9 ms·

Google Fires Employee of over 16 Years with Automated Email

90 points by Tozen 4y ago

cryptos 4y ago
Keep that in mind if you have qualms about leaving your company for a higher salary (or more meaningful position) elsewhere. You are just a "human resource". Get used to it.
- vivegi 4y ago
  Industrial Relations -> Personnel Department -> Human Resources
- sokoloff 4y ago
  And in that phrase, “human” is an adjective.
- muro 4y ago
  You are just a human, resource.
alentred 4y ago
> Work is not your life I understand the sentiment in the context of being laid off, but I respectfully disagree. IDK, maybe what is meant here is that we should not be too much emotionally attached to our employer. Makes sense, although depends on the context (like, not the same if you own a part of the company). Unless you achieved FIRE (which not many did), work is a part of your life for a big part of it. The sheer amount of time is 7-8 hours per day: that's at least half of your day time. What is left for the "life" then? I do not want to concentrate a lot on the amount of time alone, but it is a good graphic example. What I want to say is that work is a part of our life and our life experiences. I am not evangelizing the Aristotle's "do what you love and you won't work a single day of your life" either, because I understand it is not always possible, is a bit too rosy, and the work is not always pleasant even if you generally do what you love, and you can be laid off, etc. What I think is that if possible, we should consciously choose what we do as work, and explain its place in our life to ourselves. I understand this sounds cliché a lot, but I truly believe that setting goals and giving the meaning to things is a powerful tool in our minds.
Overtonwindow 4y ago
Google has employed some of the best people in the world, talented engineers, sales people, massage therapists, I'm sure they will have no trouble getting a job somewhere else. They are top of the food chain. I'm not worried about Google layoffs at all. Just a bump in the road.
sys_64738 4y ago
Ad companies hire and fire without a care in the world. What makes you think your ad company is any different?
tennisflyi 4y ago
> Companies no longer care about loyalty. And neither should you. This has been the case for many non-tech/software companies for awhile... Welcome to the real world.
nprateem 4y ago
The clue is when they refer to their people as simply "resources"
- khazhoux 4y ago
  To this day I will refuse to use that term, and anyone who uses it (for some reason, many product managers) goes on my bozo-list. "We need more staffing on this project." --> OK "We need more engineers on this project." --> OK "We need more people on this project." --> OK "We need more resources on this project." --> Not OK. Go to hell.
  - tomcam 4y ago
    As a guy who likes precision in language, it seems to me that the last option seems perfectly acceptable because resources aren’t always human, correct? Maybe it means additional officers, hardware, or cloud?
    - khazhoux 4y ago
      No, "resource" is not used as a catch-all like that. It means people, and I have no idea how it entered the lexicon. It's dehumanizing.
      - tomcam 4y ago
        OK thanks. I’m long out of the corporate world. You’re right, it’s revolting to call people resources.
    - Jensson 4y ago
      They mean people.
      - tomcam 4y ago
        Ugh. I sadly stand corrected.
  - 4y ago
sfmike 4y ago
[flagged]
omoikane 4y ago
A more accurate title would have been Google laid off (as opposed to "fired") 12000 employees (as opposed to singular "employee") over email. Current title is misleading.
- whitemary 4y ago
  Terminating one employee of 16 years is a very different story than terminating 12000 employees of unmentioned lengths of employment, even if both are true. Laying off an employee of 16 years in such an undignified fashion is even more distasteful than firing them as such.
- fargle 4y ago
  being "laid off" is simply the same thing as being "fired" for someone of a higher pay-grade's incompetence. semantics.
  - hgomersall 4y ago
    It certainly doesn't feel like that to me in the UK. Being fired is generally because you are incompetent or do something unethical/illegal. A good employer would try hard to work around the former. To my interpretation, being laid off/made redundant implies no fault. That has legal financial consequences like redundancy pay, but also hopefully a good reference and possibly even help to get new work.
    - fargle 4y ago
      I think you misinterpret my comment. Being "laid off" is being fired (in consequence) because of the incompetence of your management. It is ironic that the incompetent jerk who ran the business into the ground does get to keep their job. Now, you raise another point. Unfortunately in the US, being laid off is not supposed to carry a stigma. But ironically in fact, possibly illegally, it really does. Because companies think "gosh: google has 120,000 people. They laid off 12,000, therefore you are in the lowest 10%". Companies are also often very reluctant to fire for incompetence. So a layoff can serve as a cover for "cleaning house". The consequence is that it is always a question afterward: did this guy get laid off because he was the problem child? Why him/her? When you have a job the recruiters beat a path to your door. When you are laid off, you are in a cycle of endless interviews and are regarded as damaged goods for the fault of bad management.
