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Comment by ergonaught | Hacker News Reader

I need to see these "I take full responsibility" people actually punished. At the very least, this sentence needs to be removed from their mouths.

Alphabet had 116 billion USD "cash on hand" at the end of September 2022. Even if the full cost of each of those 12K employees is 500K per year, that's "only" 6 billion dollars to keep those "great" people that they "love" working with around.

Net income for that quarter was almost 14 billion dollars, and net income for "that year" was almost 67 billion dollars.

Things are in decline, sure, but clearly this is a company that can actually afford to keep "great" people that they "love" working with employed, so "affecting Googlers lives" doesn't have to "weight heavily" on anyone.

Sorry, but these antics require revolution. Not a friendly chat with the brand imagery wizards. Not a "well just use DuckDuckGo".

It's rare to encounter a whole "class" of people more desperately deserving barbarians at the gates of their tower.

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> I need to see these "I take full responsibility" people actually punished. At the very least, this sentence needs to be removed from their mouths.

There's some infantile obsession with this phrase in every layoff thread. "I take full responsibility" is partly a polite way to say that they aren't blaming anyone else for what's happening, it partly means "I'm the one making this decision" and it's partly ceremony for the sake of appearances - if you're outraged that the CEO of a multi-billion dollar company is using this language, that's a problem with you, not with them.

It's like being indignant when a friend or a colleague replies with "I'm fine, thanks" when they aren't fine, or when they say "I can't complain" when they're in fact capable of complaining - it's perfectly normal language for the situation and it's understandable to anyone who has developed the skill of not taking every word literally.

> There's some infantile obsession with this phrase in every layoff thread. "I take full responsibility" is partly a polite way to say that they aren't blaming anyone else for what's happening, it partly means "I'm the one making this decision" and it's partly ceremony for the sake of appearances

Yes, we know, on the left we have a word for doing that, it's called "lying."

> if you're outraged that the CEO of a multi-billion dollar company is using this language, that's a problem with you, not with them.

The point of the comment is that we _should_ make it a _them_ problem.

> It's like being indignant when a friend or a colleague replies with "I'm fine, thanks" when they aren't fine, or when they say "I can't complain" when they're in fact capable of complaining - it's perfectly normal language for the situation and it's understandable to anyone who has developed the skill of not taking every word literally.

Yeah, sorry, but if someone does white lies and can't communicate, they ain't a friend.

The point being made is that there are no negative consequences to being responsible, so it's an empty statement. It doesn't even mean anything. They're making the decision because they're being rewarded for it by maintaining a certain level of profitability in the financial reporting game.

> they’re making the decision

This is what being responsible for something means.

Thats what 'Power' means.

You've got your dictionaries mixed up

Being responsible means two different things:

1. Causing something.

2. Being held accountable for something, and facing its consequences (e.g. compensating for damage)

It's possible that someone can cause something while avoiding its consequences, deferring the responsibility of making up to someone else. This usually happens due to asymmetry of information or power.

That said, we cannot say definitely in this particular instance that Sundar could have foreseen the financial circumstances or economic crisis of any kind, and it's also possible that Sundar might resign or get fired in the future as a consequence. Still, one can argue that the phrase "I'm taking full responsibility of [...]" is a bit overused in general, and used in a rhetorical manner without actually meaning it.

The honest way to phrase this is "I'm the one who caused this."

"Responsibility" is ambiguous as you said, and that's exactly why he chose that word.

>The point being made is that there are no negative consequences to being responsible

What "negative consequences" would you like to see? You want to see executives fired over something like this? How do you think that would affect future hiring practices?

So, if people lower in the totem pole mess up, they should never be fired? Because it might impact future hiring practices?

The higher up on the totem pole you are, the less it seems to matter how well you actually do your job.

It's so wild seeing people making claims like these on hn, considering people here also get treated similarly. Are you going to get fired from your job for minor mistake? Would you go work for a company that will fire devs over minor issues? Why should CEO be treated differently?

I'm not sure what's wild about it. As far as I've seen, what I said is entirely true.

- If someone very low on the totem pole (ex. factory worker) is late a few times, they're far more likely to be fired than someone higher up.

- If a low/mid level manager at a company screws up a project so bad that a bunch of people under them get layed off, they're far more likely to lose their job then a VP that does the same.

The point isn't that everyone should get laid off for every mistake. The point is that, the higher up you are, the less likely you are to face _any_ consequences at all for any mistakes. And it's also not a certainly; just a probability.

It's wild because it's completely separated from realities of the business. If you fired CEO over any minor mistake (overhiring sucks, but for CEO it is a minor mistake), the company would die much sooner, because people wouldn't want to work there. You as a developer also are quite high on that pole, and you (probably) won't get fired if you bring down prod for a moment due to mistake in migrations, why should CEO be treated differently?

me> The higher up on the totem pole you are, the less it seems to matter how well you actually do your job.

you> If you fired CEO over any minor mistake

Do you see the disconnect here? At no point did I call for a CEO to be fired over a minor mistake. Rather, I pointed out that, no matter the size of the mistake, the higher up you are the smaller the repercussions. You are responding with what is a perfect example of a straw man argument.

To be clear; no, I don't think a CEO that makes a small mistake should be fired. But I also don't think that a CEO that causes the downfall of a major company should walk away and into the arms of the next company, doing the same job, for just as much (or more) money. And, in between those two, there's a large area where repercussions are currently few and far between.

Personally, I would like to see C-Level executives financially responsible for their decisions. Instead of firing a percentage of his staff, he should be sent a bill. With great reward should come great risk; at least thats how it works for the rest of us.

