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Google Cuts Jobs in Engineering and Other Divisions
- ChrisArchitect 3y agoDiscussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38947224 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38947224
- Doubtme 3y ago[dead]
- hnfong 3y agoAnother: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38947580 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38947580
- alecco 3y agoBoth threads out of the first page even though having 211 and 166 votes this early. Positions 58 and 86. There are dumb stories on the first page even with 3 and 4 votes. HN ranking is seriously broken. I don't buy the "it's users flagging, bro" excuses anymore...
- filedottsx 3y agohttps://archive.is/R1dm6 https://archive.is/R1dm6
- NorwegianDude 3y ago> laid off employees who worked on ... the Pixel phone. That sounds weird to me. Pixel phones has grown very fast in the last years and I don't se how it can be seen as anything but a great success.
- nikanj 3y agoGoogle ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
- borissk 3y agoGoogle has been cooperating with Samsung very closely lately. Maybe there's a pressure on Google from Samsung and the other big Android vendors to scale down the Pixel effort.
- BikiniPrince 3y agoYet everyone I know that owned a pixel despises it.
- __alexs 3y agoI've owned 3 generations of Pixels and they've all been great ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
- DeathArrow 3y agoMaybe the parent doesn't know you?
- __alexs 3y agoDo you ever really know anyone?
- afsag 3y agoI've owned several Nexus and Pixel phones and they universally sucked. Nexus S, Galaxy Nexus, Nexus 4, Pixel 2. I think that's all of them. I sent the last one to be fixed under warranty and they basically ignored me for six months (which I spent with no phone) until I threatened to get consumer protection from my country involved. Yeah yeah, why did I keep buying them? I have no idea. I guess I assumed the rest of Android phones sucked more.
- Pufferbo 3y agoAfter what they did the the Nexus 6P, I jumped ship to Apple.
- tauntz 3y agoI've owned 3 pixel phones and have loved all of them. Wife has owned 4 different ones and they have been all perfect, no complaints.
- antonp 3y agoI've owned 3 phones starting with nexus iirc. Looking forward to getting a refresh when current one gives out.
- scopeh 3y agoHas this ever stopped google from killing a product?
- mutatio 3y agoI wonder what the reality is regarding Pixel's success; they lost me as a customer this year after it turns out the "free" Pixel 2 watch is mostly a paper weight because Fitbit and its new unified Google account requirement doesn't support Workspace custom domains. I pay for Workspaces, I paid for the device(s), but the penny has finally dropped in regards to their real motivations, they can't allow Workspaces to mingle with the private data regular accounts give them access to when it comes to Fitbit. Hopefully this will finally give me the motivation to wean off Google completely.
- flurdy 3y agoPissed me off when I realised you could use not Nest cameras nor doorbell if you have a Google Workspace account. (╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻
- sokoloff 3y agoCannot use them with a Google workspace account? Or cannot use them if you merely have a workspace account? The former seems like it might be reasonable (and I wouldn't want to lock a piece of home infrastructure to a workspace account anyway); the latter seems utterly insane.
- niklasrde 3y agoFor Nest Protect (the smoke alarm), if you try logging in with a workspace account it just won't let you. Had to resurrect a very old, unused Gmail account just for that.
- pretext-1 3y agoGoogle marketed Google Workspace (called “Google Apps” at the time) as a solution for individuals and families with custom domain. People still have these accounts and there is no way to migrate (e.g. purchases on Google Play, reviews on Google Maps, notes in Google Keep, etc.).
- flurdy 3y agoNot a work workspace but our family workspace, so very unreasonable. They forced us all to migrate to that... For many years Google Home with all the Nest speakers and displays have worked fine. But you are not allowed to use the nest cameras, thermostats, doorbells, etc with workspace accounts. Hence I regret buying those.
- HackerThemAll 3y agoPixel is not officially sold and supported in a substantial number of countries. It results in many issues, such as 5G not working when traveling from country to country. Or in case of Chromecast dongle, 5GHz Wi-Fi not working. Which makes my head explode, considering that they employ only "top talent" and has considerable resources to properly catalogue and implement all radio frequencies of the world. Google cannot release any product worldwide. Their knowledge doesn't go too far beyond US market. You can call it Americentrism or just lack of competence of the ones in charge.
- wayfinder 3y agoGoogle is good at making algorithms and tech but product development and long term vision have never been its strong points.
- freetinker 3y agoInstitutionally, Google has the attention span of a Goldfish. Apple will continue to entrench their position as a leader in edge computing. Apple deserve their success; I hope they don’t get complacent once the Pixel division implodes.
- herval 3y agoWas Pixel ever a big player in the Android market? I get the feeling Xiaomi and Samsung are the actual competitors Apple cares about
- mapcars 3y agoEven if technically Apple is capable their predatory business models will never make me consider any of their products worth it.
- freetinker 3y agoFair point perhaps, but they seem like the only game in town that seem to care about their customers. They’re far from perfect, but to me they are better than the rest. I really want Apple to feel some heat and have worthy competitors, but I just don’t see that.
- madeofpalk 3y agoGoogle sells approximately zero Pixel phones. Every year they'll say "we're serious this time" and promise to dump money into marketing, but it really goes nowhere and carriers continue to push other phones.
- NorwegianDude 3y agoGoogle has grown their marketshare a lot during the last few years. They sell a lot of them, very very far from zero...
- alangibson 3y agoThey sold one to me since OnePlus fell off.
- JonChesterfield 3y agoI like my pixel. Guess I'm going back to Samsung, sad times.
- alexeiz 3y agoPixel phones are OK. They are just not priced competitively. They are priced like iPhones. But who are you kidding? Pixel phones are nowhere near iPhones.
- kccqzy 3y agoPixel phones actually take better photos than iPhones. See for example a recent test https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=VRoTOE3FqT0 https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=VRoTOE3FqT0 OTOH I browse JavaScript heavy websites on my phone and I believe due to single-threaded performance, Chrome on Android is noticeably worse than Safari on iPhone. My point is, Pixels are better than iPhones for some use cases and vice versa.
- poulpy123 3y agoI disagree, they have the best mid-range (300-500€) phone, and iPhone is not even proposing anything in this range
- 3y ago
- troupo 3y agoThere are continuous internal wars that we don't often see. You can get a glimpse of those in most of Google's hardware products (from Pixel phones to hubs to tablets) when they seem to be randomly prioritised/de-prioritised/re-prioritised every year. It seems that this year Pixel lost.
- mnbion 3y agoGoogle is increasingly treating Android as an iOS alternative for the developing world and outsourcing core Android development to its Indian offices. The reason they are doing this is probably because the non-tech management MBAs running Google are all using iPhones.
- conscience 3y agoWere you like I have nothing useful to add, but while I'm driving by why don't I just fart on India... The market share speaks for itself. For what it's worth, India with over a billion people is a large market for Android. Anyway, the iOS market share seems to be increasing rapidly in India. See https://telecom.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/devices/iphone-growth-streak-continues-apple-india-smartphone-market-share-may-touch-8-in-2024/104932769 https://telecom.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/devices/ip...).
- alexeiz 3y ago> non-tech management MBAs running Google are all using iPhones That's a kiss of death. I remember while working at Windows Phone team at Microsoft, a lot of program managers and designers were using iPhones and Macs. Unsurprisingly their own product never got off the ground because they failed to develop a vision for it. Android at Google is in a slightly better position, but this kind of attitude of not using your own product but preferring a competitor's one leads to inevitable decline.
