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Google offers 'voluntary exit' to all US platforms and devices employees
- guiambros 2y ago[dupe] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42880529 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42880529 (53 comments, 110 points)
- ericd 2y agoOff topic, but The Verge's bottom cookie banner is truly absurd: "Privacy Notice We and our 868 partners store and access personal data, like browsing data or unique identifiers, on your device."
- dylan604 2y agoat that point, calling them partners is beyond perverted. they are essentially saying that they are willing to sell your data to body that knocks on their door
- ycombinatrix 2y agoI'm embarrassed for Verge employees
- jey 2y agoHm. Why create this environment where the people with the most options will preferentially be induced to leave? Also the impact on the company project seems less predictable. Aside from avoiding the extreme difficulty involved in doing layoffs and choosing folks to let go, what are the upsides of this approach? EDIT: I see that my take was wrong and too narrow. Thanks to everyone who replied.
- dullcrisp 2y agoEnough rounds of layoffs and I bet that would happen anyway, but across the whole company.
- vkou 2y ago> Hm. Why create this environment where the people with the most options will preferentially be induced to leave? Because the alternatives are all worse, and also result in the same thing.
- throwaway13337 2y agoI feel like this is a cynical take on an admitedly hard reality. It's becoming a meme here in response to these creative fires so I'd like to give a different perspective. I can say from my own experience that when you hate your job, you're usually not very productive, either. Maybe selecting for people who want out is more efficient than it seems. The take that only those who can get a new job will take the offer implies that people working there are only there because of a calculation that involves money and nothing else. I don't think it's realistic and I hope others don't live in that world - it sounds pretty miserable. In a non-cynical world, a great exit package would allow those that wanted to do something else to do so. Those that wanted to keep at it - because they're engaged with their work - would have colleagues that also want to be there. The company would have a happier, more productive culture. Everyone wins. It might be that there is an element of this calculation wherein low performers stay, but those people are definitely more desperate than most at FAANG.
- User23 2y agoIf an exit package increases your agency, then take it! If an exit package doesn't increase your agency, then increase your agency in your current role!
- danso 2y ago> Aside from avoiding the extreme difficulty involved in doing layoffs and choosing folks to let go Preventing massive emotional turmoil and political conflict sounds like a pretty huge upside, I'd even go so far as to argue that it's precisely the reason why everyone would prefer this situation. What alternative approaches are you thinking about that have more upsides?
- jey 2y agoThat's true. I happily concede!
- jonas21 2y agoThis seems like a pretty bold and employee-friendly move. Google recently merged two large divisions, so there's going to be some redundancy. Most companies would resolve this with a layoff, but it sounds like they're trying a buyout at the request of their employees. From the article: > Some employees at Google have recently been circulating a petition that calls for CEO Sundar Pichai to offer exactly this type of optional buyout before resorting to involuntary layoffs. “Ongoing rounds of layoffs make us feel insecure about our jobs,” the petition said, according to CNBC. Conventional wisdom is that with voluntary buyouts, high-performing employees who have the most options will leave and lower-performing employees will stay. We'll see how it turns out.
- 0xbadcafebee 2y agoIf I'm a highly-paid, high-performing employee, I'm not walking away from a big paycheck and lots of clout. If I was a middling employee without a big paycheck, looking at the prospect of months of job searching once I get laid off, I'd take the buyout and use it to start searching full time.
- refulgentis 2y agoThe trick is knowing you're in the second group (and conveniently, this came roughly a week after everyone got their performance review results)
- JKCalhoun 2y agoSeems like the opposite happens. The high-performing employee is getting unsolicited job offers all the time — can skip off to a higher salary somewhere else. Middling employee knows a bird in the hand when they see it.
- epicureanideal 2y agoTheoretically, but in practice I'm not sure recruiters or other companies can tell the difference between a high performer and a mid-performer.
- OnionBlender 2y agoDoes this mean I shouldn't bother apply?
- aoeusnth1 2y agoGoogle, maybe. P&D, no.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- Animats 2y agoDoes this mean Google is exiting the phone business?
- rawgabbit 2y agoI once worked at a BIGCORP. The newly appointed CFO said the new philosophy was that if a division which was its own corporate entity was not number one or two in its industry, it was best to sell and exit. They did this for many years and wound up selling everything. I would argue this is a net negative for society and consumers who have less choice less competition and higher prices. In 2015 YouTube was separated from Google with both owned by Alphabet. My guess is that Sergey Brin couldn’t care less if both companies went out of business. All they care is ROI.
- jorams 2y ago> In 2015 YouTube was separated from Google with both owned by Alphabet. That is incorrect. When Alphabet was introduced YouTube remined part of Google, and still is.
- rawgabbit 2y agoYou are correct. YouTube is owned by Google.
- dangus 2y agoThat is just a dumb as hell CFO. That philosophy is based on absolutely nothing. If you’re “second best” as a product then you need to position yourself as being better at something that the market leader isn’t doing as well.
- machomaster 2y agoFyi a couple of years ago Google's management's internal battle cry leaked in which they said that if Google Cloud won't become number 1 (so beating Amazon and MS) in 2-3 years, they will close the whole thing. Never trust Google with anything, if don't want it to be inexplicably and suddenly closed.
- jebarker 2y agoWhat typically happens to unvested stock grants with these severance packages?
- UncleMeat 2y agoIn 2023 people who were laid off got a fairly long chunk of vesting events. Since then the layoffs have largely not included equity. In this case, the severance is just based on salary with no vesting past the last day at work.
- jebarker 2y agoThat makes a huge difference to the desirability of taking the deal I'd imagine.