A temporary C-level/VP/director/manager compensation cut (say, a couple quarters to a year) whenever "large" layoffs are executed seems fair.

Sure, let 5-10% of the company go, but it should echo financially up the chain as well.

In the sense that those people can't afford to do that thing that they'd been planning on doing, and might have to budget a bit harder.

Seems minimally fair when others just lost their jobs.

C-level annual comp dropped 30% due to stock price decline.

That's "lost" money in the sense of compared-to-being-paid-in-gold.

One could also say that dollar-based annual comp dropped 7% in 2022 due to inflation.

And out of the three of those, stock has the best prospects for future appreciation, if one can afford to hold, which I imagine most C-levels can.

The exec made a calculated gamble, to generate profits and make gay while the sun shined. Why do you think it was a financial misake?

If it turns out that the layoff were a mistake, punishment will come.

> at least thats how it works for the rest of us.

Is that true? If you make your SF salary of >$200k and manage to down production, are you sent a bill for lost revenue?

I don't think so. In fact, since CEOs are (usually) mostly compensated in stock and their job is to create shareholder value, their income is likely far more related to their performance than for your average engineer.

If you cost the company enough money, you will be let go. It is true that you probably will not be sent a bill (although that can happen depending on the circumstances).

The C-Level executive suite, however, will see no repercussions, even though, in reality they are ultimately responsible for overseeing the hiring, training and compliance processes. Even when there are shareholders and a board of directors to answer to (which isn't always) consequences are rarely seen.

In fact, I don't see how they could ever truly be held responsible for anything that goes wrong with the company, but they sure do win (with bonuses and related comp) when things go well while employees usually do not.

> What "negative consequences" would you like to see?

None. But if taking responsibility for someone else's injury just involves saying that you're taking responsibility, it's nothing but playing with words.

If your grandmother got sick, I don't think you should be punished. But if you take responsibility for your grandmother getting sick, in English people will expect that you're at her house taking care of her until she's well.

Considering that thousands of people just lost their jobs through no fault of their own, one more who did screw up massively doesn't seem like it should change much, right?

It's like a murderer saying:

"I don't regret what I did, I don't think it was wrong, I would do it again, I haven't been caught BUT I take full responsibility for the death of the victim."

No, it's not like that at all, because "murder" presupposes a crime.

"If someone lies, it's your problem, not theirs."

What sort of argument is that?!

They are not "taking responsibility" to the slightest degree. It's an empty, enraging statement like, "Thoughts and prayers."

> are not "taking responsibility" to the slightest degree

They’re not atoning to the internet’s satisfaction. But they are taking responsibility by saying as much.

The infantilism charge is accurate. Taking responsibility doesn’t require symbolic atonement like standing in a corner. Recognition is sufficient. If they deleted that line, would anyone be satisfied?

What does responsibility mean without consequences? The consequences here are all for people who bear none of the responsibility.

The problem is, you do not like their actions. And that's perfectly fine!

However, no matter what they say here, what platitudes, what attempts to comfort(or lack!), you will still find fault with the words.

Stop complaining about the words, and people will stop arguing with you over them. The words are unimportant.

Instead, complain solely about the act, leave the words out of it.

Empty? Yes.

Enraging? That's your personal choice.

It's because of an asymmetry in role. As a normal employee when you are "responsible" for something you are fired if you fuck it up. You face consequences. Highlighting the fact that Sundar is responsible for this is saying two things- yes they were his decisions and it's his job to get them right, but secondly, he's going to face no consequences for getting that decision wrong. Instead, the employees- who clearly aren't responsible are going to face the consequences. So it points to a broken system, for the masses, you take responsibility and you take the consequences, for the elite you take the "responsibility" but the masses will still face the consequences.

Wall St usually looks at cost reductions favourably, so his share options will likely go up making him many more millions. Those are the consequences for him.

(Edit: Before the obvious replies of "but but Google stock is already down 30%", the whole market is down over the last year.)

This was a point that was brought up after the Meta layoffs. Yes the executives lost a lot of money before the layoffs - but they also benefited the most from the post layoff bounce! And none of them were laid off…

> it's his job to get them right

But he didn't say he got it wrong.

>To match and fuel that growth, we hired for a different economic reality than the one we face today.

He kinda did.

That's implying that he never intended these at-will employees to have tenure beyond the short term.

But he didn't. Kind of like how you might get an estimate wrong, it doesn't mean you made an error. Operational decision making are best-guess / heuristic by nature - and he never said he made a mistake in anticipating the economic reality that happened.

What is he taking responsibility for then?

The decision. He was responsible for making it.

If it was the correct decision what responsibility is there to take?

If that was the right decision, none. But it might have been the right decision, it also might not.

> As a normal employee when you are "responsible" for something you are fired if you fuck it up. You face consequences.

Is this really true? For software devs specifically I don't think it's common for someone to get fired when they ship code with a bug in it. Or when they make a production change which causes an outage, even if that outage costs millions of dollars in losses and an untold amount of reputational damage.

n = 1, but I've messed up a decent amount and never been fired or even laid off in over 15 years. Never seen anyone else mess up (in an accidental way) and end up getting fired for it, either.

I've seen it happen to engineers who were bad at their jobs and aren't socially savvy. If you make people like you, it's hard to get fired for performance from what I've seen. However, the company I work for is very intense and I don't think is normal in how often people are fired. It's a little scary, but i kinda like it. It's really frustrating working with people who don't know what they're doing.