- krolley 3y agoI recall around that time reading a story where if Steve Ballmer would catch you using an iPhone on the MSFT campus he would blow up. At the time, comments were "make a better phone" but I agree with your position. It's surprising though, eating your own dogfood is one of the golden rules of development. Such a pity Microsoft didn't stick with Windows Phone.
- _giorgio_ 3y agoSeems like a good news? Maybe resetting the engineering department is the only chance of innovating, when the company is so big and the (maybe bad) culture is so pervasive? Apple has fired Jony Ive, and nothing bad had happened (quite the contrary). Google has fired the head of computational photography, and nothing bad had happened.
- TheAdamist 3y agoI'm a big fan of the pixel series, if they wind up dropping it or make upcoming hardware terrible its likely to drive me to iphone unfortunately. The various third party android phones have severe drawbacks in their manufacturers tweaked android or inferior hardware.
- DonnyV 3y agoI know fitbit is going down hill. A lot of paid features aren't working for a lot of people. My wife can't get the sleep stats to work anymore.
- geodel 3y agoIt is not like those pixel phone are hand made and tuned to exacting standards by highly qualified google engineers like Mercedes Benz does it on some of its expensive models. It is a commodity gadget made at some cheap shop in Asia. So people worked pixel phone have not much to do with its growth or lack of it.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- ricardobayes 3y agoLayoffs are always counter-productive as going forward employees take fewer risks, to evade being the one laid off. Layoffs kill innovation.
- faeriechangling 3y agoIntel is only around today because the leadership was decisive enough to lay off most of the company early in its history, and they then proceeded to release a whack of innovative microprocessor products after these massive layoffs.
- bdd8f1df777b 3y agoIs that sarcasm?
- pavlov 3y agoIt's what happened. Intel was primarily a manufacturer of DRAM memory chips in the early 1980s. They pivoted hard to CPUs instead when it started looking like the IBM PC clone platform is a winner and their 386 chip could define the industry.
- pi-e-sigma 3y agoSo what is Google pivoting from? They are laying people off from various divisions, it's not a strategic shift
- hajile 3y agoIntel pivoted because they couldn't keep up with Asian RAM makers in the race to the bottom.
- ffgjgf1 3y agoWhat do you mean?
- kqr 3y agoI don't know whether your comment is true, but the way to do layoffs while keeping innovation as high as possible is to do one round that is big enough that you can and do give guarantees to the employees that are left behind that they have jobs for life. Multiple rounds of layoffs is what really takes your innovation to zero.
- tucnak 3y ago>“Our members and teammates work hard every day to build great products for our users, and the company cannot continue to fire our co-workers while making billions every quarter,” the [union] group said in a post on the social media site X. I mean no disrespect, but fundamentally a company is only able to do one of the two things: either hire, or fire people. Nobody is taking this away from them, and why would they? Once the leadership has spoken, it's up to employees to either listen, or ignore what the leadership has to say. The union statement reads awfully like "We refuse to believe." I'm not sure that's helping anybody!
- superb_dev 3y agoA company can do a whole lot more than hire or fire people
- wkipling 3y agoYeah option C and D. Both or neither...
- pauljurczak 3y agoA bit of evil now and then, perhaps?
- leosanchez 3y ago*Every* now and then.
- ffgjgf1 3y agoI’m not sure I understand what you’re trying to say, unions shouldn’t ever comment on decisions they disagree with because they are not helping anyone? > either listen, or ignore what the leadership has to say Or openly criticize those decisions if they have the guts for that?
- cdata 3y agoOne of the motivations to unionize is to ensure that access to labor is mediated by the laborers collectively. This often manifests negotiations between leadership and the union over topics like the one under discussion. I take their words as a call out to the aspirational future where the union gives employees a voice in the discussion about these kinds of hiring and firing decisions.
- borissk 3y agoThat's bad news for the IT jobs market. The big tech companies are firing people - those people will have no problem finding another job, but that's a job taken away from more average folks. Combined with high interest rates, that prevent businesses from starting new projects financed through credit. Also ChatGPT and other AIs increasing developers, artists, etc. productivity - so fewer people can do as much work. Probably demand for IT roles in 2024 is going to be lower than previous years and salaries may stagnate or go down.
- themoonisachees 3y agoAren't googlers famously burnt out and only know how to use Google products because of dogfooding? I don't mean to demean the people just laid off, surely some of them at least know enough to operate other software suites, but hasn't this been identified as a common problem?
- alecco 3y agoCEO/HR people get the tingles with FAANG resumes. They don't know any of that.
- AnthonyMouse 3y agoThat was when they were the darlings who did nothing but grow and snagging one of their employees was a stretch. Doing big layoffs kind of tarnishes the image.
- akoboldfrying 3y agoDon't know about burnout, the dogfooding is very real though. OTOH, they're pretty smart.
- vintermann 3y agoI wonder if the well-documented nihism of Google, coupled with how all the marvellous internal Google tools seem to work a lot less well without their product teams running them, is secretly an employee retention strategy.
- nly 3y agoMy firm made billions last year too and just laid off hundreds of engineers (a decent %) Some of the best engineers, those that I respected the most, went. People who make no sense. After last year's layoffs they told us they were "done" and it was "all behind us". Last year then turned out to a better year financially than 2022 (we have access to the top line numbers) You can't trust anything anyone above you in the management chain tells you. Not one thing. Not ever. Even if they're being truthful they were probably lied to themselves or told a half truth. Never get invested emotionally. SWEs in particularly no longer live in a world where you can expect to have a rewarding career working for >=5 years at any given firm. Take their fucking money, build a big emergency fund, save, invest, and focus on the rest of your life outside of work. You can be somewhere for 10 years. have glowing performance reviews, feel like you're making a difference, think it'll never happen to you, not even be aware the company is in shit, and then... tomorrow you're gone. Your job is NOT safe.
- vincnetas 3y agoAnd you know what happens with the money that you take, save and invest? They go in to public companies, they hire MBA's, and they try to improve profitability of company by letting engineers go. Your money have come a full cycle :)
- nly 3y agoTINA when CPI inflation (in the UK) is has been 18% in just 2 years.
- andsoitis 3y ago> TINA when CPI inflation (in the UK) is has been 18% in just 2 years. The UK inflation rate was 3.9 percent in November 2023, down from 4.6 percent in the previous month. Between September 2022 and March 2023, the UK experienced seven months of double-digit inflation which peaked at 11.1 percent in October 2022. https://www.statista.com/statistics/306648/inflation-rate-consumer-price-index-cpi-united-kingdom-uk/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/306648/inflation-rate-co...
- RishabhKharyal 3y agoAI has increased productivity which might be a reason for it
- ndepoel 3y agoAI has increased the perception of productivity to unwitting managers, which is a dangerous pit to be falling into. It's like a lot of those fabled 10x engineers that I've run into over the years; they may seem like they're incredibly productive and managers love them, but in reality their work is so riddled with issues and rushed half-baked ideas, that they end up costing the other engineers on the team 10x the amount of their time to review and fix it all. And it's those other engineers who do all of the invaluable but underappreciated cleanup work who are getting the boot right now.
