs vested over 4 years and the stock number there factors in stock growth, which can vary a lot by person and hire date. The L5 salary on levels.fyi is near the upper end of the range, at around $196k in MTV. The engineering ladder is very lopsided, with most people being in the L3-L5 range. I am a longtime Googler, not impacted by layoffs. I also dispute all the other comments here that Googlers are overpaid. Now, I certainly can only speak from what I see. In my experience, Googlers tend to work very hard, including extra hours on nights and weekends. Expectations are very high, and unlike many other companies, the engineers don't get a lot of top-down direction, so often have to figure out what they work on by themselves.

kehinde905050 4y ago

https://share.voomly.com/f/cvvB8_Z7o https://share.voomly.com/f/cvvB8_Z7o The link above is a mini-MBA made with animation. Go out there, gain the business knowledge to take on these so-called tech giants.

jmathai 4y ago

It's important to note that Larry and Sergey control over 50% of voting shares. Whatever share this investor owns, it's a minority share of votes.

zoklet-enjoyer 4y ago
This letter from November says they have over $6 billion worth of shares. I think that's less than half a percent of Google shares. Alphabet - TCI Fund Management https://www.tcifund.com/files/corporateengageement/alphabet/15th%20November%202022.pdf https://www.tcifund.com/files/corporateengageement/alphabet/...
- MisterBastahrd 4y ago
  They have 51.3% of the voting power. Their shares have 10x the voting power of other voting shares.
- xbar 4y ago
  I like little fund managers that think they understand anything about the actual operations of the companies they invest in based on metrics like "median salary."
  - toomuchtodo 4y ago
    Gotta justify your fee for not beating index funds. https://seekingalpha.com/article/4567705-chris-hohn-tci-fund-management-13f-portfolio-q3-2022-update https://seekingalpha.com/article/4567705-chris-hohn-tci-fund... > This quarter, TCI Fund Management's 13F portfolio value decreased ~10% from $31.60B to $28.58B. The number of positions decreased from 12 to 9. The top three holdings are at ~53% while the top five are close to ~79% of the 13F assets: Alphabet, Microsoft, Canadian National Railway, Canadian Pacific Railway, and Visa. This is down from ~$44B 1H2022. https://seekingalpha.com/article/4522800-chris-hohns-tci-fund-management-13f-portfolio-q1-2022-update https://seekingalpha.com/article/4522800-chris-hohns-tci-fun...
    - 4y ago

zoklet-enjoyer 4y ago

This is ridiculous. His yearly dividend payments are greater than the combined pay of 6,000 of these Google employees he's trying to get fired.

junofan 4y ago
How? Google’s never paid a dividend.
- gundmc 4y ago
  The fund he manages, TCI, pays a dividend, not Google.
  - tejtm 4y ago
    I am starting to think he just manages the fund for money and not for passion
    - drblastoff 4y ago
      He manages the fund to pay himself the highest annual compensation in the UK, $200M-$450M+ a year.
      - kitd 4y ago
        Look him up. Out of that compensation, he funds some interesting causes, like Extinction Rebellion.
        drblastoff 4y ago
        Looked him up, it says he kept $7.9B for himself.
        zoklet-enjoyer 4y ago
        Why should I care how he spends his money? This guy is sucking up wealth while trying to get people fired. Why does he want them fired? So he can keep more for himself

rendall 4y ago

Google achieved market dominance in large part due to its decision to hire and compensate very talented people very well. I'm not sure how a salary contraction would even work, but that would risk Google losing its lustre for talented programmers.