"Some of you may die but that is a sacrifice I am willing to make"

Of course he faces consequences for getting that wrong. He's losing the services of 12k (soon to be former) employees and the costs it takes to separate them. Those employees are now job searchers, but they were able to take advantage of months or years of Google's infamously adequate pay and benefits. They shouldn't have any trouble finding jobs with Google on their resume.

I get the impression from your writing (and others in this thread) that you feel Google owes something to it's employees other than adequate compensation and a mutually acceptable working environment. That's not how (US) companies work. The CEO has obligations to the board of directors (to run the company in a way they approve) and to the shareholders (to be profitable). No obligation exists to employ as many people for as long as possible, particularly when to do so would impact the aforementioned actual obligations of CEOs. This is why layoffs happen.

When labor is cheap and business is booming, you hire. When labor expenses increase or business declines, you fire. Sometimes that means layoffs to hit quarterly goals. Sometimes that means your five year strategy has a pandemic and economic downturn happen in year three and you have to downscale. The CEO has to take responsibility for that, as he does for everything the company does, but any apology relating is simply a socially graceful admission he lacks omniscience.

> So it points to a broken system, for the masses, you take responsibility and you take the consequences.

What's should happen, but it won't is that the responsibility for hiring too many people and facing a change of perspective should be to have to keep these people event if it means a decline of profit, as long as they don't face bankruptcy they can take the loss and move on.

That's why there are labor laws and worker unions, so the asymmetry can shift a bit to the employee side.

It seems like this model would say that Google should not hire without an ironclad assurance that they will never need to do layoffs. Is that fairer - to never employ people in the first place?

> As a normal employee when you are "responsible" for something you are fired if you fuck it up

I'd hate to work somewhere like this. When you fuck up, you take responsibility, you fix it and you ensure no one can fuck up the same way. You don't just fire people who fuck up, or people won't ever do anything for you.

You can tell the places that do this immediately: every action is surrounded by 10x the effort of paper pushing to ensure that the “right person” is fired when the thing goes wrong (which it will, because such organizations are incapable of institutional learning).

The best part about people who take every word literally and demand punishment is that no punishment will ever satisfy all of them.

It wouldn’t matter if Sundar took a pay cut (like Tim Cook) because the same people would say he’s still worth hundreds of millions. It wouldn’t matter if he fired himself because there would be some other, equally fallible human being in the same role that he vacated. That person would be capable of making the same mistake Sundar did.

Have these people never worked in a real organisation where people make mistakes? When an engineer causes an incident, we fixed it and then did a review to understand how we can improve the process to prevent such an incident in future. We didn’t point fingers, we didn’t demand punishment.

Here’s the thing - Sundar is still probably the best person to helm Google, despite this mistake. In fact, a person who has had to lay off thousands will definitely think twice before going on a hiring spree in future. Exactly the sort of person you want in charge.

> In fact, a person who has had to lay off thousands will definitely think twice before going on a hiring spree in future. Exactly the sort of person you want in charge.

How about someone who doesn't have to lay off thousands to before they figure this out? Someone with imagination and foresight? Maybe they would be more of an exact match.

Yes, I’d love to find the person who has never made a mistake to be the CEO. Undoubtedly you must be speaking from personal experience of being infallible?

Personally, I don't see taking a paycut or leaving a position of power to be "taking a responsibility". The baseline for ordinary people is not to be in the position of power or not to have a high salary. If you just reduce to the baseline, it's not really a punishment. Incompetent people shouldn't get the privileged position in the first place, so thinking of losing it as a punishment is absurd.

> The baseline for ordinary people is not to be in the position of power or not to have a high salary.

This is quite funny, since the 'victims' we're talking about are some of the highest paid people in an already highly paying profession.

> Incompetent people shouldn't get the privileged position in the first place, so thinking of losing it as a punishment is absurd.

Also, we should not have error handling because we only hire competent developers and therefore our app doesn't crash, ever. This is clearly absurd.

Plus, the economic situation did change. Calling Satya incompetent for making mistakes while steering a trillion dollar company feels a bit like the management equivalent of "I could build StackOverflow in a weekend".

I am not sure you understood the argument I am making. At least I am confused what you're trying to argue.

All I am saying is this: If I am giving you a handsome reward for a job, and it turns out you are doing it badly, then giving you just half the reward is not a punishment. Even giving you no reward is not a punishment (because you got a chance to do a well-rewarded job). Punishment, to mean something, would be losing more than you would get for doing the acceptable job.

Your argument seems to be that punishment only exists on an absolute scale (or relative to the overall population, not relative to the individual). Am I understanding it correctly?

If so, I heavily disagree and hold the opposite opinion: Punishment (and reward for that matter) are heavily individual. E.g., Only playing with a playstation for 30 mins a day might be a punishment for one kid, as they were playing 2~8h a day before, and a reward for another, as they haven't had access to that before. It is relativ to their life situation and independent of general playstation playtime.

But there are cases where punishment is somewhat absolute, mostly for severe infractions like violent crime. Even then, the degree to what a sentence might feel as a punishment might heavily diverge based on the person receiving it. E.g., a homeless person without a job might feel very different about going to prison for 5 years than a highly paid investment manager.

Of course the punishment should be considered on absolute scale, based on typical (or perhaps even lowest status) people in the society, because it is ultimately administered by the society! Otherwise justice would lose any semblance of fairness.

Thank you for confirming I understood your argument correctly.

> When an engineer causes an incident, we fixed it and then did a review to understand how we can improve the process to prevent such an incident in future

Yes, sure most of the time its the process's fault. But not always. The big issue is that unlike an incident review where agreed, measurable fixes will be put in place, in business there is no such thing.