- JohnMakin 3y agoIs your assertion that 10x engineers don’t exist? Because I assure you that is false, regardless what your personal experiences may be.
- ndepoel 3y agoOh I'm sure they exist, that's why I said "a lot", not "all". My point is more about how managers perceive the employees they manage. They all want to believe that they found the goose that lays the golden eggs, but in reality so many perceived rockstar engineers are just over-confident or over-eager people mass producing garbage. That's the important parallel with using AI in production: on the surface it may seem like the solution to all productivity problems, but in reality it still takes a lot of human brainpower to review, assess, fix and maintain whatever the AI model spits out. Especially since generative AIs like to present their work with supreme confidence, and it's getting increasingly hard to separate the chaff from the wheat.
- xyzzy123 3y agoI think a sizeable % of engineers can be 10x-ers as ICs / leads - but it's kind of an "in the zone" thing, when they're experienced in the stack and the product, can navigate the org, are motivated and aren't held back by issues with team or management (or personal issues etc). But it's like growing plants, in the sense that it only takes one crucial element to be missing to limit growth (or "output"). I've met a few ppl who were _reliable_ 10xers (could navigate a much wider range of techs / domains / situations than others) but I've seen even the best crash and burn at times when the circumstances aren't right.
- TrackerFF 3y agoWell, hopefully there's a silver lining to all this: Talented and underappreciated engineers (or those just caught in the crossfire of shitty policies) will go on and start new, more exciting companies.
- jongjong 3y agoThen they will realize that the media has been fully monopolized and can't find get any users and that it's not so easy outside of the cushy confines of Big Tech.
- jocaal 3y agoAnd then they will realize that the people complaining about big tech monopolies and their rent seeking behaviour were maybe not so crazy after all.
- mista2nith 3y agoIsn't Google the largest DNC donor? Pretty sure we can trust them if so
- jongjong 3y agoI still haven't gotten over the fact that most of these corporate employees think that the majority of the population literally became crazy over the past few years. They must think we all got long COVID with brain damage and that the vaccines protected them from this.
- okdood64 3y ago> and start new, more exciting companies Which what money? With these interest rates and Section 174, it's pretty rough out there to start one as compared to ~6 years ago.
- wnc3141 3y agoIts an inevitability. As large companies focus on profitability of existing business lines, small companies entertaining risk will discover new markets. High growth in new markets (with fewer competing startups, easier hiring, and institutional blind spots) will make investment attractive -even in a high rate environment. Of course each dollar of fundraising will be hard earned - requiring those startups to have a much higher bar for adding real value and sustainable business model. This cycles repeats itself across history. 6 years ago, with cheap money and everyone eager to start new firms makes success more of a lottery than a systematized effort. I'd rather be a startup founder raised on lean capital with less of a crowded marketplace.
- whatever1 3y agoThe masks have finally fallen. Vote with your labor and be willing to change immediately jobs (that is why remote is great). If you did not like what the manager said in a random meeting quit on the spot, find another job online. No more notice courtesies. It's gonna be great.
- hasty_pudding 3y agoThere's going to be no tech jobs in America is what's going to happen. That's where this is headed.
- whatever1 3y agoYeah this is what Amazon said about warehouse employees and now they have to pay them $25 per hour and offer free tuition programs in addition to fat sign up bonuses. Workers have the power. They just need to remember it.
- hasty_pudding 3y agoWarehouses have locality. Digital jobs dont.
- whatever1 3y agoI don't see OpenAI hiring for the digital jobs of engineering and research in Slovakia or Thailand. Weird, they probably missed the memo.
- hasty_pudding 3y agoOpen AI pays $800,000 a year salary for highly specialized machine learning engineers. Way different than the bread and butter jobs most of the tech industry consists of. Open AI has maybe a thousand jobs out of millions of jobs in the tech industry. I wouldn't say its a good sample.
- 3y ago
- taspeotis 3y agoGoogle Scroogles Xooglers
- smeagull 3y agoDoes this mean my phone will stop trying to interrupt and "assist" me despite disabling Google Assistant?
- mindwok 3y agoI'm surprised to see so many comments here taking layoffs personally, or talking about how layoffs are stupid. Layoffs are not personal, and the corollary to that is that you should never treat your company as a friend. It's a company trying to maximize value. Also, layoffs do work. Almost every large, successful company has done them at some stage. They are an expected, and necessary, part of operating a company and responding to changing market conditions. Yes, it sucks. They are not nice. But it's expected and it's helpful to remember that.
- offices 3y agoWhen a company has embedded itself so deeply in public life - globally - it's reasonable to have strong feelings about its actions. When we say layoffs work, are we considering the way the same companies overhired just a few years ago, harming the rest of the employment market? Do we remember this in later discussions when we treat these companies as prescient hiveminds, in spite of them using overtuned bang-bang control for their hiring? Do we remember it in discussions about workers rights and the things we tie to employment in the naive assumption that only those who deserve it lose their jobs?
- killerstorm 3y agoI find it a bit hilarious that programmers feel entitled being employed for life in one company. Did you ever consider finishing the project? Getting it done and delivered? My first paid job as a programmer was like that. We made an exam software for university, a complete package covering the process from authoring test questions to making reports. We made it in 6 months and it was done. Finished. Working. There was some maintenance/improvement, but that was a separate deal. We did not expect university to employ us for life to maintain it. Shouldn't that be a norm? Like, yeah, obviously Google has a lot of projects, so they can allocate programmers to do something different after something is done. But they didn't promise employment for life, did they? Obviously, people like being securely employed. But, perhaps, that should be addressed at societal level - e.g. unemployment benefits.
- 3y ago
- billy99k 3y agoThis is why I hate working as a regular salaried employee. After this happened to me a few years after college, I spent over a decade building up a consulting business. I always keep multiple clients at the same time and I'm not devasted if one chooses not to renew my contract.
- alecco 3y agoConsulting can be pretty stressful and needs good social skills. It's not for everybody.
- kypro 3y agoIt's interesting that you think this is lower risk. Maybe that's a US thing? Typically employees are harder to cut than simply choosing not to extend contracts with consultants.
- lotsofpulp 3y agoThere are different kinds is of risks, but generally, earning $100k each from 5 customers is less risky than earning $500k from 1 customer. Whether or not it is extra work or if it is worth the extra work is dependent on the individual.
- hmottestad 3y agoI would hope they make 3-10x running their own consultancy compared to working as an employee. The risk is still much higher, but it’s offset by the large reward.
- poulpy123 3y agoIn all the EU countries I know you can't be fired one day to another without a serious reason
- profstasiak 3y agoanything you recommend to read on how to start consulting practice?
- qaq 3y agoSomeone should start an massive incubator that takes in top laid off employees and gives them resources to build a competing product. They will be motivated as hell and have a ton of domain knowledge and generally have a good idea on how to do things in way more efficient way than what their former employer did. For kicks and to save money replace most of mngmnt roles with AI model.
- DrBazza 3y agoThere are often non-compete clauses in employment contracts. Depending on the country, they're not worth the paper they're written on sometimes. In others, legally binding.
- madeofpalk 3y agoIllegal in California.
- dukeyukey 3y agoMost people don't live in California.
- madeofpalk 3y agoGoogle has some employees in California.
