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As a google employee (who obviously has no privileged info) I really don’t buy this whole activist-investor explanation for the layoffs. Besides the fact that t

by bbor 4y ago

As a google employee (who obviously has no privileged info) I really don’t buy this whole activist-investor explanation for the layoffs. Besides the fact that the investors in question own <1% of the company, it doesn’t explain the rather random and opaque way the layoffs seem to have been conducted. Plus they (so far) haven’t laid off nearly enough to make hedge funds happy. I’m much more convinced by the argument that they saw this sector-wide wave of layoffs as an opportunity to scare their engineers and change the culture to be a more intense, hierarchical one. Google engineering culture has long been described as permitting coasters and encouraging employees to structure their work around what might get them promoted; that might be great for an innovative growing company, but I suspect Sundar & Co. know that that label doesn’t really fit google’s position anymore. I really don’t see any other reason they’d lay off high performing employees on important projects - especially OSS giants. If my guess is right, it worked, to say the least; the internal culture is best characterized as “terrified” and “stunned”

chaboud 4y ago
It’s much easier to lose trust that to gain it, and the ramifications of the move will be felt for a very long time. There’s the time before and the time after, and Google won’t ever really look the same to the industry. That said, Google probably now actually looks more like what Google is and has been for some time. The industry was just hanging on to goodwill forged over the last two decades. There’s still massive innovation and builder spirit there, but I’m betting that we’ll have a much easier time poaching our favorite employees from Google now than we have over the last few years. I’ve been part of several companies that have gone through layoffs, and one thing I’ve learned is that companies that haven’t done it in a while (or ever) typically do it poorly.
- bbor 4y ago
  Very good points, especially the last one: when trying to understand the logic behind these layoffs, I honestly haven’t considered incompetence enough. Surely people making tens of millions of dollars a year got there through intelligence and merit and not capitalist fiat? Right? Right…?
- scarface74 4y ago
  Yes I’m sure as one of the top paying public companies that issue stock instead of Monopoly money (equity in private companies) tech people are going to refuse to work for Google.
  - pm90 4y ago
    Their compensation isn’t that good (at least for non famous folks) within Big Tech.
    - scarface74 4y ago
      Compared to who? Amazon (my employer)? Apple? Microsoft? Facebook? As far as I know the rankings were - Facebook (but I don’t hate myself enough to consider working there) - Google - Amazon - Apple - Microsoft But Facebook has had a worse stock price drop than the rest.
PessimalDecimal 4y ago
Sundar's recent pay package tied more of his compensation to performance of GOOG relative to the rest of the S&P 100 [1, 2]. That could also be related. [1] https://www.reuters.com/technology/alphabet-links-more-ceo-pichais-pay-performance-2022-12-21/ https://www.reuters.com/technology/alphabet-links-more-ceo-p... [2] https://www.theverge.com/2019/12/20/21031629/google-ceo-sundar-pichai-pay-package-amount-alphabet-compensation-stock https://www.theverge.com/2019/12/20/21031629/google-ceo-sund...
- bbor 4y ago
  Yeah I’ve seen this a lot. I really hope that isn’t the reason, cause if so it didn’t even work that well…
  - temp-goog 4y ago
    What, exactly, makes Sundar qualified to be CEO? In my view, nothing. He’s at best a figure head for Ruth who actually calls the shots. He’s done nothing as CEO other than keep Larry and Sergei’s piggy bank full. He’s just a moderately intelligent man way over his head, doing what other people tell him, without ever making a tough call.
    - cmrdporcupine 4y ago
      For me the decline began when Ruth took over from Patrick, and when the whole Alphabet-ization thing was (clumsily) executed. It was clear at the time they had no idea what they were doing. At all-hands Larry & Sergey couldn't answer basic questions about the strategy and how it would affect large parts of the company (I was in the 'Access' PA at the time -- the PA that ran Fiber, and launched Google WiFi, et -- and Sergey didn't even seem to get that it existed,). They had mentally checked out, and it was obvious.
      - temp-goog 4y ago
        [dead]
doktorhladnjak 4y ago
There’s an assumption made often on HackerNews and elsewhere in tech circles that Google is special and not like other companies. These layoffs show that this is not true. Google is a large corporation, like many others. There’s no grand conspiracy. Nothing unusual is going on. Layoffs can seem random. They’re often done to appease investors or to clean house or both. A lot of Googlers and ex Googlers seem to be reeling from this, but it’s really just another day in corporate America.
- bbor 4y ago
  Very fair, it is typical in many ways, and ofc there’s no one reason for a decision of this size. I’d argue that the culture is (was?) special, though - definitely not unique in the tech sector, but different from e.g. Microsoft, Apple, Meta, and Amazon in many ways. I think that’s been a huge advantage of theirs for years when competing for talent: Google is known as a eng-first, open, innovative company, and people often take lowball offers to get that cred on their resume. That said you’re right that there’s no conspiracy, and I think I gave the wrong impression in my initial comment. Assuming my guess is right, leadership has been loudly and repeatedly telling employees to work harder with phrases like “you should sharpen your focus” and “you should adjust to this new economic reality”, which imo are as close to “work more” as you can get without coming up against CA labor laws
- scarface74 4y ago
  > There’s an assumption made often on HackerNews and elsewhere in tech circles that Google is special and not like other companies. These Few people think Google is special in 2023. They just pay well.
sombragris 4y ago
