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CEO made bad decisions that many other companies avoided. CEO panicked and fired thousands unprofessionally. CEO received record compensation.

rocket_surgeron 4y ago
CEOs serve the board and the board serves the shareholders. Employees are irrelevant in this scenario, replaceable units whose purpose is to produce. Are either of the two relevant parties mad at the CEO? If you want employees to matter beyond the cold calculus of dollars per beating heart per quarter, Alphabet ain't inside that kinda system. Unions could help (because they explicitly acknowledge the $ per soul metric and seek to exploit it for the souls' benefit) but the U-word is a bad word to libertarian techbros.
zzen 4y ago
Tons of tech companies were firing employees in 2022, so much so Apple was far and wide an exception in just keeping the same numbers. Feels more like an economic cycle / preparing for the worse rather than result of bad decisions on behalf of Pichai. And yes - firing employees to protect the efficiency of the company is (an unpopular) part of a CEOs job.
noisy_boy 4y ago
> CEO made bad decisions that many other companies avoided. Like what? Over-hiring? Many other companies avoided? Like which big ones? Amazon, Microsoft etc.? > CEO panicked Sounds like hyperbole > fired thousands unprofessionally How do you fire thousands professionally? I thought ensuring market and shareholder satisfaction was the top priority for CEOs and they get paid to make those unpopular decisions as/when deemed fit?
- querez 4y ago
  >> fired thousands unprofessionally > How do you fire thousands professionally? I thought ensuring market and shareholder satisfaction was the top priority for CEOs and they get paid to make those unpopular decisions as/when deemed fit? While true, it's fairly obvious that the Google firings have been badly mishandled. There are stories of SREs getting fired/locked out while still on duty. And in general, sending firing emails at 4am in the morning is very bad class in a company that claims where "don't be evil" and "trust your employees" are pillars of the company is, ... well, not good for PR.
  - jimsimmons 4y ago
    What would be your preferred time to receive an email about your layoff?
    - amscanne 4y ago
      I’m not sure if you are being intentionally obtuse, but the obvious answer is that rather than being locked out in the middle of the night, people would prefer to be told directly by a human (ideally their manager), and given the opportunity to say goodbye to their colleagues.
      - jimsimmons 4y ago
        There’s a reason they don’t don that: what if a rogue employee among the thousands laid off decides to leak PII or trade secrets
        amscanne 4y ago
        That’s a complete straw man. Microsoft, Meta and others managed to pull off safely laying off employees while still treating them respectfully and allowing them to say goodbye.
        oblio 4y ago
        Guess what: Europe doesn't do instant termination and the roof hasn't collapsed.
- Tyr42 4y ago
  I mean, Google did not think through the layoff enough to make sure they were even legal in all the countries before announcing them. They ended up rolling back the France layoffs when they realized they goofed, but Germany and the UK are still pending. If that's not an example of rushed, I don't know what is. Or how about sending that "Cloud had the best year ever" hours before the Canadian layoffs were announced.
fernandotakai 4y ago
>CEO made bad decisions that many other companies avoided. i don't think sundar is a good ceo, but this absolutely false. most big tech companies also had layovers.
saiya-jin 4y ago
Basically all your words are incorrect and project some bad kind of emotions you are housing, all points addressed all around here. Can't we do a bit better than tabloid outrage fueled by just raw emotions? He did correct the course which was right thing to do. Hiring previously was also the right decision at that time, properly nobody knew covid scare would taper off so quickly and people would revert some of the newly found (and often wrong and unhealthy) habits. No panic anywhere, this is business as usual in every sense of that phrase. He received normal compensation, just its done every 3 years - before getting headfirst into outrage, maybe first read some facts? I don't even get the outrage in this specific case - some, often under-performing (within given group) folks earning 300k + massive bonuses in stocks got fired, and either they 1) found immediately another well paid job; or 2) got already so rich they took 6/12 months sabbatical, plenty of HN posts about exactly this. I mean good for them, heck good for everybody. Why the envy, desire for CEO to burn in hell or at least end up bankrupt homeless on streets? Nothing good ever comes from such an approach, just stupid short term populist moves for the simpler minds who don't think much ahead or in complex fashion.
- cudgy 4y ago
  “just stupid short term populist moves for the simpler minds who don't think much ahead or in complex fashion” Surely it was stupid to not realize that the last few years were temporarily fueled by Covid work from home trends and huge fiscal and monetary stimulus. If anything, the CEO making the same mistakes as all the other tech CEO’s indicates poor performance or at least average performance - not protection from criticism.