- dymk 3y agoMost people do actually live in California (by plurality)
- alangibson 3y agoAre there any examples of companies successfully enforcing non-competes against rank and file employees? (I'm excluding high value targets like Jeff Dean here where it might actually make sense to put millions in lawyers behind a suit).
- 3y ago
- benreesman 3y agoI refuse to hoist the guillotine when the time (seems sooner every day) arrives. But I also refuse to stand in the way either, or at least more than I'm already doing by incessantly badgering the kleptoclass that they will get tennis court-ed if they keep this shit up. Posting beat after beat and carpet bombing Sunnyvale like fucking Curtis LeMay at the same time is offensive to everything about being an American, and a hacker, and really just a human. https://finviz.com/quote.ashx?t=GOOG&p=d https://finviz.com/quote.ashx?t=GOOG&p=d Layoffs happen, markets go dry, the world moves on. But stuffing your pockets until it's spilling out while walking around the Bay Area with a Samurai Sword drunk from Fucki Sushi? I won't help them drag you out of your Tesla and beat them to death with your own iPhone. But let's quit while we're ahead assholes?
- isuckatcoding 3y agoAre you…okay?
- RayVR 3y agoIt seems Google cut several hundred roles…out of how many? Don’t they employ more than 25k engineers? I don’t want to make light of anyone losing their job, but this just doesn’t seem meaningful at this scale
- huppeldepup 3y agoThe meaning is found in the combination of the name and verb in the title, afaik the first occurrence.
- hn_go_brrrrr 3y agoNo, there were layoffs at this time last year.
- s_dev 3y agoIt's news because it's been repeated ad nauseam only recruitment, HR, sales and other non tech roles will be affected by layoffs in big tech companies. The numbers aren't important just that there are numbers because it relates to engineering and it's something the tech community didn't expect.
- sneed_chucker 3y agoHasn't it been a foregone conclusion for over a year now that engineering is definitely part of the layoffs and hiring freezes? Where are people still saying it's only non-technical roles?
- sinuhe69 3y agoSeriously, why people in tech are opposed to unions? In Europe, unions and Betriebsrat (works committee) are the norm. Why not in the US?
- RedShift1 3y agoIndoctrinated that unions are communism and/or result in worse working conditions and wages.
- teitoklien 3y agoYou add unions in tech, and then wonder why dev salaries in EU and the UK are so abysmally low.
- baq 3y agoUnions are for employees what HR is for companies and I don't see companies doing everything that's legal and some things which are blatantly illegal to prevent themselves from having HR departments
- oblio 3y agoThere are basically no unions in tech in Europe. The countries where tech workers are dominated by tech unions can be counted on one hand, and they're probably the Nordic ones. Germany doesn't really have tech unions and for sure they don't dominate the tech scene. France, neither, Eastern Europe (all of them), don't, Southern Europe, not that I know of. Salaries are still low.
- yakshaving_jgt 3y ago> dev salaries in EU and the UK are so abysmally low I don't think they are. I think salaries in the US are astronomical, and it boggles the mind how in California a 22 year old React nerd can command a salary five times higher than, say, a teacher. It's all a matter of perspective. From my perspective, if you can sit on your sofa, build a website, and pull in €80k, you're doing just fine.
- 3y ago
- williamcotton 3y agoTwo words: managerial accounting. And the lack of this practice across an entire industry. Margins are getting smaller and smaller and the successful companies will use such practices to inform all sorts of decisions, from building in house vs 3rd party vendor, to hiring, to R&D, etc. The days of YOLO moonshots are over for our industry. Of course venture capital will continue to exist but perhaps directed to new industries.
- lobsterthief 3y agoI definitely wouldn’t say the days of YOLO moonshots are completely over (just look at the current level of investment in AI startups). Those days will return when the investment climate is improved, as it was prior to this recession and will be afterwards.
- wt__ 3y agoIn relative terms, it's not huge - NYT is no more specific than hundreds, so let's say 500, out of 182,000 - that's 0.27% (though obviously a higher impact on engineering - you might that would be what they'd cut last).
- fluidcruft 3y agoAnd it seems to be layoffs in hardware which, frankly, Google is not great with. Yes, Pixel has improved vs previous years. But Pixel is mostly US, Apple owns the US market and Pixel is not making any inroads (at best it is eating other Android devices). Google has no real runaway hardware hits. It's had a few promising launches but then they manage to take them in bad directions (Google WiFi going from a simple focused thing to becoming this giant Google Home mess that's a pain in the ass to use, Chromecast devices losing functionality, etc, etc). Google support documentation has been 100% useless every time I've had an issue (to be fair: so is Apple's). Amazon's hardware (Alexa) is the market leader I think and even it was hit with layoffs last year wasn't it? Even specifically Alexa which Google's Assistant hardware line tries to compete with. It's probably extremely rational to step back and conclude that Google sucks at hardware. I do like Google WiFi (it frustrates me but it is fairly set-it-and-forget-it for my parents/non technical friends) and Pixel (because I hate iOS).
- eschneider 3y agoGoogle as a company doesn't have the attention span or focus anymore to ship excellent hardware. "Everyone knows" that they don't stay focused on things, and I can't imagine that making it easy to higher top quality hardware and firmware folks. Once you eliminate good pay and stability, there's not a lot to recommend Google to hardware folks.
- cjsplat 3y agoYou need to distinguish "hardware" and "consumer hardware". Google wouldn't exist as you know it if they didn't didn't build great data center and network hardware. Their problems in consumer hardware are not about the hardware specifically. It is about product management and go-to-market.
- rmrfchik 3y agoFire engineering since it is expenses. Hire sales since they earn money.
- collyw 3y agoI don't see this comment going down well here regardless of how much truth there may be to it.
- rmrfchik 3y agojeez, i didn't know humor is not welcome here.
- CoastalCoder 3y agoSometimes HN gets pretty thoughtless posts, which can make it hard to realize when a post contains dry humor.
- CoastalCoder 3y agoProbably won't go down well because it's clearly overly simplistic. If taken at face value, software companies should simply have 0 software developers.
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- lgkk 3y agoIt’s just business. And it’s not like swe aren’t making 400k or more at least in bay area. People need to understand that just because you have a little bit of RSUs and a 200k base doesn’t mean you’re God. You’re an asset like a machine. And you’re expensive to the bottom line. This is literally explicitly laid out now with section 174. If you’re taking this personally ask yourself why you’re even working for arguably some of the best most efficient capitalists on the planet. Maybe you should work for a government agency or smaller company. But you want that 400k plus right?
- GoToRO 3y agoBut we are a family!
- ngcazz 3y agoThat salary is a reflection of market forces. The fundamentals remain the same: they are workers who support families of arbitrary needs and complexities and not just themselves. Are they expensive to the bottom line? Good -- they _allow_ the bottom line because they are the ones generating value. Not the shareholders and upper managers calling for layoffs to maximize their stock prices who you seem to appreciate more.
- lgkk 3y agoI’m just pointing out reality. Sorry I know it’s not “kind” or whatever. Just true though. If someone makes a Faustian bargain, it will have consequences. You make a deal with the devil (biggest capitalist empires on the planet - I don’t think they’re evil btw I’m just making analogy) and the devil will come for you. For them, it’s just business. That’s their whole point of existence, to run their business and grow even at their stage. I don’t work for these companies but I do hold positions in them through my 401k.