Sure, Sundar admits that he made the wrong call. But, why? what information lead to that call, what changes are going to be made to how decisions are made in the future? how can the rest of the company be sure that this is a one time thing, and not a systemic information bias.

I assume there’s been a post-mortem for this incident, considering the cost to the company in terms of morale, pain for former employees, damage to hiring brand etc. They’ve probably learned lessons from this so they don’t repeat them in future.

It’s hard to make the results of the post-mortem public because most of this would be decisions taken by specific people, instead of systems misfiring. They would not want to publicly throw the people under the bus.

> I assume there’s been a post-mortem for this incident

That requires trust. The sysadmin team where I work have a weekly incident review, its vaguely public and although I don't often go, trust is built because results are not private or hidden.

> It’s hard to make the results of the post-mortem public because most of this would be decisions taken by specific people,

Public yes, but wider inside the company, less so (there are some caveats.) but as for throwing people under a bus, that's never the aim for an incident review. Sure if someone clearly acted with malice, then perhaps action might be taken.

The point of incident reviews is to work out what happened, why, and if its likely to happen again. The general rule is that if you allow people to speak honestly in a review, and not punish them after, you get a better result.

Maybe we shouldn't have megacorporation CEOs in the first place. Maybe we shouldn't have billionaires.

(And no, before the pedants come in, the absolute amount isn't what matters, the absurd level of inequality is.)

Also to add to your point, this "I" is very specific as opposed to "we leadership", it is out there in public. Board and/or shareholder can use this to cut Sundar's salary/bonus or whatever that is personal to him. Theoretically, this statement can also be used to fire or demote him, or sue him and not Google.

All hypothetical I know, but he easily could have used some other non-committal words.

It’s because guy „taking full responsibility” will still be able to carry on whith his life like nothing happened, having financial security for him and everybody in his family to live off the interest of his bank for generations, and people he just laid off will now need to wonder how many weeks or months will their savings last them before they can find a next gig letting them maintain their living. Or maybe thats impossible and they’ll have to relocate somewhere cheaper, potentially uprooting all their and their partnere and kids life and trying elsewhere?

>It’s because guy „taking full responsibility” will still be able to carry on whith his life like nothing happened

Why is it that some people believe that people reach some level of success and become inhuman, robotic automatons? He had to fire a bunch of people. Have you ever had to fire someone? It sucks. I'm sure he's not happy about it. What else do you expect him to say or do?

>having financial security for him and everybody in his family to live off the interest of his bank for generations

If we're going to play the game of relative wealth, I don't think you're going to find much sympathy for the laid-off Google engineers; these people aren't going to be at the food bank any time soon.

> He had to fire a bunch of people. Have you ever had to fire someone? It sucks.

He didn't fire anybody. He reduced a number in a spreadsheet. This is Dunbar's number at work:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunbar%27s_number

Happy no, but he didn't fire them because he had to. He fired them because that's what's expected of a CEO, maximizing shareholder value.

You know, he could have fired 11k instead of 12k. I'm sure he sleeps just fine and would have also been okay with 15k.

> I'm sure he's not happy about it.

Why is it that some people make up internal states for people that they've never met? He may have fought for months internally in order to lay off 12K people. He may be disappointed to the point of despair that it wasn't 20K, as he may have originally recommended.

Being against making up callousness shouldn't be responded to by making up concern.

You don't accidentally become the CEO of a megacorporation by not being an inhuman robotic automaton.

> you're outraged that the CEO of a multi-billion dollar company is using this language, that's a problem with you, not with them

Not so long ago, if you got raped, it was your problem, not the rapists.

No saying the situations are identical, but the language used is equivalent and so is the logical rigour behind both statemets.

What's "infantile" about it?

Thinking words mean things and aren't just tools of manipulation is childish.

> it's perfectly normal language for the situation and it's understandable to anyone who has developed the skill of not taking every word literally.

That's imposing US cultural norms on the rest of the world.

Given that we are talking about a US Citizen working as a CEO of US Company...

So all of those 12K people are going to be in US offices? Noone outside of the US is going to get fired?

You're right, what they should say is, "Mea culpa! You just lost your house, your family will have to uproot its life, your credit rating is about to be ruined and we booted your ass out in the worst tech job market in a decade.

The good news is I can still afford two buy a new private G40 this year! Wahoo!"

> You just lost your house, your family will have to uproot its life, your credit rating is about to be ruined

Except nothing of this happened to me when I was laid off in 2020. And I was not making 500k/y, not even close. I have full sympathy to those who are getting laid off now, but I assume googlers will be fine.

Yes, this is called survivorship bias.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias

My point is that a person who earns 500k/y and have Google in their resume will most likely suffer much less than many many others. Too much drama about it honestly.

If anything, it's actually a faulty generalization: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faulty_generalization

> perfectly normal language for the situation and it's understandable to anyone who has developed the skill of not taking every word literally.

I think that depends on how you view the situation. If you see it as twelve thousand people have just had their personal and financial circumstances very significantly disrupted, then this choice of language is very much not normal. I suspect that most normal people would be of the view that taking personal responsibility for such a damaging act would normally be accompanied by actually demonstrating some personal contrition, or accepting a sanction of some kind. I don't think that this pov is infantile or indignant.

If you see it as an exercise in cost reduction then I guess the way it is expressed is pretty normal - but only because abstracting-out the human consequences of such business decisions has been intentionally normalised by corporations.

I suspect what Pichai is really saying here is that he accepts responsibility for the hiring decision because he is taking credit for the firing decision. It's as simple as that. For him, at least.

