this post was submitted on 18 Jan 2024
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Google CEO tells employees to expect more job cuts this year.::In an internal memo, Google CEO Sundar Pichai said recent layoffs are about “removing layers to simplify execution and drive velocity in some areas.” He warned that more are coming.

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[–] [email protected] 76 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)
[–] [email protected] 58 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

“We have ambitious goals and will be investing in our big priorities this year,” Pichai told all Google employees on Wednesday in an internal memo that was shared with me. “The reality is that to create the capacity for this investment, we have to make tough choices.”

Surely Alphabet will make the tough choice to cut CEO pay, right? lololololol I crack myself up sometimes...

[–] [email protected] 48 points 10 months ago (1 children)

"Sorry guys, we're doing better than ever with record profits and massive growth, we're going to have to let you go"

[–] [email protected] 14 points 10 months ago (1 children)

This is too painfully accurate to be funny

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago

Does no one care about the shareholders anymore?

[–] [email protected] 35 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Every asshole CEO is betting that AI will magically fill the gap when he gets rid of Karen in accounting.

And the stupid fuckers are dead wrong. No one even knows what Karen does, but they will ask someone like me to "real quick use AI to replace it".

Yes, Dave. I'll give it a try. I know it's a waste of time and money, but you're paying for my time and it's your money we're wasting. So let's have at it!

Then you'll try to lecture me about how I should have had the foresight to prevent you from needing to hire a whole division to replace Karen.

Except you never get that chance, because you're a cheap skinflint, and I'm only hearing about your firing through the rumor mill, because I left for more money over a year before your dumbass shit hit the fan - and I blocked your number when I left.

This will not save Google any money. But they don't give a shit, it's a pump and dump scam to maximize their sale of stock next quarter. Because they're already using DuckDuckGo as well.

[–] biofaust 4 points 10 months ago (1 children)

DuckDuckGo is surprisingly good. It is my go-to atm on all my computers. If it only had better maps...

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago

I've replaced Google Maps with a physical Garmin navigation device in my car, as part of an intentional "deGoogling" of my life.

At first switching to a Garmin felt like I had become my grandfather.

But now that I've had it for awhile, I could never go back to Google Maps, anyway.

  • Garmin's interface is much nicer, to me, in a bunch of subtle ways that add up.
  • I appreciate just saying "is it in the Garmin?" Instead of asking my SO to text me an address for the kids random event.
  • I particularly love my Garmin's ability to predict which lane I need when driving a big city highway.

The feature of Google I miss is "there's an accident on the road ahead" which my Garmin cannot do because it is not constantly online.

Source: my personal experience. I'm not sponsored by Garmin. But if Garmin wants to send me free stuff they should let me know.

[–] EnderMB 33 points 10 months ago

Layoffs have turned Google, Apple, and Amazon into IBM. You cannot sustainability cut jobs forever, while also expecting your bottom line and moonshot ideas to provide growth. What sustains you is "old tech", and these companies jumped into old tech the second they decided to take management failures out on employees.

[–] rambaroo 31 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

These asshole CEOs need to be put in their place. I wish tech workers would fucking unionize already. The Democrats will never help anyone with labor issues.

[–] 800XL 8 points 10 months ago

These CEOs forget what a punch in the nose or the solarplexus feels like. They need the wind knocked out of them.

[–] vane 27 points 10 months ago (1 children)

More and more corporate and less customer focused company. Greed will eventually kill youtube, search, chrome and android.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 10 months ago (2 children)

As far as I'm concerned, they've already successfully killed search and Chrome, and if there were adequate alternatives to YouTube and Android, I'd leave those too

[–] [email protected] 7 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Linux phones still have a looong way to go.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago

Yup. Can't happen soon enough as far as I'm concerned.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Why hasn't Vimeo taken off? They look like they have the right idea of eschewing ads and letting creators paywall content behind subscriptions to make money.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 10 months ago (2 children)

I don’t obsess over Japanese culture like so many weabs on the internet, their grind culture is insane, but I have mad respect for their CEO’s when it comes to taking accountability. Why are so many other nation’s CEOs so selfish? Why do they need to make more money than they already have?

[–] lovesickoyster 7 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Why are so many other nation’s CEOs so selfish? Why do they need to make more money than they already have?

because their investors expect them to. Welcome to capitalism and building shit with borrowed money.

[–] maness300 6 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Why are so many other nation’s CEOs so selfish?

Because Japan has a culture of honor.

The rest of the world is built around opportunity.

It's why Japanese companies made better products than everyone else for so long. They actually cared about what they did and raised standards for everyone else.

[–] notannpc 19 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Don’t worry though folks, Sundars income will likely increase and he’ll still get his end of year bonus. I know everyone was real worried about him.

/s

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago

Poor CEO, runs the best company in the world and gets comments like this in return. 😮‍💨

[–] Tronn4 14 points 10 months ago

He should have a chat bot take over his job too

[–] [email protected] 13 points 10 months ago

They should start with his

[–] snek 12 points 10 months ago (1 children)

"removing layers to simplify execution and drive velocity in some areas."

Basically saying: "The problem is YOU! YOU are too many (even though it was us who hired you)! Surely if you go away, we can become better, faster, and more efficient!"

[–] lovesickoyster -5 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

people have a hard time admitting that their job today might be obsolete tomorrow, I believe this is already happening and it's going to get much, much worse. If you're not adaptable you'll have a very hard time in the future.

Kai-Fu Lee has a pretty interesting idea of how this will all end up - a couple of large corporations directly paying people's unemployement to prevent riots.

[–] snek 4 points 10 months ago

I would agree if more AI products that people are being removed for were producing anything valuable or providing any kind of reasonable service.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 10 months ago

It's time to unionize

[–] rsuri 7 points 10 months ago

Google is so broken that people are choosing to use a chatbot that often makes things up instead, and they think they have too many people fixing stuff.

[–] werefreeatlast 5 points 10 months ago

Gotta bring the band-aids to work....you know, for the job cuts.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago

This is the best summary I could come up with:


“We have ambitious goals and will be investing in our big priorities this year,” Pichai told all Google employees on Wednesday in an internal memo that was shared with me.

“The reality is that to create the capacity for this investment, we have to make tough choices.”

So far, those “tough choices” have included layoffs and reorganizations in Google’s hardware, ad sales, search, shopping, maps, policy, core engineering, and YouTube teams.

“These role eliminations are not at the scale of last year’s reductions, and will not touch every team,” Pichai wrote in his memo — a reference to when Google cut 12,000 jobs this time last year.

Pichai said the layoffs this year were about “removing layers to simplify execution and drive velocity in some areas.” He confirmed what many inside Google have been fearing: that more “role eliminations” are to come.

“Many of these changes are already announced, though to be upfront, some teams will continue to make specific resource allocation decisions throughout the year where needed, and some roles may be impacted,” he wrote.


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