- kagakuninja 3y agoI have worked in the Bay Area for decades, and never seen 400k+. My current contract comes out at about 165k with no benefits. The reason I work for a soul-less telco, is that it is hard (for me at least) to find a job in the first place. I've been at plenty of small companies as well. If I could have gotten in at Google I would have done it in a heart beat, not just for the money, but to have FAANG on my resume.
- formerlurker 3y agoThe timing coincides with layoffs at the company I work for, Aurora Innovation. I assume it’s done on purpose to be overshadowed by larger layoffs.
- TheArcane 3y agoHow big was the layoff?
- JaimeThompson 3y agoOnce again demonstrating the difference between leadership and management.
- fractalb 3y agoWhy in this particular time frame? Just before the performance reviews?
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- throwaw37482bdb 3y ago[dead]
- tagyro 3y agoJust a day ago I was reading a comment from a - funnily, google - engineer gaslighting another engineer that had a hard time finding a job in this market.
- kypro 3y agoI'm seeing so many people doing this at the moment. "Maybe you need to reskill". "You need to work on your interview skills". "You're not applying to the right positions". Etc... You can't know what the market is like until you're looking for work, and as someone who's been in this industry for 15 years and has been applying to roles recently, I know it's really rough out there regardless of what some are saying. It's like nothing I've ever seen before. I'm getting messages from colleagues every week who have been recently laid off and can't find work. Some are now getting desperate. We did some hiring where I work in Dec. We had over 150 candidates and only extended offers to 9 candidates. Your chance of being hired was literally only 5% IF the recruiter thought your profile was at least good enough to send over for consideration. I'm guessing the actual number that applied was likely 300+. That's absolutely brutal compared to anything I've ever experience. Typically if I applied for a role in the past I might have a 20-25% chance of getting an offer, and during the last 5 years that was probably as high as 40-50%. People in jobs need to consider themselves extremely lucky right now. In this market a good developer probably only as a 2-3% chance of getting any job they apply for and will likely need to take a decent cut in pay too.
- kagakuninja 3y agoI agree that job hunting is brutal. However, my experience in doing interviews recently is that half the guys who got through the screening interview with our manager were worthless. And he probably rejected 90% of the candidates sent by the recruiter. Of the 2 people hired, one is kind of mediocre, and we are not talking FAANG standards.
- boilerupnc 3y agohttps://archive.is/Rp8v4 https://archive.is/Rp8v4
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- mahbran10 3y ago[flagged]
- jmyeet 3y ago5+ years ago, Big Tech was desperate to retain employees. This of course increased wages. Google, in particular, was always insanely profitable on a per-employee basis, at times exceeding $1 million in profit per employee. The pandemic was really a perfect opportunity for these companies to reset the relationship with their employees. Layoffs weren't an issue if everyone was doing layoffs. Making people afraid for their jobs suppresses wages. All of this is just to increase profits. This is going to backfire. Google, for example, allowed people to work on things. If it didn't work out, you'd go work on something else. Gmail famously came out of this approach. Google even studied this dynamic and determined psychological safety was key to success [1]. The lesson now? If you work on a project that fails, you may get laid off. The success or failure of that project will have almost nothing to do with your individual input yet you will still suffer the consequences. So employees will stop taking risks. The other way this will backfire is that Big Tech employees are discovering they aren't above the same forces that dominate the existence of every other working person, namely that there is an adversarial relationship between employer and employee and the employer will seek to get the most work possible at the lowest cost. What this will lead to is labor organization and collective bargaining. It will take awhile. White collar workers, and Americans in particular, generally have zero class consciousness. Collective action in general has been successfully demonized through decades of propaganda and a cult-like following of objectivism. But it will happen. [1]: https://allwork.space/2022/10/psychological-safety-is-the-key-to-successful-teams-according-to-google/ https://allwork.space/2022/10/psychological-safety-is-the-ke...
- karmakurtisaani 3y agoDon't forget that at Google promotions were based on successful launches, leading to multiple competing chat apps and a mountain of ther abandoned products. The company has been successful seemingly put of pure luck, and we're about to see how long they can milk the few cash cows they created. Also, the employees at Google are compensated with stocks, so they see their fortunes rise as their ex colleagues leave the building in layoffs. This makes unionizing all that harder.
- ken47 3y agoGoogle is overrated. It's been obvious for over a decade after they built an interview process that is heavily biased towards those who recently took an algorithms class. You had talking heads yammering about how hard it was to get into Google, which to be honest, made the company even less appealing. Is this a software engineering company or some kind of hyped up nightclub? Yeah, maybe it's a hard interview if you've been out of college for a while, haven't written classical algorithms professionally for years, and don't want to spend weeks or months of free time bashing your head on leetcode. What isn't pressure tested by the Google interview process? Just about every other skill that is needed to be a good software engineer. Obviously, Google has some good engineers, but my goodness was the hype around the company offputting.
- ChatGTP 3y agoI think there is some truth to this for sure, it doesn't mean you're hiring practical / driven people, it means you're likely hiring people who are good at rote memorization.
- smugglerFlynn 3y agoIt means you are hiring people who are highly compliant. Which is important when your goal is to scale whatever already works.
- hiq 3y ago> It's been obvious for over a decade after they built an interview process that is heavily biased towards those who recently took an algorithms class. What would you do instead? Threads about tech interviews are always the same: we all complain about the process with no real alternative when you want to hire at that scale. In particular about: > Just about every other skill that is needed to be a good software engineer. How would you assess them better than current common processes like leetcode interviews? If one could do better hiring at the same cost or less, the whole industry would be interested, even if they'd have to delegate some of their hiring to an external company. The fact that leetcode interviews are still so common indicates that maybe something is missing from alternatives, be it scalability, fairness or even whether they actually provide more signal than leetcode interviews.
- drdrek 3y agoNot that I particularly love the big G but why are top comments taking this seriously? Google grew in 2022 from 150,000 to 190,000 then down to 170,000 in 2023. What are couple of hundred down in such a large company? This is just some FUD piece.
- wffurr 3y agoNothing FUD about highly respected engineers I know personally getting fired when the company is immensely profitable. The FUD is created by Google’s senior leadership.
- pkilgore 3y agoThis is how you get tech unions.
- Clubber 3y ago>This is how you get tech unions. Apparently not, this has been going on for decades. This is a small culling compared to 2001 and 2008. Google is now a shit company just collecting rents, has been for probably 15 years, and this is indicative of a shit company just collecting rents.
- ants_everywhere 3y agoI feel like layoffs are like a lot of bad habits. Once you break the seal, it becomes easier and easier to give yourself permission to do it again and with more frequency.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- FrustratedMonky 3y agoSWE no longer a safe space. Now what? I would ask about second careers to get away from SWE. But to do what? What job is safe now? Safe and pays. Doctor? That would be a tough second act.
- VirusNewbie 3y ago>SWE no longer a safe space. Now what? It hasn't been for 20+ years, except there was maybe a 4 year period from 2018 to 2022 where it was safe. It was boom and bust in the dotcom era, there were tons of layoffs during the financial crisis, microsoft was always known to stack rank, IBM and Oracle do layoffs as an annual company tradition, etc. I worked for a mega-corp in 2015 and there were constantly layoffs and reorgs and hiring sprees and divisions culled. This is all how it goes. This was never a safe field. It was an exciting and interesting one.