kraig911 4y ago
Google google'd their own googlers. You need support? Googluck.
deathanatos 4y ago
> Companies no longer care about loyalty. And neither should you. The article's author is absolutely right, and I agree. But the long term damage this is already doing & has done to the industry is maddening. People — rightfully so — don't stick around long enough. Before you can take a new engineer from "new hire" to "has learned our systems and has a good understanding" to "is productive and can make changes on their own in the system" to — and this is about the point where most people have found greener pastures — "understands the theory of the system and is actively poking holes in it, and is coming up with far better ideas on their own", but they're already gone, and those super long-term insights are gone with them. So many times — easily multiple times per week if not per day — I am having to answer "ah, that system. Alice would know the answers, be able to guide you, is the resource you need … alas, she left/was laid off." We'll get the job done without her, but it'll take us 5×? 10×? as long. The C-Suite are out of their minds.
- andsoitis 4y ago
  > We'll get the job done without her, but it'll take us 5×? 10×? as long. This begs further reflection. Is it because Alice was amazing? Is it because the code is bad? Is it that the other engineers aren’t seasoned enough? Maybe that system is badly implemented. Also, people leave all the time so you have to be ok with an Alice leaving (or die). You cannot depend on people being around for ever to ensure continuity.
  - agent281 4y ago
    Sometimes places have high turn over because they ask people to move fast while cutting corners because have high turn over and don't know how long people will be there and so they ask people to move fast while cutting corners because they have high turn over...
  - tgsovlerkhgsel 4y ago
    No, it's because people who have a lot of experience with one thing tend to be better at that thing, regardless of how good your documentation is.
kleer001 4y ago
How would being human scale to those thousands of people? Seems impossible to do. Why spend money and time on people that aren't employees.
- csomar 4y ago
  By that logic it's also impossible to provide 12.000 with computer, desks and lunch. But it happened because as you scale numbers of engineers you also scale the para-military to sustain them. So they could have had a one-on-one face-to-face time with each one of them. But they decided to treat them like Cloud resources.
  - khazhoux 4y ago
    They needed to get it over basically in one day (per site). This is actually standard, and gets into issues of computer security, personal security, and lots of CYA. They've scaled up to setting up whatever hundreds of new employees every monday. There's no way they're ready for 12,000 HR 1:1s in one day.
- whitemary 4y ago
  If you can hire 12000 employees, then this is not impossible. Not even difficult. And not only was this person literally an employee, but they were an employee for 16 years. I really can't tell if I'm responding to an AI bot.
  - khazhoux 4y ago
    The employees are hired a few hundred every week. Layoffs like this happen within a day (per site).
    - whitemary 4y ago
      Then don't do them within a day? Regardless of how you try to valorize it, it happened and it's extremely distasteful.
midoridensha 4y ago
Seems like Google and Intel and many other tech companies are self-destructing, but I don't see Apple in this list at all. My prediction: between government regulation efforts and plain incompetence in the C-suites, along with a complete lack of willingness to apply antitrust law to Apple for some reason, in 5-10 years Apple will become a monopoly in western nations and it'll be completely unavoidable to own an iPhone or use non-Apple computers or operating systems. So while people under Chinese rule will be stuck under the Great Firewall, westerners (and especially Americans) will be stuck inside Apple's Walled Garden.
- tgsovlerkhgsel 4y ago
  Americans maybe. According to https://gs.statcounter.com/vendor-market-share/mobile/united-states-of-america https://gs.statcounter.com/vendor-market-share/mobile/united..., Apple has a market share of ~58% in the US, but (https://gs.statcounter.com/vendor-market-share/mobile/europe https://gs.statcounter.com/vendor-market-share/mobile/europe) ~36% in Europe.
  - FredPret 4y ago
    Could be due to Europe’s lower GDP per capita. Here’s the chart for Switzerland, which is on par with the richer areas of the states: https://gs.statcounter.com/vendor-market-share/mobile/switzerland/#monthly-202112-202301 https://gs.statcounter.com/vendor-market-share/mobile/switze... TLDR - Apple market share is 58%
    - tomcam 4y ago
      That’s market share for mobile, not desktops
- NoPicklez 4y ago