Okay, but then, why fire such rockstars as Di Bona and Allison?? These are not coasters. AT&T and whatever company inherited the Bell Labs might have done rounds after rounds of layoffs but never fired Dennis Ritchie, for example. People such as DiBona and Allison are assets to any company who can afford to hire them. This is simply unexplainable.
- cmrdporcupine 4y ago
  Because that in particular will freak everyone else in the company out, and .. most importantly... Google is no longer scared about those people going to their competition, because their competition is also flushing talent away. In the past, Google was willing to dump all sorts of cash into talent as long as it kept people from creating a truly competitive landscape. Now, they don't have to worry as much. The layoffs had nothing to do with getting rid of low performers, it was a way of putting everyone on notice that it doesn't matter how well you perform... management has the power, not you.
  - sumeno 4y ago
    Random layoffs that affect high performers and low performers equally doesn't encourage performing higher. If anything it encourages performing lower because why bother if it's not going to even save your job?
    - djur 4y ago
      It might not be so much about encouraging performance as encouraging compliance.
      - rqtwteye 4y ago
        That’s my impression of large companies. They value compliance way more than performance.
    - raydev 4y ago
      Because it doesn't matter. The idea that these companies are overflowing with "low performers" is a complete myth, a lie that people use to comfort themselves. The Big Names are actually filled with so many smart and productive people that it doesn't matter who they lay off.
downrightmike 4y ago
It is a Capital Revolt. Workers were getting too comfortable, and now Money is teaching them a lesson
- bbor 4y ago
  Thank you for this comment; this is exactly my opinion but expressed much more clearly.
  - eecc 4y ago
    Precisely. I saw it coming last year with all that print wasted on the "great resignation" and the "WFH revolution". It's the post-COVID Restoration.
    - granshaw 4y ago
      The EBITDA Enlightenment The ROIC Renaissance
- thedorkknight 4y ago
  We got a little blip in human history where employers were forced to treat their employees like actual people. Was nice while it lasted. Back to having a boot stomping on our faces again...
  - cmrdporcupine 4y ago
    "history where [some tech industry, only] employers were forced"
  - adrianN 4y ago
    The worker bonanza is only starting in many countries. Ageing populations mean that there is a severe labor shortage coming in the next decade or two.
  - wolverine876 4y ago
    Only if you accept it. You write as if you are powerless.
cmrdporcupine 4y ago
I left Google last year (after 10 years), and, yeah, I mostly agree. It's especially dubious that these layoffs happened right in sequence after "everybody else" was doing it. It leaves the whole tech sector vulnerable and all of us in a worse bargaining position. It's a way of enforcing labour discipline into our sector. Hence the layoffs had nothing to do with performance ratings, seniority, ability, etc. Just an across the board "Watch Us" moment to Googlers. I also think Google really was over-hired and over-staffed for years, and some intense re-focusing and defragmentation is/was needed. Except that's not what the layoffs did or seem like they will do.
Spooky23 4y ago
I’m not a Google employee, but can’t help to think that the injection of Oracle and Oracle diaspora folks into the Cloud division has to effect the executive culture.
- fragmede 4y ago
  Even before this most recent round, Google fired most of their internal IT staff, as well as the GCP support team, and replaced them with cheaper labor from a lower cost of living country, so I'd say yeah.
KKKKkkkk1 4y ago
> If my guess is right, it worked, to say the least; the internal culture is best characterized as “terrified” and “stunned” How is it terrified and stunned when one of the top-voted questions at the all-hands that came immediately after the layoff was whether Sundar is going to take a pay cut.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- taeric 4y ago
  That isn't exactly a hardball question. Honestly, if it wasn't something that was already known either way, that is already a miss at that level. Especially in contrast to the way that Tim Cook handled the same idea.
temp-goog 4y ago
Here’s some reliable second-hand information I’m posting on this one-off account. Take this with whatever degree of salt you wish. My understanding from somebody in a position to know is each VP was given a target/quota of cuts. Then they basically had big spreadsheets with salaries and performance ratings, and then pseudo-blindly cut teams or people to make quotas without input from directors/managers, and gave those lists to SPVs. On receipt of these lists some of the VPs were then canned. To avoid lawsuits for discrimination in the USA they then added some statistical “noise” by firing a number of people randomly so the numbers balanced out with no “bias”. The company is run by total morons in my opinion. I’m an extremely high performer with world class expertise. I didn’t get cut, but I’m interviewing elsewhere. I won’t work someplace my tenure is based on a dice roll. I’d rather take PIP culture. Ultimately Google needs me more than the other way around.
- cmrdporcupine 4y ago
  Yep. I think it really is the end for them as a company with a reputation for attracting really bright people. They were in decline over the last 6-7 years, but now Sundar really really blew it. The sheen will just wear off more and more until they just look like any another spent SV company from the past. There was I'm sure a way to make a whole restructuring or cost cutting process happen in a way that could have salvaged their reputation. But they didn't spend any effort trying to find it. And if ad spend drops significantly and/or there's actual anti-monopoly enforcement against them, it will really accelerate things. They have enough $$ they can coast for years, but it isn't going to be pretty.
  - temp-goog 4y ago
    [dead]
- raydev 4y ago
  > I won’t work someplace my tenure is based on a dice roll. Having lived through multiple layoffs in the last few years, I'm not sure there's any org larger than, just handwaving here, 1k people that doesn't do this. I think you'd have to go to a startup before your absence is actually felt.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