- FrustratedMonky 3y agoAny thoughts on this is simply a 'pause' because of the unknown. Corporations hate hiring when going into the unknown time period. For better or worse, managers don't understand AI, and it is pretty hyped. There could be hiring freezes just in anticipation of 'some change is coming so we should pause hiring just in case'.
- SubiculumCode 3y agoAn early effect of AI programming "efficiency"?
- throwaway13394 3y agoI work in Core Eng at google. Woke up this morning and saw my director - who we all loved and had been at Google for 20 years - is gone. One concerning thing that I haven't seen reported is that my leadership chain is almost entirely Indian, all the way up. And they've announced that they are starting to offshore entire core products to India, primarily in bangalore IIUC.
- lgleason 3y agoI think it's safe to say we are on the downward slop of peak Google.
- letitbeirie 3y agoModern Google is an embodiment of many of the flaws which allowed them to crush Lycos 20 years ago.
- throwaway_iusa 3y agoI work remotely for a big US company and I have heard talk of similar plans within the company, offshoring entire products' engineering work to India. Luckily my work is very niche (vuln research). I can only imagine the subpar and vulnerability ridden code we'll be seeing over the next few years from all the offshoring + irresponsible overusage of AI tools.
- dodiggity32 3y agoWhy would the code be subpar? Is a google employee in US somehow more competent than the one in India? What you are thinking about was outsourcing which is very different than Google hiring in India. Just because you are paid more you are not a ‘better’ programmer
- mu53 3y agoif you hyperfocus on one aspect, sure, they have a bad argument Its not like this off-to-on shore oscillation has never happened before
- Nimitz14 3y ago500 comments not a single one is interesting.
- paxys 3y agoAre layoffs becoming an annual thing in tech now? Last year there was the "macroeconomic conditions" excuse that every company used. How are they justifying this round?
- mc32 3y agoIt’s still macro. The media has been peddling the idea that things are rosy economically but that’s not people are seeing and experiencing. December’s CPI is through the roof. The economy has been soft and with ZIRP gone, things are adjusting accordingly. We’re now paying the piper —a little.
- gumby 3y agoThe media is peddling the opposite, that “things are still tough.” The numbers are clear: December CPI was hardly “through the roof”, wages ant anll levels are still growing faster than inflation and consumer behavior (spending) is robust. Most people are acting as if the economy is strong. This is the USA: poor people continue to suffer and governments at the state and federal level are increasing their suffering, especially kids. That is also getting reported. It’s like the crime stats: people believe crime is raging “elsewhere though not here” even though trends are down mostly across the board. https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/cpi.pdf https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/cpi.pdf
- the_doctah 3y agoI find it really hard to believe crime is down across the board. I don't even have to look it up to know that isn't true in cities. Sounds like something a liberal politician would say, since it's bullshit.
- mc32 3y agoWalgreens and such would not be pulling up stakes in places if it wasn't for rampant shoplifting. Other stores would not be pulling back on self-checkout either. Since police are mainly following up on serious crime, people ease up on reporting lesser crimes like break-ins, window smashing, porch thievery, etc. And then politicians point to statistics --which given dampened reporting, means they "look" okay, but on the street it's not okay. Never in my life have I see so much open selling of "not for individual sale, only for sale at $retail_store" on the sidewalks.
- 10xDev 3y agoWhat is interesting is that now with all the layoffs we also have more CS graduates than ever [0] who were told that tech companies are struggling to find candidates to fill their vacancies. We are reaching a point, if not already at the point where we will have bunch of unemployed CS grads who will have to make a pivot into something entirely different. [0] https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d22/tables/dt22_322.10.asp https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d22/tables/dt22_322.10.a...
- clusterhacks 3y agoYou may be interested in looking at the current Taulbee survey[1] - it surveys PhD granting CS and CE programs and collects MS and BS degree numbers as well. I also found [2] that shows "computer and information science" graduates having a higher-than-average unemployment rate than other degrees. In 2018. My anecdotal experience over the last 15 years as a person on the hiring side of the table is that my organization has received multiple qualified applicants for our open positions, several of who are almost always new CS grads looking for their first job. And my organization is in an area with multiple companies that hire software engineers and we typically pay somewhat below market. That experience makes me question if there is now (or even has been in that 15 years) an actual shortage of candidates for these types of jobs. [1-pdf] https://cra.org/crn/wp-content/uploads/sites/7/2023/05/2022-Taulbee-Survey-Final.pdf [2-pdf] https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/pdf/coe_sbc.pdf
- gopher2000 3y agoAre you sure we're reaching that point? The market has certainly cooled but tech jobs are still available. I do think that many new grads will have to adjust their expectations from high 6 figure jobs in FAANGs to normal-but-still-fine compensation in tier 3-4 companies. I would also argue that it's hard to predict what the market looks like 4 years into the future. That's a reality people should acknowledge when they start a CS degree, etc.
- JAlexoid 3y agoLong story short - I would advise to not go into debt for a top tier CS degree, unless truly passionate. I am fortunate enough to have been educated in Europe and without any student debt. I can switch careers, without needing to keep income at a level to pay living expenses and loans.
- cromka 3y ago> Google confirmed the Assistant cuts, earlier reported by Semafor, and the hardware layoffs, earlier reported by the blog 9to5Google. Nice. So one can reasonably expect the Google Home device et all to get even worse at all the basic functionality it used to be quite good at as far as 2017.
- Rebelgecko 3y agohttps://support.google.com/assistant/answer/13971691 https://support.google.com/assistant/answer/13971691
- cromka 3y agoThat's not really what I meant. I mean the issues with basic communication: Google: (...) would you like to know more? cromka: YES Google: <silence> This happens notoriously and effectively it feels as if the devices had became more "dumb" in general, not loosing particular skills.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- ilc 3y agoThere's an old Bob Seger song I quote about work: "I used her, she used me and neither one cared. We were getting our share." - Night Moves / Seger. In a sense, that's how I view work. I'm there to get a check, they are there to use my labor and make money. As long as we're both happy. It is all good. But... never forget we are using each other. "Ain't it funny how the night moves When you just don't seem to have as much to lose Strange how the night moves" Ain't it?
- pylua 3y agoI have to admit I found this rather profound.
- John23832 3y agoFor context: Google One Year Stock Chart https://www.google.com/finance/quote/GOOGL:NASDAQ?sa=X&sqi=2&ved=2ahUKEwiQ4PvXzdWDAxV0EFkFHYHAAtYQ3ecFegQIXhAf&window=1Y https://www.google.com/finance/quote/GOOGL:NASDAQ?sa=X&sqi=2... These companies are companies. Meant to maximize profit. We've also gotten to the point where we're pursuing Capitalism for Capitalism's sake. The idea of how layoffs affect people doesn't matter. That's for society to figure out. Oh, and these companies which have high earnings (I avoided the use of "profit" because these companies often shuffle money around to manufacture or negate profitability), a also pay some of the lowest marginal taxes by entities in our society. Sucks, that's not their problem... they're hear to maximize shareholder profit. Just an ouroboros of capitalistic sociopathy.
- rednerrus 3y agoThis is probably going to be an unpopular opinion but these huge salaries of the past 5 years have really hurt technology. Instead of the best, hungriest minds working on the best problems in the most agile way, they're languishing in one of these gigantic megacorps working at a molassess pace on some improved way to sell you ads.
