5 ms·

> 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 y

by 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.
    - bushbaba 4y ago
      Their staffing is off by that much though. The bulk of google is working on non revenue non profitable ventures
NhanH 4y ago
My salary is 100, I have to spend 99 on food monthly, leaving me with 1 money as profit. If I can eat only 98 money, I double my profit. I am not saying that is the case here, but reducing a small percentage of cost could matter if your margin is small. And in the case of those big corps, you can think of them as multiple companies internally, it’s likely they are doing layoff on departments/ divisions that have thin margin or unprofitable (ie. if you are in ads, very few were probably laid off)
b-team 4y ago
Times are good now. $3.6 billion is $36 billion in a decade. One day, Google may need that money to survive. Also, Google’s 2022 profit was $67 billion (down significantly from 2021) so they just increased profits by more than 5%.
- ceejayoz 4y ago
  One day, Google may also need the work that $36B would have accomplished to survive.
  - optymizer 4y ago
    I suspect one of the strategic reasons FAANG keeps us around to work on bullshit projects is to prevent us from going on our own and making awesome competing products.
- throwaway14356 4y ago
  With that much control over our collective mind their preference for bigger businesses and publishers will ultimately be their own unmaking. In the global village sense we wont need them to find big vendors. Google would benefit more from promoting small players for a more chaotic, more competitive landscape where advertisement is actually useful.
matt123456789 4y ago
Would you give me 2% of your salary if I asked you to? This isn’t intended to fix every problem, right away. This is a single measure. By the way, the fine you referenced is also calculated using a percentage of revenue: https://competition-policy.ec.europa.eu/antitrust_en https://competition-policy.ec.europa.eu/antitrust_en
- camgunz 4y ago
  2% of an individual's salary isn't the same as 2% of a megacorp's revenue. Also, I 100% would if it meant 12k people kept their jobs.
- mkl95 4y ago
  I donated 1% of my salary to a charity for a while, which I got back via tax deductions. Some guy transferring some of his wealth to some organization has nothing to do with a corporation trying to cut expenses during a downturn, though. It's a weak strawman.
devnull3 4y ago
I think 12k is just the start. The overall number will higher.
Terretta 4y ago
The median is probably much much lower than average, but perhaps not by enough to change your point, and odds are those fired are around the median not in the stratosphere.

by mkl95 4y ago

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.
  - bushbaba 4y ago
    Their staffing is off by that much though. The bulk of google is working on non revenue non profitable ventures

NhanH 4y ago

My salary is 100, I have to spend 99 on food monthly, leaving me with 1 money as profit. If I can eat only 98 money, I double my profit. I am not saying that is the case here, but reducing a small percentage of cost could matter if your margin is small. And in the case of those big corps, you can think of them as multiple companies internally, it’s likely they are doing layoff on departments/ divisions that have thin margin or unprofitable (ie. if you are in ads, very few were probably laid off)

b-team 4y ago

Times are good now. $3.6 billion is $36 billion in a decade. One day, Google may need that money to survive. Also, Google’s 2022 profit was $67 billion (down significantly from 2021) so they just increased profits by more than 5%.

ceejayoz 4y ago
One day, Google may also need the work that $36B would have accomplished to survive.
- optymizer 4y ago
  I suspect one of the strategic reasons FAANG keeps us around to work on bullshit projects is to prevent us from going on our own and making awesome competing products.
throwaway14356 4y ago
With that much control over our collective mind their preference for bigger businesses and publishers will ultimately be their own unmaking. In the global village sense we wont need them to find big vendors. Google would benefit more from promoting small players for a more chaotic, more competitive landscape where advertisement is actually useful.

matt123456789 4y ago

Would you give me 2% of your salary if I asked you to? This isn’t intended to fix every problem, right away. This is a single measure. By the way, the fine you referenced is also calculated using a percentage of revenue: https://competition-policy.ec.europa.eu/antitrust_en https://competition-policy.ec.europa.eu/antitrust_en

camgunz 4y ago
2% of an individual's salary isn't the same as 2% of a megacorp's revenue. Also, I 100% would if it meant 12k people kept their jobs.
mkl95 4y ago
I donated 1% of my salary to a charity for a while, which I got back via tax deductions. Some guy transferring some of his wealth to some organization has nothing to do with a corporation trying to cut expenses during a downturn, though. It's a weak strawman.

devnull3 4y ago

I think 12k is just the start. The overall number will higher.

Terretta 4y ago

The median is probably much much lower than average, but perhaps not by enough to change your point, and odds are those fired are around the median not in the stratosphere.