by bbor 4y ago

chaboud 4y ago

It’s much easier to lose trust that to gain it, and the ramifications of the move will be felt for a very long time. There’s the time before and the time after, and Google won’t ever really look the same to the industry. That said, Google probably now actually looks more like what Google is and has been for some time. The industry was just hanging on to goodwill forged over the last two decades. There’s still massive innovation and builder spirit there, but I’m betting that we’ll have a much easier time poaching our favorite employees from Google now than we have over the last few years. I’ve been part of several companies that have gone through layoffs, and one thing I’ve learned is that companies that haven’t done it in a while (or ever) typically do it poorly.

bbor 4y ago
Very good points, especially the last one: when trying to understand the logic behind these layoffs, I honestly haven’t considered incompetence enough. Surely people making tens of millions of dollars a year got there through intelligence and merit and not capitalist fiat? Right? Right…?
scarface74 4y ago
Yes I’m sure as one of the top paying public companies that issue stock instead of Monopoly money (equity in private companies) tech people are going to refuse to work for Google.
- pm90 4y ago
  Their compensation isn’t that good (at least for non famous folks) within Big Tech.
  - scarface74 4y ago
    Compared to who? Amazon (my employer)? Apple? Microsoft? Facebook? As far as I know the rankings were - Facebook (but I don’t hate myself enough to consider working there) - Google - Amazon - Apple - Microsoft But Facebook has had a worse stock price drop than the rest.