- okdood64 3y agoThis is not a hot take at all. Especially on HN.
- P_I_Staker 3y agoThe part about huge salaries being involved is
- sangnoir 3y agoAre you suggesting that supply and demand market forces are somehow inadequate in allocating resources towards engineer salaries on HN? I am shocked.
- rednerrus 3y agoI'm saying that the huge salaries in cushy jobs has disincentivized creativity and pioneering.
- dcrow0 3y agoi mean, you will get a solid severance package
- xpe 3y agoIt is striking to me that a vast majority of comments here amount to i.e. "every person for themself" -- or at best i.e. "build relationships with individuals". If you are reading this, step outside your usual mindset. Can you see the individualistic bias in the comments here? One need not be a pro-union progressive to simply recognize that we would all benefit from considering other alternatives. Hard-nosed libertarian economists who study game theory know it isn't a complete accounting of human interactions. Collaboration and alliances are worth seeking out. It doesn't _have_ to be a race to the bottom where employees all scurry around terrified, meanwhile hoping they claw their way up into management.
- HannahFox 3y ago[flagged]
- dragontamer 3y ago@dang: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38947580 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38947580 Can we get a merge? There is a lot of discussion in this other topic.
- htrp 3y ago> The Silicon Valley company laid off employees in its core engineering division, as well as those working on the Google Assistant, a voice-operated virtual assistant, and in the hardware division that makes the Pixel phone, Fitbit watches and Nest thermostat, three people with knowledge of the cuts said. Why would this hit core engineering if the company needs to focus on AI ? I'd imagine these people would be ever more valuable
- nemo44x 3y agoCompanies are hiring right now (it has picked up) but it's very competitive as well. A recruiter friend of mine told me that they are getting more good candidates into the final interview stages and that it's definitely a buyers market right now. So it makes sense in some ways for companies to cut out a percentage of the more expensive staff and reallocate to other teams and hire new people at better rates.
- hawthornio 3y agoForm/join a union
- vhiremath4 3y agohttps://archive.ph/PCSc9 https://archive.ph/PCSc9
- collinglass 3y agoCanadian Ex-Googlers, we are hiring full stack engineers. Email me at collin at autocorp dot ai
- AlbertCory 3y agoMy dad worked for Swift & Co. for 45 years. Nonetheless, when I first switched jobs, he applauded me, with "They're not loyal to you, so why should you be loyal to them?" A corollary to what everyone said here is: always be thinking about the value of what you're doing to someone else. They always give the big rewards to people who happily take on "relevant to this place ONLY" tasks. You get promoted if you suck up to the middle managers and acquire skills that absolutely no other company values. So if you pursue skills that are strictly "looking out for ME" you can expect some blowback. Ignore it.
- mrbonner 3y agoA lot of good comments here. I think there is a quote I learn from Thich Nhat Hanh that I wanted to share: "you could say you sacrifice a lot to be number one in your job, but it makes no sense to say you sacrifice a lot to be happy" There you go.
- syspec 3y agoBeing happy often requires tons of sacrifice though. Atheletes winning championships are happy, they sacrificed to get there. Watching my kids have fun at disney land makes me happy, I sacrifice my time and own interest to make it happen
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- nojvek 3y agoGoogle is almost a 2T company. The amount of wealth that big google shareholders hold in the 1T+ tech companies is mind boggling. Perhaps US should consider raising capital gains tax.
- snappyTertle 3y agoHow is that relevant to the layoffs?
- no_wizard 3y agoI don't know if its implied, but I would say since we are now talking about it, the money raised from this could go to meaningfully increasing things like unemployment benefits, for example.
- scoofy 3y agoWhen it comes to large shareholders that wouldn't actually do anything. Nobody sells in these new blue chips; they just borrow against their positions. I've thought about this for a long time. If we wanted to actually tax this wealth, we should just make people pay capital gains on marked-to-market positions every 10 years. Now before everyone starts shouting "yea, but the valuations aren't value," you could easily tax them on the lowest reasonable marked-to-market nominal value over the last decade, and you'd still get that tax revenue, just a decade later. It's just a way to have a property tax on a very speculative type of property. I've been a casual investor my entire life, and I still think it's ridiculous that you can just hold an asset forever and never pay a property tax on it, but some guy scraping together a life for his wife and kid has to pay property taxes on his house every year.
- riffraff 3y agoIf you wanted to tax the wealth.. have a wealth tax? It's a thing in countries including Norway and Switzerland, and similar things exist in others (e.g. Italy taxes assets in some weird non linear way).
- Solvency 3y agoBetween Discord, Twitch, Amazon+Prime, and Google... what's the layoff pattern here? Are we talking about social community teams? Streaming/networking engineers? Or is there no connective thread between these four companies? Are there other corporate layoffs that round out this intrigue?
- vkou 3y agoThe connective thread is that tech growth has slowed/stopped and Wall Street is looking to make cuts, because salaries are expensive, and shit, if they have the option between more expenses and less expenses, they will keep taking 'less expenses', until it clearly and incontroversially affects the bottom line.
- Solvency 3y agoRight but where are Atlassian's layoffs, Asana, or any of the other hundreds of "lower" tier tech companies? It's unusual that they're all skating by, to me.
- willsmith72 3y agoAtlassian had layoffs just last year.
- ttmb 3y agoThe bigger companies used their cash during the pandemic to go on a hiring spree, both bloating their headcount and their overall salaries. The smaller/lower tier companies did not have the cash to compete with this, and now do not have as much to fix. Also the layoffs in smaller companies just aren't big news.
- vkou 3y agoThere's micro-scale reasons for why particular firms aren't affected by this, but that gets into the weeds of particular companies' roadmaps and balance sheets. The macro-scale of 2010-2020 was 'growth, growth, growth', the macro-scale of 2020-2022 was 'hire, hire, hire', and the macro-scale of 2023 and 2024 is 'freezes, layoffs, cuts'.
- Joker_vD 3y agoHopefully the Chrome UI guys were in that thousand.
- __loam 3y agoThis is a company that makes about 18 billion dollars in profit per quarter.
- forward1 3y agoIt is still a business - not a charity.
- Pentamerous 3y agoIt's still real people who suffer when the numbers tell a different story - not charity cases.
- forward1 3y agoWow, those poor ex-Google employees. Now that they have been laid off, they must be experiencing true suffering.
- maximinus_thrax 3y agoI don't understand the point of this comment. Are Google employees not workers as well? Do they not experience suffering or what exactly is the point you are trying to make here? Your insensitive comment is probably showcasing the fallacy of relative privation, but these are real people you're talking about, some are on work visas or are from single income families. Their lives have changed in an instant and instead of empathizing, your reaction is a sarcastic 'those poor ex-Google employees'? Shame on you.
- forward1 3y agoLosing an at-will employment position is suffering? It's unfortunate, maybe, even a little sad. But to say this is "suffering" borders on entitled lunacy. Especially considering ex-Google employees can land virtually any job with it on their resume. The risks of working at-will are well known, and one would be well served to understand them to avoid disappointment. Actually, the shame is on them for failing to adequately prepare for an obvious inevitability, especially if others are depending on them for support.
- redcobra762 3y agoThere are a specific handful of people I genuinely hope are part of this layoff…
- throwaway_iusa 3y agoThe only person that I'd like to see go is Sundar Pichai.
