4 ms·

This would be true if Sundar chose his own compensation, but he does not. It is decided by the board. I'm not saying it's the right thing for the board to do (

by vecter 3y ago

This would be true if Sundar chose his own compensation, but he does not. It is decided by the board. I'm not saying it's the right thing for the board to do (if I were on the board, I would've suggested he keep his pay even or take a cut), but it's not right to say that Sundar gets paid more because he has "coercive power" over employees.

Retric 3y ago
You’re focusing on the wrong party here, the employees are getting cost cuts rather than a raise because they lack negotiating power. Him getting a raise is a result of employees losing.
- chii 3y ago
  > Him getting a raise is a result of employees losing. it's not a direct relationship. The CEO gets a pay rise if the board believes it to be something worth doing - for example, rewarding the CEO for doing something unpopular (and taking flak for it). The employees "losing" isn't a cause, it's an effect. The company needs to lower costs, and do some layoffs, in order to make it more profitable. And if a company is more profitable, the CEO is doing it's job. A company doesn't look out for employees; at least only up to the extend where the employees make them money.
  - lajupechere 3y ago
    You’re still focusing on the wrong thing.
    - s1artibartfast 3y ago
      I think they're presenting a more accurate description of how the world actually works, which is useful. When people make a claim that X happens because of Y, that is a claim of causality which can be true or false or missing important factors.
      - Retric 3y ago
        Except he didn’t actually explain why and more specifically when just what. The question isn’t why the CEO got rewarded for doing X, but what changed to allow him to make this now vs those same cuts happening 10 years ago. It’s not like Google was in an unprofitable downward spiral and needed cuts to turn things around the only change is how wildly profitable they are.
        s1artibartfast 3y ago
        lots changed, but mainly the economic environment. Google is still wildly profitable of course. The relevant question is could those workers generate more than %5 returns on that $70B google is using for stock buybacks. The company leadership and investors seem to think the answer is NO. Therefore you fire the workers, Give cash to investors, and the investors park it with the fed getting >5% interest, with zero risk, and no need to worry about workers, products, or customers. This is the entire point of the FED rate raises. Hoover up all of the money floating around being invested in company growth and new product development. Once you get enough layoffs and paycuts, eventually inflation will go down because people cant buy shit. Thats the "long answer why".
        hayst4ck 3y ago
        > Once you get enough layoffs and paycuts, eventually inflation will go down because people cant buy shit. If people can't buy stuff why wouldn't you expect marginal cost to go up? More people buying more stuff means economies of scale. Less people buying less stuff means the loss of economies of scale. If people are less able to buy stuff, I don't see any reason to believe that prices would go down. If anything it seems like it creates an incredibly negative feedback loop. A company might firesale their inventory resulting a temporary reduction of inflation, but it seems like production would decrease because demand decreased, which would result in more layoffs and stagnation. I am not an economist, so I guess I am curious why stagflation is not the expected result.
        chii 3y ago
    - bruce511 3y ago
      It depends on the ppint of view, and the goals of that point of view. From an employee point of view the primary goal is to keep your job. Pay raises, perks, wfh etc are all secondary to that. If you are laid off that is a failure. If your colleague is laid off you start getting worried. You see the failure and respond to that. Since the laid off person failed, both the laid-off and the remaining consider the company to have failed, and by extension the company bosses to have failed, and expect pain at management level. This is a point of view, and it's shared by many employees, but its not the only point of view. Another group of people are the shareholders. They couldn't care less about staffing being up or down. They care about the share price. Staff, and costs, being cut means more profit. More profit means higher dividends or higher stock price. [1] So this is a successful action. From the point of view of the board (which are a proxy for the shareholders), this is a good-job and the management is rewarded accordingly. Now most people are employees, and the press wants most people to click on the headline, so most people consider layoffs to be bad. Even if you hold a few Google shares, and directly benefit, you don't consider your good fortune, you see 12000 failures, and naturally feel compassion for them. (By the end of the week/month/year the compassion will have faded, and you'll be back checking your share prices.) There could have been an article on how well Google stock price is doing, and will do, but no-one would read that. Now as to your assertion that we're focusing on the "wrong thing". From one point of view, yes, 12000 people directly failed. If each had 3 friends remain that's 36000 who are very nervous. Let's describe the next 100 000 people as "startled". From the other point of view its all upside. Personally I'm neither a Google employee nor a shareholder so I'm neutral. Of course I feel compassion for the laid off, I'm not a monster. But I also understand the rules of the capitalism game the US has chosen to play. The rules the US has chosen, and I suspect the rules those 12000 will staunchly defend, is that ultimately its about the money point of view, not the labor point of view. Google is playing the game. If you care enough then go somewhere else, or work to change the game[2]. But at the very least acknowledge the game itself, and learn the rules. [1] a share buy-back is just a dividend disguised for tax purposes, and for employee compensation purposes. [2] changing the rules is hard because the game is bipartisan at grass-roots level. The American-Dream is literally to be the direct benefit of capitalism. The money-talks ethic is fundamental to the American way-of-life.
  - Retric 3y ago
    Again you’re ignore the root cause for the proximate cause. A companies looks after their employees when they are forced to do so by market forces, unions, laws etc. None of which applied here. > The company needs to lower costs, and do some layoffs, in order to make it more profitable. That doesn’t explain timing as companies always want to be more profitable and Google was profitable before and after these cuts. So what prevented those cuts from happening sooner? It would have backfired if attempted sooner. Thus the CEO’s decision to shaft these people is the result of those employees lack of economic, political etc power. If everyone would say quit for a better offer then he wouldn’t make that decision and thus wouldn’t get rewarded for the decision.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

by vecter 3y ago

Retric 3y ago

You’re focusing on the wrong party here, the employees are getting cost cuts rather than a raise because they lack negotiating power. Him getting a raise is a result of employees losing.

