It's not a charity you know. If they fire those many people, it's because they're confident they can go on without them. There are countries in which the law is more protective of employees, and you can't fire them unless you have serious economic reasons, which is a good thing. But in a country like the US where this isn't the case, I wouldn't shift the moral responsibility to the company itself. Its goal is to make money.
I think it’s the dishonesty that irks me. And the poor human capital management of not planning and allocating.
I remember when GE and Microsoft did their ranking and culling the herd processes of perpetual annual layoffs. They got a lot of flak for that (and I think stopped) and I saw presentations from Google HR about how bad that was and they wouldn’t do that because they are so much smarter.
They are full of shit and would do it if they had better PR. And that’s what they are doing now.
Hiring and firing is expensive. Layoffs are short term corrections and long term inefficiencies.
Google is for profit. And they are managed poorly to have such a layoff. If they were smarter they wouldn’t have to do this. If they were smarter they would retrain and reassign to new projects.
I don’t work at Google. I applied years ago and didn’t even get an interview. I wouldn’t work there now.
I suspect that they only need about 10% of their workforce to make 95% of their earnings. So everyone left is probably wondering if their imposter syndrome is real or not.
I have no beef with that as long as BS about values and one family and the like is dropped. I think the only company that handles this +/- honestly is Netflix.
This is why I advise people to steal as much from their employers as possible. Last time I got laid off I stole 3 laptops, two company phones, and leaked some very embarrassing e-mails.
This may shock you, but a company is not a person.
Further, there is zero wrong with a company's goal for profit. This is like water, or food, for a living organism, without profit the company will wither, and die.
A company does not "owe you" a job. You do work, they pay, and at any time you or they may walk away.
No one is owed a job.
So what's the beef here? You want some sort of corporate socialism?
But that's the thing. So many highly skilled people, put to good use can multiply profits no? That's assuming that those 10k are not some part of their new stack ranking system.
How would you interpret massive layoffs when a company is not making losses?
To me, it looks like their existing projects aren't making the kind of money they want to make and they aren't interested in trying out more things that might give them a chance to make that kind of money.
So many highly skilled people, put to good use can multiply profits no?
No. If true, merely having skilled people would immediately lead to a win for any startup.
How would you interpret massive layoffs when a company is not making losses?
I would only care to try, to spend the hundreds or thousands of hours to analyze google's actions (instead of guessing), if I cared to invest heavily it.
To the above I will add, a well run company does not wait to lose money, but manages finances ahead of the game.
Beyond that, share price is how google acquires, yes? So if share price plummets, acquisition capability plummets...
Being put to good use is what multiplies profits imo. Don't get me wrong, i have seen with skilled/learned engineers, taking horrible technical decisions and causing their companies a lot of financial headaches. So I understand what you mean. Especially about "managing finances ahead of the game".
But at Google's scale (and profits..) it was a little weird to see(/not see?) no efforts of reorganization before all those layoffs.
> This may shock you, but a company is not a person.
Corporations are legally treated like people, that is the point actually [1]. Given that they have similar rights, it is not absurd to expect they also behave like people.
[1] (from wikipedia) A corporation is an organization authorized by the state to act as a single entity (a legal entity recognized by private and public law "born out of statute"; a legal person in legal context) and recognized as such in law for certain purposes.
I mean it's a nice metaphor on the surface, but it completely falls apart because in reality we do a lot of things to prevent rocks from falling and damaging us and our property. From signs that warn of falling rocks to netting/drapery and even elaborate electrical warning systems[0].
We work together and mitigate it. What does this mean for companies? I dunno, but given they are man-made and that societies and attitudes shift over time I suspect it doesn't at all mean that companies doing bad shit are an inevitable thing we should accept and that all we can do is to just try our best not to personally draw their ire.
You assume that nothing was done to mitigate this but you do not have that knowledge you only assume it. You assume there's some alternate universe available to us where everything is good for everyone all the time.
Let's look at the universe where Google becomes a social security service instead of a competitive entity. If only 12,000 people are on the bad side of that one we'd be improbably lucky.
They're part of the universe in the same way as rocks trees and gravity. Rocks and trees are not iherently good or bad except in our minds. They just 'are'. Same with companies. If a rock is falling you get out of the way using the agency available to you, if you fail you die. So it has always been so it will always be. To project qualities onto things that they don't really have, to expect the rock to swerve around you because of your internal system of beliefs is a recipie for stress, confusion and ultimately unhappiness.
Gulags and the breast ripper are part of this universe in the same way as rocks and trees and gravity. Rocks and trees are not iherently good or bad except in our minds
Firstly, rocks exist on mars, Companies and the gas chamber don't - because they are man-made.
Secondly, concepts of good and bad only exist in your mind to begin with.
Thirdly, if we followed this logic for the past 500 years, you would probably be enjoying the breast ripper for treason or something.
> You treat social constructs as immutable part of the universe like rocks and trees.
Fair point.
> If we lived in 1500's you'd replace the word 'company' with 'medieval lord'.
In some ways I see the equivalence because they both have power but luckily our justice system has evolved since then and there are more checks on power. We've also evolved from feudalism to whatever kind of capitalism we're in now. I think capitalism is a long way from perfect because it often doesn't align with our internal belief systems, partly because nobody has a complete view of the situation (even the CEO who cannot see the future) so our belief systems act on incomplete information and partly because there are perhaps not enough rules baked in to insert moralistic behaviour into it.
I don't think that turning companies into social security is a good way forward. Just have social security. Don't loose sight that if your economy isn't competitive in the world then all this becomes moot because you all loose.
Actually we don’t _just_ do that - we also put up fences, we reinforce parts of cliffs that need to stay up, we supply safety equipment to people who need to be there for some reason
Similarly with companies, we don’t just “avoid going near them” (is that actually your proposed solution - opting out of society?); we regulate, we unionise, we hold people accountable and make the most blatantly harmful behaviours illegal
> Companies aren't really people. You wouldn't call a rock falling from a cliff a psychopath, you just don't stand near cliffs.
Decisions in companies are made by people, not rocks. And their decisions aren't a product of laws comparable to theory of gravity. And saying that CEO had no other choice but to fall on head of unsuspecting employee and/or client is a lie.
People who have responsibilities to a wide veriety of people including the remaining 138,000 employees, who have a very great interest in the continued health of the company.
If only owners/management was so interested in well-being of the remaining 138,000 employees and instead of doing buybacks, saved that money for salaries. Also jobs were cut not to save Google from bankruptcy, it was done to raise profits and shares value. They would be fine with few $10^9 less, but they don't want some of the money, they want all the money. Infinite growth is impossible.