PessimalDecimal 4y ago

Sundar's recent pay package tied more of his compensation to performance of GOOG relative to the rest of the S&P 100 [1, 2]. That could also be related. [1] https://www.reuters.com/technology/alphabet-links-more-ceo-pichais-pay-performance-2022-12-21/ https://www.reuters.com/technology/alphabet-links-more-ceo-p... [2] https://www.theverge.com/2019/12/20/21031629/google-ceo-sundar-pichai-pay-package-amount-alphabet-compensation-stock https://www.theverge.com/2019/12/20/21031629/google-ceo-sund...

bbor 4y ago
Yeah I’ve seen this a lot. I really hope that isn’t the reason, cause if so it didn’t even work that well…
- temp-goog 4y ago
  What, exactly, makes Sundar qualified to be CEO? In my view, nothing. He’s at best a figure head for Ruth who actually calls the shots. He’s done nothing as CEO other than keep Larry and Sergei’s piggy bank full. He’s just a moderately intelligent man way over his head, doing what other people tell him, without ever making a tough call.
  - cmrdporcupine 4y ago
    For me the decline began when Ruth took over from Patrick, and when the whole Alphabet-ization thing was (clumsily) executed. It was clear at the time they had no idea what they were doing. At all-hands Larry & Sergey couldn't answer basic questions about the strategy and how it would affect large parts of the company (I was in the 'Access' PA at the time -- the PA that ran Fiber, and launched Google WiFi, et -- and Sergey didn't even seem to get that it existed,). They had mentally checked out, and it was obvious.
    - temp-goog 4y ago
      [dead]

doktorhladnjak 4y ago

There’s an assumption made often on HackerNews and elsewhere in tech circles that Google is special and not like other companies. These layoffs show that this is not true. Google is a large corporation, like many others. There’s no grand conspiracy. Nothing unusual is going on. Layoffs can seem random. They’re often done to appease investors or to clean house or both. A lot of Googlers and ex Googlers seem to be reeling from this, but it’s really just another day in corporate America.

bbor 4y ago
Very fair, it is typical in many ways, and ofc there’s no one reason for a decision of this size. I’d argue that the culture is (was?) special, though - definitely not unique in the tech sector, but different from e.g. Microsoft, Apple, Meta, and Amazon in many ways. I think that’s been a huge advantage of theirs for years when competing for talent: Google is known as a eng-first, open, innovative company, and people often take lowball offers to get that cred on their resume. That said you’re right that there’s no conspiracy, and I think I gave the wrong impression in my initial comment. Assuming my guess is right, leadership has been loudly and repeatedly telling employees to work harder with phrases like “you should sharpen your focus” and “you should adjust to this new economic reality”, which imo are as close to “work more” as you can get without coming up against CA labor laws
scarface74 4y ago
> There’s an assumption made often on HackerNews and elsewhere in tech circles that Google is special and not like other companies. These Few people think Google is special in 2023. They just pay well.

sombragris 4y ago

Okay, but then, why fire such rockstars as Di Bona and Allison?? These are not coasters. AT&T and whatever company inherited the Bell Labs might have done rounds after rounds of layoffs but never fired Dennis Ritchie, for example. People such as DiBona and Allison are assets to any company who can afford to hire them. This is simply unexplainable.

cmrdporcupine 4y ago
Because that in particular will freak everyone else in the company out, and .. most importantly... Google is no longer scared about those people going to their competition, because their competition is also flushing talent away. In the past, Google was willing to dump all sorts of cash into talent as long as it kept people from creating a truly competitive landscape. Now, they don't have to worry as much. The layoffs had nothing to do with getting rid of low performers, it was a way of putting everyone on notice that it doesn't matter how well you perform... management has the power, not you.
- sumeno 4y ago
  Random layoffs that affect high performers and low performers equally doesn't encourage performing higher. If anything it encourages performing lower because why bother if it's not going to even save your job?
  - djur 4y ago
    It might not be so much about encouraging performance as encouraging compliance.
    - rqtwteye 4y ago
      That’s my impression of large companies. They value compliance way more than performance.
  - raydev 4y ago
    Because it doesn't matter. The idea that these companies are overflowing with "low performers" is a complete myth, a lie that people use to comfort themselves. The Big Names are actually filled with so many smart and productive people that it doesn't matter who they lay off.