No, it's more like a soft version of the Monty Python line:

"Some of you will die ... but that's a sacrifice I am prepared to make!"

Saying you "take responsibility" is hollow if you don't suffer at all for your alleged failure.

> the Monty Python line: "Some of you will die ... but that's a sacrifice I am prepared to make!"

That’s from Shrek

> it's understandable to anyone who has developed the skill of not taking every word literally.

HN is going to be a tough place for you. A mild, undiagnosed case of autism is not uncommon around here and a non-trivial amount of people seem to mistake that as some superpower for "seeing things how they really are".

> undiagnosed case of autism

Autism is actually...

(/s; couldn't resist; your points are absolutely true)

I'm more inclined to agree with parent for the reasons stated by child.

I would be more impressed if they did something like this: 1. internally decide we need to trim the fat 2. Announce the problem and what they need to target, and give the employees a deadline to hit that target 3. Encourage employees to look for new jobs on the job 4. or encourage people to take early retirement 4. or take the plunge on starting their own startup, 5. or let them switch to part time even. I'm sure many of these people are married and switch to their spouses insurance.

They all have Google on their resume, it's not going to take long. These companies are the top of the food chain, they could at least act like it.

This turns it back into every other business problem we solve day in and day out. The big dogs at the top are the deciders, and the ones at the bottom are the do'ers.

Saying "I'm fine" when you aren't doesn't usually involve abruptly robbing thousands of people of their livelihoods.

I would like to see him take responsibility for the Google Pay fiasco.

Here you have a perfectly good payments system, but between some combination of FOMO and reverse imperialism (writers like E.F. Schumacher have talked about inappropriate developed world technologies failing in the developing world, here is an example of the opposite) they wrecked it for themselves and their users.

I'd like to see some responsibility taken for this.

A CEO taking responsibility for firing people always reminds me of Gavin Belson's speech: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u48vYSLvKNQ

Did ever a journalist tried to ask how they took responsibility? Had they faced difficulties in their lives or careers or they couldn't concentrate on Succession's finale and had to rewind?

Maybe taking responsibility actually means they did something very positive for the company within the rules of the game and expect a bonus? Are they referring to the events as a mistake they made or are they saying that they were able to grab the talent pool and didn't miss the opportunity?

After all, CEOs and workers have different responsibilities. Hiring and firing for the opportunity and change in conditions is CEOs job and maybe he takes responsibility for properly executing it? Maybe this is the money shot of a CEO reminding the investors that the upside from these actions are solely on him and wants a proper compensation?

It is so funny Gavin also started his speech with "I have a difficult announcement"

The Silicon Valley is an amazing documentary, gets so many things right :)

I want to see the SWOT analysis for this firing decision.

"I take full responsibility for punching you in the nether regions. I hope you have a lovely day."

Taking full responsibility typically implies a negative impact on the person offering this. However, this has yet to be the case in tech layoffs.

I would prefer they were honest. CEOs simply overhired to take maximum financial advantage of COVID, and now they no longer need the people who helped them achieve record profits. However, it doesn't read as well in a corporate PR announcement to claim you milked COVID as much as you could.

>CEOs simply overhired to take maximum financial advantage of COVID

What does this even mean? Are you implying these people would have been better off not being hired?

Presumably at least some of them left a job to join Google. They now have no job, but might still have one had they not moved. It may very well be a tiny proportion of the total, of course.

During Covid, there was an increased demand for certain online services. As a result, companies hired additional permanent staff members to meet the extra demand. Instead, they could have chosen to hire these people on temporary contracts. Hiring staff on a temporary contract would have been more transparent.

In the end, this is a business decision, and it is fair enough. However, claiming responsibility while knowing full well they would make the exact same decision again in the future is a different matter.

I think your view is very simplistic and reductionist on how tech companies work. They are not not factories, they did not over hire to get boots on ground for support. They were hiring and creating brand new things with glee as stock and revenue soared.

Tech companies are "factories" of software products and features. During COVID, there was an increased demand for such products, justifying additional investments in new products or features to remain competitive. This required a wide variety of staff members.

you said they needed more support for existing products.

Layoffs are not about saving money. It's all theatre to appease the powers that be.

"What explains why so many companies are laying large numbers of their workforce off? The answer is simple: copycat behavior."[1]

[1] https://news.stanford.edu/2022/12/05/explains-recent-tech-la...

Thank you, this is a great link.

> "The tech industry layoffs are basically an instance of social contagion, in which companies imitate what others are doing. If you look for reasons for why companies do layoffs, the reason is that everybody else is doing it. Layoffs are the result of imitative behavior and are not particularly evidence-based.

I’ve had people say to me that they know layoffs are harmful to company well-being, let alone the well-being of employees, and don’t accomplish much, but everybody is doing layoffs and their board is asking why they aren’t doing layoffs also."

For most business people I come across, 80% of decisions of behaviour is imitating what other business people do. There is no rigourous fundamentals behind most of it

I think there's also some amount of "Other companies are laying off, and we secretly kind of like the idea of ranking and yanking, even if we don't need layoffs. So we'll use that already socialized economically driven layoff thing as cover."

Yes, exactly. I don't buy this "contagious" notion. It's simply a change in acceptable behavior. Everyone else is doing this objectionable thing, so suddenly it isn't as objectionable, relatively.

It's like looting. If you take any one looter out of the environment, it's unlikely that he would act. But when the crowd of a thousand gets going, well, he doesn't want to be left with nothing while everyone else is gaining. Gotta strike while the iron's hot.

The larger these tech companies get the more they behave like old tech, like IBM. When a company is publicly traded, shareholders are more important than employees. Silicon Valley and startups are too ingrained with the "IPO/acquisition or bust" mentality and post IPO employees want RSU's or stock grants as part of "total comp".