philliphaydon 4y ago
is that really true tho? A lot of people have no faith in Google to create anything new. They just bin it after a few years.
- rendall 4y ago
  Is what really true?
  - philliphaydon 4y ago
    > Google achieved market dominance in large part due to its decision to hire and compensate very talented people very well. They built an advertising empire. They have gmail. And android had no real competition. But over hiring and throwing mud at a wall to see what sticks hasn’t worked out to very much in the last 10 years…
    - rendall 4y ago
      Sorry, I don't see how the last part of your statement, even if true, relates to the quote. They built an advertising empire, yes? By compensating people very well.
      - moomoo11 4y ago
        Except it’s at risk now. Ad spending is down. And if MSFT can enhance bing search with GPT to give you actual answers instead of ad based links that usually suck (how many times have you seen HN posts complaining about the drop in google search result quality?) then Google’s core competency is at huge risk. Windows is still the dominant player when it comes to consumer desktop. End of the day it’s the consumers who make Google spin by visiting google.com from whatever browser they use. If MSFT can knee cap them on search result quality that actually gives you an answer instead of a link… I mean think about it. Why would you use google to be linked to SO when bing can just tell you the answer and also provide source.. and don’t get me started on atrocious recipe websites. Personally? I like GCP. It’s way better to use than AWS imo. I’d rather google focus on empowering developers and technology. Ads were cool and can still remain a solid part of their revenue. But if they can grow GCP and various dx things like Go, workspace, and firebase as well.

shmerl 4y ago

That's sick.

blindriver 4y ago

TCI was taking advantage of the layoffs as a way to try to fool people into thinking they have sway with Google leadership. They don't. They own 0.5% which is nothing compared to other investors. The lion share are still owned by Brin and Page. I'm sure Google leadership humored their call with TCI but it means nothing to them. He didn't even meet with Sundar as far as I heard, but he makes it seems like he did.

adam_arthur 4y ago
Corporate activism isn’t about having the biggest stake, its about rallying other shareholders around your cause. All else equal a bigger stake gives you more leverage, but its still possible to influence company decision making with a smaller stake by getting other shareholders on your side
- nostromo 4y ago
  Well, they're going to need to sway two big investors named Page and Brin, who still own 51% of voting rights. They designed it this way to prevent activist shareholders who tend to be very focused on the short-term.
  - voakbasda 4y ago
    Instead, they hired managers and executives that focused on short-term ad revenue. Who needs activism when you can self-sabotage.
    - vuln 4y ago
      It would take so long Google to bleed itself dry through self sabotage. I'd imagine they're both checked out, they have enough money to be really comfy for the rest of their lives.
    - ryloric 4y ago
      It sucks but still better than having pieces of them spin-off and sold by some private equity people.

oh_sigh 4y ago

Is that median salary actually the salary, or the total comp? If it is total comp, is it adjusted for the fact that googlers are provided with RSUs and not dollars?(ie, a googler given "$70k" worth of stock in 2019 for 2 years out would receive $150k in stock in 2021.

a1371 4y ago

Let me take a stab at this with a viewpoint that's not "stingy rich f$*k wants to take away worker's money". The letter is macro level, doesn't really bring up the reasoning, but the data points tell a story. > Over the last 5 years the headcount has doubled That's coincidentally been as long as I have used their business and cloud services. I can hardly tell a difference between Google's offering of 2018 versus today. At least not as much as it would explain 2x the employees. Same for their search and other services. And their customer service still sucks. > Median salary is $300,000. Average is higher. This is truly a win for tech workers. But an investor might see this and feel people come to Google for money, not passion. I think from an investor perspective, these data points are interesting, in context. This person is recommending what they understand; that the headcount and salaries must go down. Is that a solution to the dysfunctionality implied here? What do you folks think?