downrightmike 4y ago

It is a Capital Revolt. Workers were getting too comfortable, and now Money is teaching them a lesson

bbor 4y ago
Thank you for this comment; this is exactly my opinion but expressed much more clearly.
- eecc 4y ago
  Precisely. I saw it coming last year with all that print wasted on the "great resignation" and the "WFH revolution". It's the post-COVID Restoration.
  - granshaw 4y ago
    The EBITDA Enlightenment The ROIC Renaissance
thedorkknight 4y ago
We got a little blip in human history where employers were forced to treat their employees like actual people. Was nice while it lasted. Back to having a boot stomping on our faces again...
- cmrdporcupine 4y ago
  "history where [some tech industry, only] employers were forced"
- adrianN 4y ago
  The worker bonanza is only starting in many countries. Ageing populations mean that there is a severe labor shortage coming in the next decade or two.
- wolverine876 4y ago
  Only if you accept it. You write as if you are powerless.

cmrdporcupine 4y ago

I left Google last year (after 10 years), and, yeah, I mostly agree. It's especially dubious that these layoffs happened right in sequence after "everybody else" was doing it. It leaves the whole tech sector vulnerable and all of us in a worse bargaining position. It's a way of enforcing labour discipline into our sector. Hence the layoffs had nothing to do with performance ratings, seniority, ability, etc. Just an across the board "Watch Us" moment to Googlers. I also think Google really was over-hired and over-staffed for years, and some intense re-focusing and defragmentation is/was needed. Except that's not what the layoffs did or seem like they will do.

Spooky23 4y ago

I’m not a Google employee, but can’t help to think that the injection of Oracle and Oracle diaspora folks into the Cloud division has to effect the executive culture.

fragmede 4y ago
Even before this most recent round, Google fired most of their internal IT staff, as well as the GCP support team, and replaced them with cheaper labor from a lower cost of living country, so I'd say yeah.

KKKKkkkk1 4y ago

> If my guess is right, it worked, to say the least; the internal culture is best characterized as “terrified” and “stunned” How is it terrified and stunned when one of the top-voted questions at the all-hands that came immediately after the layoff was whether Sundar is going to take a pay cut.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
taeric 4y ago
That isn't exactly a hardball question. Honestly, if it wasn't something that was already known either way, that is already a miss at that level. Especially in contrast to the way that Tim Cook handled the same idea.

temp-goog 4y ago

Here’s some reliable second-hand information I’m posting on this one-off account. Take this with whatever degree of salt you wish. My understanding from somebody in a position to know is each VP was given a target/quota of cuts. Then they basically had big spreadsheets with salaries and performance ratings, and then pseudo-blindly cut teams or people to make quotas without input from directors/managers, and gave those lists to SPVs. On receipt of these lists some of the VPs were then canned. To avoid lawsuits for discrimination in the USA they then added some statistical “noise” by firing a number of people randomly so the numbers balanced out with no “bias”. The company is run by total morons in my opinion. I’m an extremely high performer with world class expertise. I didn’t get cut, but I’m interviewing elsewhere. I won’t work someplace my tenure is based on a dice roll. I’d rather take PIP culture. Ultimately Google needs me more than the other way around.

cmrdporcupine 4y ago
Yep. I think it really is the end for them as a company with a reputation for attracting really bright people. They were in decline over the last 6-7 years, but now Sundar really really blew it. The sheen will just wear off more and more until they just look like any another spent SV company from the past. There was I'm sure a way to make a whole restructuring or cost cutting process happen in a way that could have salvaged their reputation. But they didn't spend any effort trying to find it. And if ad spend drops significantly and/or there's actual anti-monopoly enforcement against them, it will really accelerate things. They have enough $$ they can coast for years, but it isn't going to be pretty.
- temp-goog 4y ago
  [dead]
raydev 4y ago
> I won’t work someplace my tenure is based on a dice roll. Having lived through multiple layoffs in the last few years, I'm not sure there's any org larger than, just handwaving here, 1k people that doesn't do this. I think you'd have to go to a startup before your absence is actually felt.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]