  Lots of leaps and bounds made in what you've written there. Connecting Google and Intel self destructing leaving a company that isn't on the list of firing its staff becoming successful enough. News flash, almost every company in the world is mostly Microsoft, using either Windows machines and/or running Windows servers and/or using Microsoft Cloud services. Yet I don't see you mentioning them as part of this walled garden. When you slap together Active Directory, a Domain Controller, Microsoft Sentinel and a feet of Windows machines, you have yourself a heavily Microsoft reliant company. I think we will be fine in comparison with what China have implemented.
nowherebeen 4y ago
I think the bubble is bursting with big tech employees that think they have tenure once they reach a certain level. Big tech isn't some anomaly where layoffs don't happen. It's just that their growth has been uninterrupted for a decade.
- strawhatguy 4y ago
  No kidding; in one of the most sought after jobs at one of the most recognized companies and get laid off after 16 years? The blogging on this like it’s new is crazy. I’m mean the automated email is bad, but hey, that’s the automated brave new world our profession has built.
  - devwastaken 4y ago
    An automated email is unacceptable in any context there, even if they had only been there for a month. An automated email is a dishonest deflection from executives having to face the people their decision making affects. I don't know an honest owner that wouldn't pull even their worst worker aside and tell them why they're fired at a minimum. I've seen CNC shops where the owner finds new jobs for the people they had to lay off. Hold the wealthiest corps accountable.
    - americafun 4y ago
      Accountable for what exactly ? What happenes to "It's a private company, they can do whatever they want?" ?
      - strawhatguy 4y ago
        *when what they want jives with what I want, of course.
  - jossclimb 4y ago
    The interesting aspect is the tech folks being laid off right now with automated email, could just as easily have developed the automated tools that automated the email. You have to wonder how many really spent much time outraged to the misfortune of those automated out of jobs by the software they develop (cashiers, accountants, entry clerks..) I am not saying we should not write software, but don't go crying when the realities of capitalism come for your cushy privileged tech job too.
ilrwbwrkhv 4y ago
Anybody who joins a large corporation instead of a local family company or a startup deserves being treated like cogs in a machine.
- medellin 4y ago
  Interesting take. Why does anyone deserve to be treated poorly?
  - ilrwbwrkhv 4y ago
    Not poorly. I just mean, like a cog in the machine. Expecting anything different is insanity.
- VirusNewbie 4y ago
  I’ve oscillated between small companies and the largest companies my whole career. While I have enjoyed both, I’ve definitely been treated better at the large companies compared to startups and family shops.
  - ilrwbwrkhv 4y ago
    Interesting. Did you not get a better understanding of a smaller company?
    - VirusNewbie 4y ago
      I’m not sure what you mean a better understanding? If you mean did I contribute a larger percentage of code compared to all existing code yes, I “grokked” more at the small companies, but that didn’t mean I got treated better.
- bombolo 4y ago
  Ah yes startups are famous for good work/life balance and treating people fairly by paying with worthless shares.
MrSqueezles 4y ago
I was laid off from Google. I keep seeing posts from people who, I have to assume, just figured out how the world works and want to teach us. Guys, seriously, who didn't already know this? Some companies stay lean, plan for difficult times. Others spend like crazy in good times and cut back in bad. Google always prided itself on being small and scrappy. That changed under Sundar, the current CEO. They started hiring a ton and now they're cutting back. The CEO still hasn't come to terms with the fact that he fucked up. He made comments in leaked meetings like, "Just imagine if we continued to grow and didn't have all of those extra people. Where would we have been?" Dude, you would have been fine. You don't grow a business by sticking more people in it. This is how accountants think about business, not leaders.
- xiphias2 4y ago
  To tell you the truth I think Sundar was not the one who fucked up. It was Larry and Sergey. That guy doesn't have what it takes to be the CEO of one of the most important tech companies in the world, just like Trump/Biden are probably not the most talented leaders of the most important country either. Eric Schmidt was great, and Google has lots of other much more talented leaders who understand programming on a deep level. When we asked Eric Schmidt years ago of why some stupid things are happening (Christmas present of donating Google laptops to US children especially when most of us are from poorer countries), his answer was ,,I'm not the CEO''.
- notacoward 4y ago
