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are you suggesting that they are intentionally scaring their staff in order to increase productivity? What management school is this thesis from?

oblio 4y ago
The management school of stupidity, which in practice is met a lot more than any other management school, even at top tier companies. The more I read about this stuff, the more I realize that a lot of is out of sheer luck of hitting product market fit. Google monopolized open internet ads 20 years ago and except for protecting their moat they haven't done much else, 90% of their money still comes from there. They're trying to expand with the cloud, but they're a distant 3rd or 4th.
cmrdporcupine 4y ago
it's not to increase productivity, it's to increase compliance and push down salary bands. Have you forgotten this is the same company that had a backroom non-poaching pact with Apple (and probably other SV firms) a decade ago? And got caught red handed and got in a shitload of trouble for it? When I joined Google in 2011 they were still dealing the fallout from that.
- Quarrelsome 4y ago
  > it's not to increase productivity, it's to increase compliance and push down salary bands. Its as if someone has forgotten that they can increase revenue instead.
  - hnfong 4y ago
    Which one is easier for executives, particularly during a recession?
    - Quarrelsome 4y ago
      fair point, short-termism is so ick and its such little thinking.
  - cmrdporcupine 4y ago
    Google doesn't have a revenue problem and hasn't since its IPO. For the past 15 years they've made the stockmarket happy by somehow magically conjuring increases in ad revenues every single quarter. It's a mind boggling firehose of money that just never seemed like it would stop increasing in intensity. It still hasn't stopped, though it may have slowed a bit in its increase. But there's no danger on the revenue front. Just danger on stock price, because investors really want Number Go Up continually. So the moves last week were really about making investors think Google is Doing Something and exercising downward pressure on wages. Its a sector-wide move to put downward pressure on wages and bargaining power, and Google is only a small part of it.

oblio 4y ago

The management school of stupidity, which in practice is met a lot more than any other management school, even at top tier companies. The more I read about this stuff, the more I realize that a lot of is out of sheer luck of hitting product market fit. Google monopolized open internet ads 20 years ago and except for protecting their moat they haven't done much else, 90% of their money still comes from there. They're trying to expand with the cloud, but they're a distant 3rd or 4th.

cmrdporcupine 4y ago

it's not to increase productivity, it's to increase compliance and push down salary bands. Have you forgotten this is the same company that had a backroom non-poaching pact with Apple (and probably other SV firms) a decade ago? And got caught red handed and got in a shitload of trouble for it? When I joined Google in 2011 they were still dealing the fallout from that.

Quarrelsome 4y ago
> it's not to increase productivity, it's to increase compliance and push down salary bands. Its as if someone has forgotten that they can increase revenue instead.
- hnfong 4y ago
  Which one is easier for executives, particularly during a recession?
  - Quarrelsome 4y ago
    fair point, short-termism is so ick and its such little thinking.
- cmrdporcupine 4y ago
  Google doesn't have a revenue problem and hasn't since its IPO. For the past 15 years they've made the stockmarket happy by somehow magically conjuring increases in ad revenues every single quarter. It's a mind boggling firehose of money that just never seemed like it would stop increasing in intensity. It still hasn't stopped, though it may have slowed a bit in its increase. But there's no danger on the revenue front. Just danger on stock price, because investors really want Number Go Up continually. So the moves last week were really about making investors think Google is Doing Something and exercising downward pressure on wages. Its a sector-wide move to put downward pressure on wages and bargaining power, and Google is only a small part of it.