You say you want a revolution? One where the people at the top are accountable? One where pay is more equitable from the bottom line employee up to CEO? Then people should be starting workers cooperatives[0] and not corporations with a goal of an IPO. Employees having democratic control of their own company, its projects, profits, pay scales, maybe voting in the c-suite executives, what countries they'll do business with, etc.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worker_cooperative

This assumes democracy, giving everyone an equal vote, will have a net benefit outcome.

I do not believe this is the case. Companies are closer to an autocracy or tribunal (board of trustees, etc)

With everyone having a vote, either nothing will get done because it will be unorganized and the company will have no coherent vision or direction

Or, there will be an autocracy that inevitably forms, with someone ending up at the top and directing what’s to be voted on, to only give the illusion of power of the people.

Furthermore, if you’ve started a company, I don’t see why the people you’ve hired should take the company away from the original owner. That would be corporate “eminent domain”

It would have disastrous effects of companies high tailing it out of the US, and we’d end up cratering our economy.

A less extreme example of this is raising corporate taxes. The reality is, a company is going to try and reduce their tax liability as much as possible (like every person should do, really)

If the cost of moving a company for a better tax rate outweighs the cost of the move, they’ll do it. So raising corporate taxes will most likely have such an effect, taking jobs out of areas and moving them to a different state or country.

One caveat is if the whole modern world agrees to raise corporate taxes, but then there exists other potential problems

> Furthermore, if you’ve started a company, I don’t see why the people you’ve hired should take the company away from the original owner.

Did you read up on worker cooperatives at all? The concept is it is worker managed at its inception. I used the word democracy to convey that concept simply but it can be structured however the people that form it want it structured. It could be electing people onto committees that determine roadmaps, comp structure, etc. and they rotate out to other roles in the company per some rules the workers set up. It could be rules like total comp for highest paid must never exceed 8x of lowest paid and profits are shared, etc.

The ego centric "I started the company so I say what goes (and I get richest)" pyramid/triangle structure will eventually (if successful) lead to a giant megacorp that does layoffs of 12k people. Or gets bought out by a billionaire that layoffs 75% of staff. People on HN complain about these layoffs but then come in hot about total comp comparisons, RSU's, or complain about these large companies doing business with countries with rap sheets of human rights violations. You can't have it both ways.

What do you define as inception? Is forming the LLC as a solo dev taking contract work inception? Or is it when it hits 100 employees?

Committees and such already exist for companies. It seems like you’re suggesting more of regulation for companies.

Total comp for highest paid exec, that sounds closer to price ceilings which I don’t think the government should enforce (which, with a worker cooperative, the gov needs to step in at some point for enforcement)

This is the core of employee at will. Fight against that instead of changing the entire corporate structure. Other countries don’t have employee at will, and have min severances and such that are enforced. That sounds like it would produce closer to what you’re looking for (since it also incentivizes companies not to hire as wastefully)

I'm not talking about government regulating anything. Or saying all company structures should change, just that there are other options. When the company structure is formed instead of a S-corp/LLC structure there is something called a workers cooperative where the workers/employees have say in the company and its direction. I've only read about it so I'm sure there are legal structures involved for that setup. This isn't discussed in any business schools from what I gather so maybe some examples would help: https://institute.coop/examples-worker-cooperatives

A solo-dev starting contract work is a great example. They are the owner/operator of everything, profits, losses, direction. Say their work expands and they hire 3 other people - do those people have a say in direction/projects/clients and share profits/losses or are they just assigned tasks and paid for them? Think of a workers cooperative as more like a farmers coop where everyone gets a share of the literal fruit/veggies coming from the farm because they all worked it and have equity and they collectively decided what the crops were for that season.

Tech companies with stock options/RSU's for individual contributors are equity without any say in the company direction. If that company ends up laying off people because of bad management decisions (hiring too many, bad economic forecast, random projects, etc), the people hurt are the employees who had no say in the direction and usually the bad managers stay or have golden parachutes. Like I said earlier, I'm just suggesting an alternative structure perhaps one that doesn't answer to shareholders demand for infinite quarterly growth.

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.

A person whose only interest is money is a psychopath.

If a company's only interest is money, it is effectively a psychopath too - a potentially immortal, tremendously powerful psychopath.

We shouldn't say, "Oh, psychopaths are psychopathic, that's just the way it is." We need to fight back.

Companies aren't really people. You wouldn't call a rock falling from a cliff a psychopath, you just don't stand near cliffs.

Except the companies are less like rocks, and more like quasi-sentient AIs that run this planet.

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.

Needing to find a new job in your lucrative industry after a nice golden goodbye from your previous one is not equivalent to a breast ripper.

You treat social constructs as immutable part of the universe like rocks and trees.

If we lived in 1500's you'd replace the word 'company' with 'medieval lord'.

Betraying you medieval lord for a competitor was treason, with equivalent of a breast ripper being employed.

> 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.

In this case, people do control the rock from the inside and can divert the rock, but falling from a cliff saves money.

Your argument is with gravity, not rocks. Either way seems like a waste of energy to me.

> 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.

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.

[0] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzAfich6mow

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.

I’ve no idea what you’re saying

> you just don't stand near cliffs

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

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.

Legal people aren’t people. This just means that rights given to people also apply to organizations and groups of people.

Otherwise the state could say “yes prepend, you have freedom of speech, but the church you belong to can’t say stuff.” Etc etc.

No, corporations are not people, and legalities which apply in very specific circumstances and not relevant.