gieksosz 4y ago
Do investors come to Alphabet for money or passion?
- a1371 4y ago
  Why should there be a comparison here?
easytiger 4y ago
There are wider examples were people get hired in certain geos to provide political leverage. e.g. in Ireland google employs between 5000 & 9000 people. Mostly well paid too but the purpose is twofold. "high tech" employment with well paying jobs is well protected by politicians in a country that until the late 90s/2000s had limited opportunities. This in turn "buys" political protection via Ireland's government's EU veto rights. [if you don't know in the EU single market you currently only have to recognise revenue in whichever member state you claim to be based]. It in turn ensured highly profitable exceptional tax deals, as should be Ireland's sovereign right to negotiate.
birdymcbird 4y ago
Same story at Amazon. have kindle, fire stick, prime subscription, and alexa echo puck. prime shopping worse today than 5 years ago. many item take longer than 2 day promise. too many scam items, like shopping at some flea market. reviews unreliable. me kindle same thing as what I purchase in 2017 or 2016. in past two year they update some screen so feel more like android style but its otherwise exact same product. alexa is timer and alarm clock. sometime use for weather but it always say “by the way” and try to sell something stupid. ok now we discuss aws. “hey we give like nothing to open source community but let us take you open source project, create our own fork, and sell your hard work as managed service.” ok but what aws really even do that big in past 5 year? s3..lambda.. ecs decent. redshift basically eat hole in your wallet. but all this stuff available 5 years ago. no significant disruption or amazing feature. ok AWS at least make money. rest of they business is low or no margin. massive grift from amazon friends brag about rest and vest.

paxys 4y ago

Keep an eye on the smaller tech companies that are snapping up all the laid off talent right now. They will be the next Google/Facebook/Microsoft/Amazon, while all of those will eventually shift to the IBM/Cisco/Oracle tier over the next decade. That's exactly what happens when the company is taken over by MBAs and activist investors while engineering is just a replaceable resource.

_rs 4y ago
Any companies come to mind? I could certainly use a change of pace
- nostromo 4y ago
  They'd be a startup now. Maybe OpenAI or similar. Apple is the odd-man-out right now amongst tech giants with no layoffs. They also didn't spend like drunken sailors on new hires for the past two years though.
subradios 4y ago
Doubt, those companies are in an even worse position - all the money that rushed in to fund them just got turned off. The ones that will do well for the coming economic cycle are the ones that are the IBM/Oracle/Cisco tier. Microsoft and Amazon have never had operating losses, not ever. Google and Facebook did. But they are the product of a very blue ocean for their respective markets. The first people who did it will were going to absolutely clean up, and both of their current strategies are focused on finding the next market that works that way and get there first. That business model isn't plausible in a high rate environment.
- ipaddr 4y ago
  Amazon? Not so sure about that one. This chart shows a loss in 2014 and in the 2000s they were always at a loss but doubling size. https://cdn.geekwire.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/amzn-wo-aws-1.png https://cdn.geekwire.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/amzn-wo-... Microsoft: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2015/07/22/technology/microsoft-earnings-q4.amp.html https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2015/07/22/tech...

hit8run 4y ago

Capitalism is broken by design. The richest of the richest optimize a percentile of their numbers by ruining the lives of thousands. Hardcore wealth monopolization will lead to an uprising. The broken system will come to an end when more and more people get replaced by robots and AI. What will replace it is the question. Maybe communism gets a renaissance.

jgaa 4y ago
That's why the super-rich have ranches in New Zealand now. When the revolution comes, they'll flee to safety far, far away, and let their pet politicians go up against the wall all alone.
- fileeditview 4y ago
  If it really comes to all of that I doubt they can hide in their ranches.. and even if they can, what will they do there for months or years? These ranches seem more like a symbol.. to show the people with less money: "See, I can go there and you cannot."
ablatt89 4y ago
Communism isn't better; you replace elites with another set elites who control power and those who can produce goods and value have zero incentive to produce. Communism has been tried regardless if people come up with hypothetical governments and assert, without evidence, that these controls would lead to better outcomes for the average person. In fact, tried communism has led to the deaths of millions as there's zero controls to regulate the government when its the only system that contains power.
- hit8run 4y ago
  Production will increase. Only this time driven by robots and AI instead of humans. Therefore there is no need for incentives because there are no jobs left for most humans anyways.
astrange 4y ago

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

Avlin67 4y ago

did they hire 10 bs jobs per 1 developer jon as most french companies ?

skc 4y ago

As is their right. Gotta pay the piper.

SuperSandro2000 4y ago

Chris, have a warm f** you from me.

flandish 4y ago

As a wage earner currently exploited so people in his class can profit: Fuck. You. Buddy.