  > imagine if we continued to grow and didn't have all of those extra people This is the problem with FAANG, to a very large extent with all VC-funded companies, and to some extent with capitalism in general. Everyone looks at total dollar value, not at efficiency (loosely revenue per employee) and certainly not at anything hard to measure in dollars (e.g. quality of life). The only way to keep driving that number up is to grow, not to improve. Growth is mandatory, necessary even, and ultimately becomes like that other thing that keeps trying to grow without bound: cancer. Innovation is an uncertain route to growth over the long term. The sure routes are monopolization, regulatory capture, rent seeking (especially in the form that Cory Doctorow has called "enshittification"), and so on. So guess which one CEOs - whose pay is tied to that growth and not to more human-oriented metrics - go for. Every time.
ggm 4y ago
What's the size of the cohorts by years of employment at Google? I'm guessing it's an exponential but maybe a fractional exponential (guessing because it's unlikely to have been linear) I also expect it has discontinuities at vesting times. Some employers (Cisco, old HP maybe) fire engineers who can't transition out to senior roles almost as a matter of policy.
jgaa 4y ago
I'm shocked to learn that Google is a terrible company. Shocked!
eightman 4y ago
Going to be absolutely hilarious when the recession that all these cuts are supposed to be in preparation for doesn't happen or is a lot less severe then predicted and suddenly Wall Street starts screaming about how all these firms are understaffed and can't launch new products.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- aliyfarah 4y ago
  More likely they’d be wondering what all those extra people were doing in the first place when they realise Google is still operating as usual and churning out features and products.
  - eightman 4y ago
    What percentage of developers at Google work on their ad business, which provides 80% of their revenue?
- pm90 4y ago
  It’s unlikely they’re gonna be understaffed. The projects cut weren’t revenue generating ones.
  - eightman 4y ago
    I would bet the majority of developers at Google do not work on revenue generating projects.
pictur 4y ago
I envy people's efforts to speak so knowingly about layoffs.
Simon_O_Rourke 4y ago
> I was laid off from Google. I keep seeing posts from people who, I have to assume, just figured out how the world works and want to teach us. Guys, seriously, who didn't already know this? Hard agree on this. Did this employee expect Sergey Brin to call over to his desk with flowers and a hamper of fancy goods, and lament their loss? A few friends of mine were let go last month in a tech company in Portland, and similar thing, automated email followed by people openly weeping at desks. It's never a pleasant thing I know, but I suspect they bought too much into their company's "culture" declarations of being at one with the universe and loving everyone etc. etc.
- jossclimb 4y ago
  I always cringe and pull people up when they refer to work / teammates as family. We are all a family here at 'wootsie'. NO! Family means you will stick by people no matter what. Your Brother is an ass, he stole your PS5 to score some fentanyl, he is still your brother, you're frustrated with him, but he will always be family. That is a very different loyalty to the people you work with. Fuck up and they will drop you like a hot rock.
  - toyg 4y ago
    Tbh, i don't even agree with that view of family. You give people more chances, but chances do run out. Don't let yourself be abused by bad people just because you shared a few years of your life.
    - jossclimb 4y ago
      I never said you cannot cut them out of your life until they amend their behavior (tough love), but you very rarely likely to completely disown them 'not my brother', especially if they redeem their flaws. Nothing like that will ever play out with a work colleague.
- mihaaly 4y ago
  Probably the type of people building up something viable for years (popular expression I heard: raise their children), with years of work and commitment, then operate it and improve when necessary - keeping alive in hard times - without overgrowth is not extinct yet. In those companies laying off is a hardship, not as easy as changing a component to a newer one in a machine, quite the opposite. Older the component the harder it is. Almost inevitably these are small or medium places where people know each other's culture (not by adopting it from some pompous policy document or pretentious HR event). For those having the opportunity working for such groups long the world works differently.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
griffoa 4y ago
[dead]
burner420042 4y ago
Does this mean the flood of clickbait and like hunting posts that took over LinkedIn are coming to Hacker News?
- ecoNoIGGERmy 4y ago
  [dead]
TacticalCoder 4y ago
A friend of mine got laid off from Stanley: that's not an IT company. Same thing: after 12 years in, an email saying he's been fired, all his accesses have been cut off and he'd only be able to come once more to the office to pack his personal stuff. Legally they could have asked him to work for x more weeks but they said they don't do that: concerns about fired people not performing well or even trying to sabotage something, steal documents, complain to co-workers, etc. After 12 years in the EU he got a very nice package: I think one year full salary paid. That accesses are cut off before or at the same time the email is sent is normal. I know it feels brutal but that's how big companies roll.