Do you, as a person, have a CTO by law? Have your value listed on a stock exchange? Can you be sold? Dissolved at the whim of the state?

A corporation is only a person in a very, very narrow set of conditions.

Corporations are granted the right to sue me. That enough for me to expect that they show some level of human decency.

If they behave like psychopaths in a systematic way, I don't think they should be granted that right.

Imagine being the guy saying "No one is owed a job" in the comments of a story announcing 12,000 people are being fired.

Every algorithm is a psychopath. My savings account is a psychopath. My roomba is a psychopath. My dishwashing detergent is a psychopath.

Etc etc.

Don’t anthropomorphize corporations. They aren’t people. They are algorithms to maximize shareholder equity.

They are organisations, that have many selfish interests, including to pay shareholders and do business as usual .

There are arguably bigger downsides to a system where you can’t fire people such as extremely high unemployment for the youth.

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.

Cash Rules Everything Around Me

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.

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 agree they need to stop with the rhetoric... but I am sure we are not going to agree with why or what the end result of that change be

The statement should read "We saw the "day in the life" video, we know you were not doing enough work so now we are reducing head count because clearly you have too much free time"

Do you really think that?

Also, if so, do you really think that reducing force means reducing force were it's appropriate (triming true fat)?

All the companies are doing is to take the opportunity to save cost because everyone does, and because these companies can obviously survive.

They hired to keep in line with trends and now they fire for the same reason.

>>Do you really think that?

Yes, employers are not babysitters, nor charities. There seems to have been a large number of bloat position where people simply mess around all day, an maybe attend a few meetings were they talk about working.... then pass the results of that meeting to another group to actually do work...

This is not a new concept, "middle management" style problems except in this case instead of have 5 people managers for every 1 worker, you end up with 5 "project managers" for ever 1 worker... same result too many people talking about work and not enough people actually doing work

>>Also, if so, do you really think that reducing force means reducing force were it's appropriate (triming true fat)?

Maybe, maybe not. Organizations are often prevented from simply trimming "true fat" due to regulations and other things that means layoffs have to occur in a more broad way. Overtime it will even out but the initial cut will probably not be that precise.

> There seems to have been a large number of bloat position where people simply mess around all day, an maybe attend a few meetings were they talk about working.... then pass the results of that meeting to another group to actually do work...

And you ascertained that from…a video on TikTok?

That was one example in a long line of data points

You could just admit you wanted to make a little joke for internet points

You are not entitled to your multi-six figure job, and no one should feel bad for you if the company decides you are an excess. If you are not creating enough value to justify your presence, the company has every right and frankly society should demand that you be let go, otherwise you are wasting all of our finite resources. Sure, Google should have been a bit more cautious in their hiring during the unsustainable COVID bubble conditions, but at least they are correcting the mistake now.

This sort of attitude is exactly what makes left coast limousine liberal tech workers so insufferable to the rest of the country. Thanks for living up to the stereotype

“If you are not creating enough value to justify your presence, the company has every right and frankly society should demand that you be let go”

That’s not how it works for probably 99% of employees. You do the job management gives to you and have almost no influence on whether you create value or not.

Punished for what? This is all going to plan. Big tech gambled that the pandemic would create huge opportunities and it hasn’t totally panned out. They always planned to lay people off in that situation.

This, punished for what ? In many big US companies, people are chilling as the revenue per employee is very high. Additionally, the low interest rates situation pushed tech valuations higher, and these employees benefited from the situation by getting a higher salary and relaxing job (see videos from Twitter or Meta employees). A lot profited from the scheme and are just sad that paradise is not forever with free wine, massages, sports and buffets at work and that downturns occasionally happens.

Punished for what?

This is about miscalculating business needs and failing to create a culture of work ethic, leading to a situation where people need to be let go.

That is not a crime. It’s just business.

Well, management should be punished for miscalculating business needs and failing to create a culture of work ethic, leading to a situation where people need to be let go.

It's their job to properly manage the business. They did not do their job properly, leading to the current mass firing. Of course it isn't a crime, but it does mean they are doing their job poorly. In virtually every single role that will have repercussions, so why does management get off scot-free?

> Well, management should be punished for miscalculating business needs and failing to create a culture of work ethic, leading to a situation where people need to be let go.

So, management should be punished for giving 12k people jobs in the first place.

This is what happens when you work for a public company.

You're working for shareholders. You're working for MBA's. You're working for data analysts and economists.

Your colleagues aren't these people, but the person who decides whether or not you have a job? That's not your colleagues.

I guess it depends on what they were hired for. If they were on a team for a project that is no longer viable, should they be kept on and given busywork?

If they have cleared out Google's 6-7-8 rounds of interviews.. they can always be trained to move to/start into new projects no?

That requires there to be enough new projects.

The thing that bums me out about all this is that Google used to be a company where so many great products/projects came out of their 20% time. They used to hire "generalists" so they can be of use in wide segments of their company.

Now they are laying people off while still being a profitable company.

Something definitely changed in their company's DNA.

Not necessarily entirely new projects, could be existing efforts that would just be new to those employees. Doubling down and investing in the areas that matter...

Google hired 10.000 people in Q2 2022 alone. Despite claiming to have a hiring freeze, they hired even more people in Q3.

It looks to me like they were hiring people without even considering whether there was work for them after accounting for the upcoming project culling, leading to the current need to fire 12k people. If they did their hiring freeze properly, they could have probably avoided a significant fraction of these firings.

> I need to see these "I take full responsibility" people actually punished.

