> What was last major innovation at Google.. chrome? 20% of company drives profits while 80% is a decorated R&D lab chock full of benefits, upset about cutbacks in their free oatmilk lattes, even though they’re not coming to office anyway.
This has been a major part of the FAANG strategy: crush competition by giving people who might work for or become potential competitors an offer they can't refuse. 80% of the company ostensibly produces minimal value, but the real reason you're giving them huge compensation and oat milk lattes is to make sure they don't work for, or found, a Google competitor at some point in the future.
This has led to a perpetual feedback loop: FAANG company gives their engineers big stock grants, which ensures no competition in their markets, which increases the value of their stock due to no competition, which allows them to hire more engineers with big stock grants, etc...
We're suddenly entering an era where FAANG stocks aren't continually moving upward. This is largely unprecedented territory; these companies have never experienced an extended downturn since this became the industry hiring strategy.
If the recession continues through 2023, I would not be surprised to see these companies abandon this strategy and only retain necessary talent. Would not be surprised to see 50%, even 75% staff cuts at Goog and Meta specifically.