90 points by Tozen 4y ago

Keep that in mind if you have qualms about leaving your company for a higher salary (or more meaningful position) elsewhere. You are just a "human resource". Get used to it.

vivegi 4y ago
Industrial Relations -> Personnel Department -> Human Resources
sokoloff 4y ago
And in that phrase, “human” is an adjective.
muro 4y ago
You are just a human, resource.

alentred 4y ago

> Work is not your life I understand the sentiment in the context of being laid off, but I respectfully disagree. IDK, maybe what is meant here is that we should not be too much emotionally attached to our employer. Makes sense, although depends on the context (like, not the same if you own a part of the company). Unless you achieved FIRE (which not many did), work is a part of your life for a big part of it. The sheer amount of time is 7-8 hours per day: that's at least half of your day time. What is left for the "life" then? I do not want to concentrate a lot on the amount of time alone, but it is a good graphic example. What I want to say is that work is a part of our life and our life experiences. I am not evangelizing the Aristotle's "do what you love and you won't work a single day of your life" either, because I understand it is not always possible, is a bit too rosy, and the work is not always pleasant even if you generally do what you love, and you can be laid off, etc. What I think is that if possible, we should consciously choose what we do as work, and explain its place in our life to ourselves. I understand this sounds cliché a lot, but I truly believe that setting goals and giving the meaning to things is a powerful tool in our minds.

Overtonwindow 4y ago

Google has employed some of the best people in the world, talented engineers, sales people, massage therapists, I'm sure they will have no trouble getting a job somewhere else. They are top of the food chain. I'm not worried about Google layoffs at all. Just a bump in the road.

sys_64738 4y ago

Ad companies hire and fire without a care in the world. What makes you think your ad company is any different?

tennisflyi 4y ago

> Companies no longer care about loyalty. And neither should you. This has been the case for many non-tech/software companies for awhile... Welcome to the real world.

nprateem 4y ago

The clue is when they refer to their people as simply "resources"

khazhoux 4y ago
To this day I will refuse to use that term, and anyone who uses it (for some reason, many product managers) goes on my bozo-list. "We need more staffing on this project." --> OK "We need more engineers on this project." --> OK "We need more people on this project." --> OK "We need more resources on this project." --> Not OK. Go to hell.
- tomcam 4y ago
  As a guy who likes precision in language, it seems to me that the last option seems perfectly acceptable because resources aren’t always human, correct? Maybe it means additional officers, hardware, or cloud?
  - khazhoux 4y ago
    No, "resource" is not used as a catch-all like that. It means people, and I have no idea how it entered the lexicon. It's dehumanizing.
    - tomcam 4y ago
      OK thanks. I’m long out of the corporate world. You’re right, it’s revolting to call people resources.
  - Jensson 4y ago
    They mean people.
    - tomcam 4y ago
      Ugh. I sadly stand corrected.
- 4y ago

sfmike 4y ago

[flagged]

omoikane 4y ago

A more accurate title would have been Google laid off (as opposed to "fired") 12000 employees (as opposed to singular "employee") over email. Current title is misleading.

whitemary 4y ago
Terminating one employee of 16 years is a very different story than terminating 12000 employees of unmentioned lengths of employment, even if both are true. Laying off an employee of 16 years in such an undignified fashion is even more distasteful than firing them as such.
fargle 4y ago
being "laid off" is simply the same thing as being "fired" for someone of a higher pay-grade's incompetence. semantics.
- hgomersall 4y ago
  It certainly doesn't feel like that to me in the UK. Being fired is generally because you are incompetent or do something unethical/illegal. A good employer would try hard to work around the former. To my interpretation, being laid off/made redundant implies no fault. That has legal financial consequences like redundancy pay, but also hopefully a good reference and possibly even help to get new work.
  - fargle 4y ago
    I think you misinterpret my comment. Being "laid off" is being fired (in consequence) because of the incompetence of your management. It is ironic that the incompetent jerk who ran the business into the ground does get to keep their job. Now, you raise another point. Unfortunately in the US, being laid off is not supposed to carry a stigma. But ironically in fact, possibly illegally, it really does. Because companies think "gosh: google has 120,000 people. They laid off 12,000, therefore you are in the lowest 10%". Companies are also often very reluctant to fire for incompetence. So a layoff can serve as a cover for "cleaning house". The consequence is that it is always a question afterward: did this guy get laid off because he was the problem child? Why him/her? When you have a job the recruiters beat a path to your door. When you are laid off, you are in a cycle of endless interviews and are regarded as damaged goods for the fault of bad management.