chii 3y ago
> Him getting a raise is a result of employees losing. it's not a direct relationship. The CEO gets a pay rise if the board believes it to be something worth doing - for example, rewarding the CEO for doing something unpopular (and taking flak for it). The employees "losing" isn't a cause, it's an effect. The company needs to lower costs, and do some layoffs, in order to make it more profitable. And if a company is more profitable, the CEO is doing it's job. A company doesn't look out for employees; at least only up to the extend where the employees make them money.
- lajupechere 3y ago
  You’re still focusing on the wrong thing.
  - s1artibartfast 3y ago
    I think they're presenting a more accurate description of how the world actually works, which is useful. When people make a claim that X happens because of Y, that is a claim of causality which can be true or false or missing important factors.
    - Retric 3y ago
      Except he didn’t actually explain why and more specifically when just what. The question isn’t why the CEO got rewarded for doing X, but what changed to allow him to make this now vs those same cuts happening 10 years ago. It’s not like Google was in an unprofitable downward spiral and needed cuts to turn things around the only change is how wildly profitable they are.
      - s1artibartfast 3y ago
        lots changed, but mainly the economic environment. Google is still wildly profitable of course. The relevant question is could those workers generate more than %5 returns on that $70B google is using for stock buybacks. The company leadership and investors seem to think the answer is NO. Therefore you fire the workers, Give cash to investors, and the investors park it with the fed getting >5% interest, with zero risk, and no need to worry about workers, products, or customers. This is the entire point of the FED rate raises. Hoover up all of the money floating around being invested in company growth and new product development. Once you get enough layoffs and paycuts, eventually inflation will go down because people cant buy shit. Thats the "long answer why".
        hayst4ck 3y ago
        > Once you get enough layoffs and paycuts, eventually inflation will go down because people cant buy shit. If people can't buy stuff why wouldn't you expect marginal cost to go up? More people buying more stuff means economies of scale. Less people buying less stuff means the loss of economies of scale. If people are less able to buy stuff, I don't see any reason to believe that prices would go down. If anything it seems like it creates an incredibly negative feedback loop. A company might firesale their inventory resulting a temporary reduction of inflation, but it seems like production would decrease because demand decreased, which would result in more layoffs and stagnation. I am not an economist, so I guess I am curious why stagflation is not the expected result.
        chii 3y ago
  - bruce511 3y ago
    It depends on the ppint of view, and the goals of that point of view. From an employee point of view the primary goal is to keep your job. Pay raises, perks, wfh etc are all secondary to that. If you are laid off that is a failure. If your colleague is laid off you start getting worried. You see the failure and respond to that. Since the laid off person failed, both the laid-off and the remaining consider the company to have failed, and by extension the company bosses to have failed, and expect pain at management level. This is a point of view, and it's shared by many employees, but its not the only point of view. Another group of people are the shareholders. They couldn't care less about staffing being up or down. They care about the share price. Staff, and costs, being cut means more profit. More profit means higher dividends or higher stock price. [1] So this is a successful action. From the point of view of the board (which are a proxy for the shareholders), this is a good-job and the management is rewarded accordingly. Now most people are employees, and the press wants most people to click on the headline, so most people consider layoffs to be bad. Even if you hold a few Google shares, and directly benefit, you don't consider your good fortune, you see 12000 failures, and naturally feel compassion for them. (By the end of the week/month/year the compassion will have faded, and you'll be back checking your share prices.) There could have been an article on how well Google stock price is doing, and will do, but no-one would read that. Now as to your assertion that we're focusing on the "wrong thing". From one point of view, yes, 12000 people directly failed. If each had 3 friends remain that's 36000 who are very nervous. Let's describe the next 100 000 people as "startled". From the other point of view its all upside. Personally I'm neither a Google employee nor a shareholder so I'm neutral. Of course I feel compassion for the laid off, I'm not a monster. But I also understand the rules of the capitalism game the US has chosen to play. The rules the US has chosen, and I suspect the rules those 12000 will staunchly defend, is that ultimately its about the money point of view, not the labor point of view. Google is playing the game. If you care enough then go somewhere else, or work to change the game[2]. But at the very least acknowledge the game itself, and learn the rules. [1] a share buy-back is just a dividend disguised for tax purposes, and for employee compensation purposes. [2] changing the rules is hard because the game is bipartisan at grass-roots level. The American-Dream is literally to be the direct benefit of capitalism. The money-talks ethic is fundamental to the American way-of-life.
- Retric 3y ago
  Again you’re ignore the root cause for the proximate cause. A companies looks after their employees when they are forced to do so by market forces, unions, laws etc. None of which applied here. > The company needs to lower costs, and do some layoffs, in order to make it more profitable. That doesn’t explain timing as companies always want to be more profitable and Google was profitable before and after these cuts. So what prevented those cuts from happening sooner? It would have backfired if attempted sooner. Thus the CEO’s decision to shaft these people is the result of those employees lack of economic, political etc power. If everyone would say quit for a better offer then he wouldn’t make that decision and thus wouldn’t get rewarded for the decision.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]