rocket_surgeron 4y ago

CEOs serve the board and the board serves the shareholders. Employees are irrelevant in this scenario, replaceable units whose purpose is to produce. Are either of the two relevant parties mad at the CEO? If you want employees to matter beyond the cold calculus of dollars per beating heart per quarter, Alphabet ain't inside that kinda system. Unions could help (because they explicitly acknowledge the $ per soul metric and seek to exploit it for the souls' benefit) but the U-word is a bad word to libertarian techbros.

zzen 4y ago

Tons of tech companies were firing employees in 2022, so much so Apple was far and wide an exception in just keeping the same numbers. Feels more like an economic cycle / preparing for the worse rather than result of bad decisions on behalf of Pichai. And yes - firing employees to protect the efficiency of the company is (an unpopular) part of a CEOs job.

noisy_boy 4y ago

> CEO made bad decisions that many other companies avoided. Like what? Over-hiring? Many other companies avoided? Like which big ones? Amazon, Microsoft etc.? > CEO panicked Sounds like hyperbole > fired thousands unprofessionally How do you fire thousands professionally? I thought ensuring market and shareholder satisfaction was the top priority for CEOs and they get paid to make those unpopular decisions as/when deemed fit?

querez 4y ago
>> fired thousands unprofessionally > How do you fire thousands professionally? I thought ensuring market and shareholder satisfaction was the top priority for CEOs and they get paid to make those unpopular decisions as/when deemed fit? While true, it's fairly obvious that the Google firings have been badly mishandled. There are stories of SREs getting fired/locked out while still on duty. And in general, sending firing emails at 4am in the morning is very bad class in a company that claims where "don't be evil" and "trust your employees" are pillars of the company is, ... well, not good for PR.
- jimsimmons 4y ago
  What would be your preferred time to receive an email about your layoff?
  - amscanne 4y ago
    I’m not sure if you are being intentionally obtuse, but the obvious answer is that rather than being locked out in the middle of the night, people would prefer to be told directly by a human (ideally their manager), and given the opportunity to say goodbye to their colleagues.
    - jimsimmons 4y ago
      There’s a reason they don’t don that: what if a rogue employee among the thousands laid off decides to leak PII or trade secrets
      - amscanne 4y ago
        That’s a complete straw man. Microsoft, Meta and others managed to pull off safely laying off employees while still treating them respectfully and allowing them to say goodbye.
      - oblio 4y ago
        Guess what: Europe doesn't do instant termination and the roof hasn't collapsed.
Tyr42 4y ago
I mean, Google did not think through the layoff enough to make sure they were even legal in all the countries before announcing them. They ended up rolling back the France layoffs when they realized they goofed, but Germany and the UK are still pending. If that's not an example of rushed, I don't know what is. Or how about sending that "Cloud had the best year ever" hours before the Canadian layoffs were announced.

fernandotakai 4y ago

>CEO made bad decisions that many other companies avoided. i don't think sundar is a good ceo, but this absolutely false. most big tech companies also had layovers.

saiya-jin 4y ago

Basically all your words are incorrect and project some bad kind of emotions you are housing, all points addressed all around here. Can't we do a bit better than tabloid outrage fueled by just raw emotions? He did correct the course which was right thing to do. Hiring previously was also the right decision at that time, properly nobody knew covid scare would taper off so quickly and people would revert some of the newly found (and often wrong and unhealthy) habits. No panic anywhere, this is business as usual in every sense of that phrase. He received normal compensation, just its done every 3 years - before getting headfirst into outrage, maybe first read some facts? I don't even get the outrage in this specific case - some, often under-performing (within given group) folks earning 300k + massive bonuses in stocks got fired, and either they 1) found immediately another well paid job; or 2) got already so rich they took 6/12 months sabbatical, plenty of HN posts about exactly this. I mean good for them, heck good for everybody. Why the envy, desire for CEO to burn in hell or at least end up bankrupt homeless on streets? Nothing good ever comes from such an approach, just stupid short term populist moves for the simpler minds who don't think much ahead or in complex fashion.

cudgy 4y ago
“just stupid short term populist moves for the simpler minds who don't think much ahead or in complex fashion” Surely it was stupid to not realize that the last few years were temporarily fueled by Covid work from home trends and huge fiscal and monetary stimulus. If anything, the CEO making the same mistakes as all the other tech CEO’s indicates poor performance or at least average performance - not protection from criticism.