kraig911 4y ago

Google google'd their own googlers. You need support? Googluck.

deathanatos 4y ago

> Companies no longer care about loyalty. And neither should you. The article's author is absolutely right, and I agree. But the long term damage this is already doing & has done to the industry is maddening. People — rightfully so — don't stick around long enough. Before you can take a new engineer from "new hire" to "has learned our systems and has a good understanding" to "is productive and can make changes on their own in the system" to — and this is about the point where most people have found greener pastures — "understands the theory of the system and is actively poking holes in it, and is coming up with far better ideas on their own", but they're already gone, and those super long-term insights are gone with them. So many times — easily multiple times per week if not per day — I am having to answer "ah, that system. Alice would know the answers, be able to guide you, is the resource you need … alas, she left/was laid off." We'll get the job done without her, but it'll take us 5×? 10×? as long. The C-Suite are out of their minds.

andsoitis 4y ago
> We'll get the job done without her, but it'll take us 5×? 10×? as long. This begs further reflection. Is it because Alice was amazing? Is it because the code is bad? Is it that the other engineers aren’t seasoned enough? Maybe that system is badly implemented. Also, people leave all the time so you have to be ok with an Alice leaving (or die). You cannot depend on people being around for ever to ensure continuity.
- agent281 4y ago
  Sometimes places have high turn over because they ask people to move fast while cutting corners because have high turn over and don't know how long people will be there and so they ask people to move fast while cutting corners because they have high turn over...
- tgsovlerkhgsel 4y ago
  No, it's because people who have a lot of experience with one thing tend to be better at that thing, regardless of how good your documentation is.

kleer001 4y ago

How would being human scale to those thousands of people? Seems impossible to do. Why spend money and time on people that aren't employees.

csomar 4y ago
By that logic it's also impossible to provide 12.000 with computer, desks and lunch. But it happened because as you scale numbers of engineers you also scale the para-military to sustain them. So they could have had a one-on-one face-to-face time with each one of them. But they decided to treat them like Cloud resources.
- khazhoux 4y ago
  They needed to get it over basically in one day (per site). This is actually standard, and gets into issues of computer security, personal security, and lots of CYA. They've scaled up to setting up whatever hundreds of new employees every monday. There's no way they're ready for 12,000 HR 1:1s in one day.
whitemary 4y ago
If you can hire 12000 employees, then this is not impossible. Not even difficult. And not only was this person literally an employee, but they were an employee for 16 years. I really can't tell if I'm responding to an AI bot.
- khazhoux 4y ago
  The employees are hired a few hundred every week. Layoffs like this happen within a day (per site).
  - whitemary 4y ago
    Then don't do them within a day? Regardless of how you try to valorize it, it happened and it's extremely distasteful.

midoridensha 4y ago

Seems like Google and Intel and many other tech companies are self-destructing, but I don't see Apple in this list at all. My prediction: between government regulation efforts and plain incompetence in the C-suites, along with a complete lack of willingness to apply antitrust law to Apple for some reason, in 5-10 years Apple will become a monopoly in western nations and it'll be completely unavoidable to own an iPhone or use non-Apple computers or operating systems. So while people under Chinese rule will be stuck under the Great Firewall, westerners (and especially Americans) will be stuck inside Apple's Walled Garden.

tgsovlerkhgsel 4y ago
Americans maybe. According to https://gs.statcounter.com/vendor-market-share/mobile/united-states-of-america https://gs.statcounter.com/vendor-market-share/mobile/united..., Apple has a market share of ~58% in the US, but (https://gs.statcounter.com/vendor-market-share/mobile/europe https://gs.statcounter.com/vendor-market-share/mobile/europe) ~36% in Europe.
- FredPret 4y ago
  Could be due to Europe’s lower GDP per capita. Here’s the chart for Switzerland, which is on par with the richer areas of the states: https://gs.statcounter.com/vendor-market-share/mobile/switzerland/#monthly-202112-202301 https://gs.statcounter.com/vendor-market-share/mobile/switze... TLDR - Apple market share is 58%
  - tomcam 4y ago
    That’s market share for mobile, not desktops
NoPicklez 4y ago
Lots of leaps and bounds made in what you've written there. Connecting Google and Intel self destructing leaving a company that isn't on the list of firing its staff becoming successful enough. News flash, almost every company in the world is mostly Microsoft, using either Windows machines and/or running Windows servers and/or using Microsoft Cloud services. Yet I don't see you mentioning them as part of this walled garden. When you slap together Active Directory, a Domain Controller, Microsoft Sentinel and a feet of Windows machines, you have yourself a heavily Microsoft reliant company. I think we will be fine in comparison with what China have implemented.