- username135 3y agoIt seems like all these corps laying off people are trying to self fulfill a recession.
- seuraughty 3y agoI imagine they’re just doing their best to adapt to a non-zero interest rate world.
- makeworld 3y agoWhy do people zero interest rate? Wasn't it just low before?
- Joker_vD 3y agoSo, when the interest rates go up, you shrink the production because it shrinks your gross earnings which makes it easier to pay off the interest— wait, it doesn't. And usually the interest on the loan already taken doesn't change, does it?
- tomoyoirl 3y agoThe interest rate isn’t about loans you’ve taken. The interest rate on Treasuries is essentially the price of money. The value of an enterprise is the sum total of its discounted future cash flows. If interest rates are at 0% then a dollar in 10 years from some pie in the sky AI is worth about the same as a dollar today. If interest rates are 10% for a risk free Treasury bond, then a risk free dollar in 10 years is worth about $0.38. You invest accordingly.
- opportune 3y agoAnd to further explain, if you don’t increase your near-term profits/shift priorities from future growth to present returns as interest rates increase, under the discounted FCF model your current value decreases. AKA the price of the stock goes down, which shareholders and executives tend not to like.
- 3y ago
- mostlysimilar 3y agoDid they also hire a bunch of offshore engineers?
- Kon5ole 3y agoGoogle makes me kind of sad. They used to be so cool, pushing technology forward, making it accessible to the masses, doing things that seemed almost impossible and making it mainstream. Ads were the money stream but they did it tastefully. Now the main page is all ads, dark patterns are everywhere in everything Google does. They've basically become one of the ethically worst technology companies around. Is it inevitable? Will the allure of short-term profits kill every good company? IANAL but it seems to me it should be possible to have a company "constitution" that prevents it, somehow. "If the profit margin of operations exceeds 10% the CEO has to be replaced" or whatever. So far I've only seen companies be decent until an idealistic founder leaves or dies, then the MBA's take over and the worst possible way to make the most money takes over pretty quickly.
- ethbr1 3y ago> until an idealistic founder leaves or dies At which point they're more interested in maximizing the value of their shares, so they can do other things. Therefore, they specifically leave their company in charge of profit maximizers. It just takes a subsequent decade or so for the track record of decisions to finally make that unavoidably obvious to employees and the general public.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- kentm 3y agoI'm beginning to believe that it's just impossible to do advertising ethically. The hypothesis is that an advertising firm that attempts to do so will perform worse than ones doing unethical things, and eventually lose customers.
- forward1 3y agoAll business is inherently unethical and relies on hiding and externalizing costs of production unto the environment, a vulnerable population, or other forms of legal/tax trickery. Advertising is no more evil than the for-profit healthcare system in the US, or the food industry, or really any other industry, when you really stop to consider it. People who think they are operating or working for an "ethical" business are simply unaware or willfully ignorant of its costs. Typically it is the latter, or as Upton Sinclair beautifully put it — "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it."
- TriangleEdge 3y agoGoogle doesn't innovate anymore. The last attempt at an innovation I saw was Stadia (RIP). But, most Google products have a replacement now; Google can finally die.
- arcbyte 3y agoWhat was innovative about Stadia?
- depressedpanda 3y agoThe controllers connected directly to Stadia servers over WiFi, avoiding an unnecessary roundtrip via the device displaying the video feed.
- leoh 3y agoThat's... not that impressive imo.
- mmanfrin 3y ago> The last attempt at an innovation I saw was Stadia What. This was a product that had many prior failed predecessors from other companies.
- dham 3y agoOnlive did Stadia in like 2009. Not really innovative.
- endisneigh 3y agoYou seem to define innovation as having no replacement. What’s innovative then?
- Kimisabelyseo 3y agoProgramação
- rogerthis 3y agoTangent to this: do you remember the rumor a long time ago about GCP having a deadline to become "something" (I don't remember if 'relevant' or 'profitable' or else). Have it got to that "something"?
- tiffanyh 3y ago> "Google parent firm Alphabet employed 182,381 employees" I'm always sad to hear when someone loses their jobs, but the headline borders on being click-bait. If Google laid off ~3k of it's 182k employee base, that's only 1.5% of it's workforce. It wasn't long ago that companies had a standing rule to let go it's bottom 5% annually.
- jmyeet 3y agoGoogle has a (deserved) reputation for cancelling projects. This will hurt them at some point if it hasn't already. People will be unwilling to start using a Google product because they expect it to be cancelled. Interestingly, Netflix is having the same issue. Here's where this will backfire first: Google has studied team success and discovered psychological safety is a key component. Laying off people working on Google Assistant tells employees that if their project is canceled, you may be fired. Employees will respond by simply not working on anything that risks being canceled. Previously, employees had trust that they'd simply move to other projects. The counterargument is that employees should be invested in the success of their project. That's a nonsencial argument. The average IC has zero impact on whether or not an SVP 6 levels above them wakes up one day and decides to cancel their project in favor of [latest hot thing] that day. In fact, the very people who are responsible for the failure of a project are the least likely to get fired. They're the leaders who should be responsible for this. These VPs and above will simply move on to other projects. As always, layoffs here are to suppress wages and create fear in remaining employees.
- michaelcampbell 3y agohttps://archive.is/dvWA0 https://archive.is/dvWA0
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- dude2000bc 3y agoGoogle's biggest problem is lack of good strategic decisions at higher levels of management, their higher up management are not committed to anything and the company is run as chaos without any clear goals. They are often late to the game and then they try to do a rip off of the other tech companies services and they fail. Those that are really good services, they don't have the vision to stick with and improve until it works. They expect to get to a billion users in 2 years else the project goes on resource deprivation and then cancelling. They are starting to hit the cap on advertisement market, filling Search results and YouTube with crappy ads, hurting user experience. YouTube had turned into a house of pain because of the number of ads. You cannot keep growing Ads revenue year after year by 20% indefinitely. Their Deepmind folks overpromise and underdeliver. Their Gemini model is not even as good as GPT3.5 in benchmarks, let alone GPT4. And their folks don't really care about the products, they want to work on cool AGI stuff instead. They have been promising AGI next year for the last 10 years if not more, yet their model cannot even compete with GPT4. Bard has few daily users, and no paying users, while OpenAI has over 100 million daily users. No one is really responsible to user experience, the company is built from a bunch of dysfunctional silos don't their own thing competing with other got resources, no one knows how many chat apps they have launched to users and then killed. People get promoted through a dysfunctional system by hoarding resources and growing org sizes without delivering value to users. Internal incentives for engineering and project folks are set towards launching new things, not delivering value to users. They don't execute well because of mismanagement at higher levels and they are trying to address execution problems by laying off people who ended up working on the wrong project that the upper management was highlighting a while ago in their earnings call. Their Cloud is doing ok, but they are far behind AWS and Azure from market share perspective and Azure seems to be growing much faster. Their CFO is stepping down after cutting a lot of projects and investing and losing billions of dollars in real estate during covid and doubling the number of employees in 2020. There are rumors that Sergey Brin came back to help Sundar Pichai deal with challenges but it doesn't seem to be working so far. The relationship between their higher management and general employees seems broken and dysfunctional. The employees do not believe in the upper management. Overall Google seems to be in big trouble. The future for Google doesn't look bright. They are likely going to end up like Yahoo!