nowherebeen 4y ago

I think the bubble is bursting with big tech employees that think they have tenure once they reach a certain level. Big tech isn't some anomaly where layoffs don't happen. It's just that their growth has been uninterrupted for a decade.

strawhatguy 4y ago
No kidding; in one of the most sought after jobs at one of the most recognized companies and get laid off after 16 years? The blogging on this like it’s new is crazy. I’m mean the automated email is bad, but hey, that’s the automated brave new world our profession has built.
- devwastaken 4y ago
  An automated email is unacceptable in any context there, even if they had only been there for a month. An automated email is a dishonest deflection from executives having to face the people their decision making affects. I don't know an honest owner that wouldn't pull even their worst worker aside and tell them why they're fired at a minimum. I've seen CNC shops where the owner finds new jobs for the people they had to lay off. Hold the wealthiest corps accountable.
  - americafun 4y ago
    Accountable for what exactly ? What happenes to "It's a private company, they can do whatever they want?" ?
    - strawhatguy 4y ago
      *when what they want jives with what I want, of course.
- jossclimb 4y ago
  The interesting aspect is the tech folks being laid off right now with automated email, could just as easily have developed the automated tools that automated the email. You have to wonder how many really spent much time outraged to the misfortune of those automated out of jobs by the software they develop (cashiers, accountants, entry clerks..) I am not saying we should not write software, but don't go crying when the realities of capitalism come for your cushy privileged tech job too.

ilrwbwrkhv 4y ago

Anybody who joins a large corporation instead of a local family company or a startup deserves being treated like cogs in a machine.

medellin 4y ago
Interesting take. Why does anyone deserve to be treated poorly?
- ilrwbwrkhv 4y ago
  Not poorly. I just mean, like a cog in the machine. Expecting anything different is insanity.
VirusNewbie 4y ago
I’ve oscillated between small companies and the largest companies my whole career. While I have enjoyed both, I’ve definitely been treated better at the large companies compared to startups and family shops.
- ilrwbwrkhv 4y ago
  Interesting. Did you not get a better understanding of a smaller company?
  - VirusNewbie 4y ago
    I’m not sure what you mean a better understanding? If you mean did I contribute a larger percentage of code compared to all existing code yes, I “grokked” more at the small companies, but that didn’t mean I got treated better.
bombolo 4y ago
Ah yes startups are famous for good work/life balance and treating people fairly by paying with worthless shares.

MrSqueezles 4y ago

I was laid off from Google. I keep seeing posts from people who, I have to assume, just figured out how the world works and want to teach us. Guys, seriously, who didn't already know this? Some companies stay lean, plan for difficult times. Others spend like crazy in good times and cut back in bad. Google always prided itself on being small and scrappy. That changed under Sundar, the current CEO. They started hiring a ton and now they're cutting back. The CEO still hasn't come to terms with the fact that he fucked up. He made comments in leaked meetings like, "Just imagine if we continued to grow and didn't have all of those extra people. Where would we have been?" Dude, you would have been fine. You don't grow a business by sticking more people in it. This is how accountants think about business, not leaders.

xiphias2 4y ago
To tell you the truth I think Sundar was not the one who fucked up. It was Larry and Sergey. That guy doesn't have what it takes to be the CEO of one of the most important tech companies in the world, just like Trump/Biden are probably not the most talented leaders of the most important country either. Eric Schmidt was great, and Google has lots of other much more talented leaders who understand programming on a deep level. When we asked Eric Schmidt years ago of why some stupid things are happening (Christmas present of donating Google laptops to US children especially when most of us are from poorer countries), his answer was ,,I'm not the CEO''.
notacoward 4y ago
> imagine if we continued to grow and didn't have all of those extra people This is the problem with FAANG, to a very large extent with all VC-funded companies, and to some extent with capitalism in general. Everyone looks at total dollar value, not at efficiency (loosely revenue per employee) and certainly not at anything hard to measure in dollars (e.g. quality of life). The only way to keep driving that number up is to grow, not to improve. Growth is mandatory, necessary even, and ultimately becomes like that other thing that keeps trying to grow without bound: cancer. Innovation is an uncertain route to growth over the long term. The sure routes are monopolization, regulatory capture, rent seeking (especially in the form that Cory Doctorow has called "enshittification"), and so on. So guess which one CEOs - whose pay is tied to that growth and not to more human-oriented metrics - go for. Every time.

ggm 4y ago

What's the size of the cohorts by years of employment at Google? I'm guessing it's an exponential but maybe a fractional exponential (guessing because it's unlikely to have been linear) I also expect it has discontinuities at vesting times. Some employers (Cisco, old HP maybe) fire engineers who can't transition out to senior roles almost as a matter of policy.

jgaa 4y ago

I'm shocked to learn that Google is a terrible company. Shocked!

eightman 4y ago

Going to be absolutely hilarious when the recession that all these cuts are supposed to be in preparation for doesn't happen or is a lot less severe then predicted and suddenly Wall Street starts screaming about how all these firms are understaffed and can't launch new products.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
aliyfarah 4y ago
More likely they’d be wondering what all those extra people were doing in the first place when they realise Google is still operating as usual and churning out features and products.
- eightman 4y ago
  What percentage of developers at Google work on their ad business, which provides 80% of their revenue?
pm90 4y ago
It’s unlikely they’re gonna be understaffed. The projects cut weren’t revenue generating ones.
- eightman 4y ago
  I would bet the majority of developers at Google do not work on revenue generating projects.

pictur 4y ago

I envy people's efforts to speak so knowingly about layoffs.

Simon_O_Rourke 4y ago

> I was laid off from Google. I keep seeing posts from people who, I have to assume, just figured out how the world works and want to teach us. Guys, seriously, who didn't already know this? Hard agree on this. Did this employee expect Sergey Brin to call over to his desk with flowers and a hamper of fancy goods, and lament their loss? A few friends of mine were let go last month in a tech company in Portland, and similar thing, automated email followed by people openly weeping at desks. It's never a pleasant thing I know, but I suspect they bought too much into their company's "culture" declarations of being at one with the universe and loving everyone etc. etc.

jossclimb 4y ago
I always cringe and pull people up when they refer to work / teammates as family. We are all a family here at 'wootsie'. NO! Family means you will stick by people no matter what. Your Brother is an ass, he stole your PS5 to score some fentanyl, he is still your brother, you're frustrated with him, but he will always be family. That is a very different loyalty to the people you work with. Fuck up and they will drop you like a hot rock.
- toyg 4y ago
  Tbh, i don't even agree with that view of family. You give people more chances, but chances do run out. Don't let yourself be abused by bad people just because you shared a few years of your life.
  - jossclimb 4y ago
    I never said you cannot cut them out of your life until they amend their behavior (tough love), but you very rarely likely to completely disown them 'not my brother', especially if they redeem their flaws. Nothing like that will ever play out with a work colleague.
mihaaly 4y ago
Probably the type of people building up something viable for years (popular expression I heard: raise their children), with years of work and commitment, then operate it and improve when necessary - keeping alive in hard times - without overgrowth is not extinct yet. In those companies laying off is a hardship, not as easy as changing a component to a newer one in a machine, quite the opposite. Older the component the harder it is. Almost inevitably these are small or medium places where people know each other's culture (not by adopting it from some pompous policy document or pretentious HR event). For those having the opportunity working for such groups long the world works differently.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

griffoa 4y ago

[dead]

burner420042 4y ago

Does this mean the flood of clickbait and like hunting posts that took over LinkedIn are coming to Hacker News?

ecoNoIGGERmy 4y ago
[dead]

TacticalCoder 4y ago

A friend of mine got laid off from Stanley: that's not an IT company. Same thing: after 12 years in, an email saying he's been fired, all his accesses have been cut off and he'd only be able to come once more to the office to pack his personal stuff. Legally they could have asked him to work for x more weeks but they said they don't do that: concerns about fired people not performing well or even trying to sabotage something, steal documents, complain to co-workers, etc. After 12 years in the EU he got a very nice package: I think one year full salary paid. That accesses are cut off before or at the same time the email is sent is normal. I know it feels brutal but that's how big companies roll.