"These people" don't deserve punishment any more than a developer who had to make a tough decision does. It's the same situation at a different level with more visibility. Management has its own set of challenges.

> that's "only" 6 billion dollars to keep those "great" people that they "love" working

It wouldn't be fair to them to keep them employed if doing so meant weighing down the company, which could eventually cost everyone else their job. Better to have strong companies that continue to adjust to fit people's needs and let workers move among them.

> these antics require revolution

Revolution to what economic system, exactly? I don't want to live in a world where companies are forced to keep workers in unproductive jobs out of a misplaced sense of goodwill. That sinks the ship for everybody.

> Management has its own set of challenges

True, and it comes with its own set of perks, too.

However, the wording of "taking responsibility for the decisions that led us there" seems to imply that Sundar Pichai agrees that _he_ personally made some _bad_ decisions, and that the _logical_ conclusion is to pass the helm ?

Fun fact: in France, a running gag for political jokes is that the sentence "I take full responsibility for xxxx" is almost mechanically expected to be followed by some form of "..., and therefore I resign", because of this spectacular historical precedent [1].

> J'assume pleinement la responsabilité de cet echec, et j'en tire les conclusion, en me retirant de la vie politique.

> I take full responsibility for this failure, and as a consequence, leave political life.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=msObVR8EDYk

These companies are over bloated and it seems he can't write "well most of you aren't doing anything useful so we are using the downturn to fire you" so they BS their way through. Nothing to do with current revenue.

We can criticize but this will never change. A CEO is the face of a company, everything they say publically is basically a PR stunt.

- They won't say the company is falling apart until the insolvency, it's some new strategy or refocus. - They won't say they sold the company for money, it's a new chance to reach out to more people. - They won't say they laid off people to increase profits, it's all for some other reason.

We cannot stop this without some draconian laws, but let's criticize it and increase awareness, so that other people aren't fooled by it.

If Googe doesn't need these people any more who would it benefit to keep them around? Google isn't social security and in any case who wants to work in a job where it doesn't really matter what you do because you're not really needed and just given busywork. It's just not a good way forward.

Getting all angry over a specific phrase which is clearly meant to take any responsibility or implication away from those being let go seems like a pointless wase of energy.

Fed wants to shed some blood and companies now play by the book. That's it.

Due to how the US works, it is the prerogative of the company to let workers go even if they are experiencing utmost prosperity. The CEO using language to take responsibility is an example of professional language. Contrast this to Elon who has the prerogative to let workers go while also shitting on their reputation.

I'm reading these comments and feel the need to speak some truths. Come on everyone, have we not stopped drinking that koolaid yet ? Are we still that naive ?

The ONLY loyalty of a company is to its shareholders. The SOLE PURPOSE of a company is to increase profits for its shareholders. And you know it.

Yes they sit on plenty of money. It's not your money, it's not the employees money, it's the shareholders money. And they want more of it.

All the rest, the products, the messaging, whatever, is all just the means to reach that singular goal, increase profits for shareholders.

The current news cycle warning for recenssions and though times allows large companies to push through this kind of workforce reductions with less pushback than they would get in order times, and it is the perfect way to increase profitability.

Stock is up 2.3% already.

PS: I feel bad for everyone suffering from this. Losing a job is a personal drama for everyone involved.

Let’s have different point of view. Google has probably cost shareholder billions of dollars through over comp, through employee benefits (pampering). Their profits have consistently shrunk. So does google really care about shareholders? Or has it been lucky decade for all tech giants due to low interest rates. This decade will tell.

I agree, it has definitely been a "lucky decade" in more than one way. Now that the cost of money is non-zero, I expect to see changes in multiple regards.

I understand the frustration with the PR corporate speak, but that’s to be expected of one of the largest companies in the world.

Cash on hand isn’t a reason to keep people. They probably recognize there’s unhealthy parts of the organization, and this is a restructuring opportunity. It sucks from the employees side.

employee at will goes two ways, and saying that this is bounds for a “revolution” seems a bit far stretched.

Yeah it’s shit, and sucks for anyone who looses a job regardless of severance. Typically at this scale, it’s not on the individual as to why he/she got fired.

But your rhetoric reminds me of a mid-century revolutionary calling to overthrow the Provisional government.

Let history be a teacher as to the consequences of that.

I’m not a fan of the “eat the rich” slogan because it’s not a good solution.

But I understand the sentiment of wanting to torture and destroy people who are directly responsible for these “we wanted $70B and only got $67B so we’re firing you while smiling and offering hugs” events.

I hope those laid off get new positions so it’s not a life threatening situation.

I think most of us are capable and lucky enough to choose where we work. People who choose to work for Google and other organizations like them need to do so with eyes open. Both as potential victims as well as supporting and bearing responsibility for Google actions.

This is independent for working for an adtech company (or sugar company or bomb company or whatnot).

Revolution is an extreme outcome in reaction to a system of determined abuse.

A "good solution" would probably look like taking better care of people and reducing the polarisation of wealth particularly in a business community that is earning billions in profit.

> "We’ll be offering 6 months of healthcare"

This tells us something of the desperation that workers face.

> "The fact that these changes will impact the lives of Googlers weighs heavily on me, and I take full responsibility for the decisions that led us here."

Hello, I'm your rhetorical assistant Clippy, it looks like you are laying off thousands of people from your profitable, influential business without any good economic reason. Personally, I think the top of your managment pyramid could take a pay cut if you really care.

> I need to see these "I take full responsibility" people actually punished.

Yeah, I think by "responsibility" he means "profit". He takes full profit of the decisions that took them there.

I think the disconnect we feel with these people supposedly taking responsibility is actually that while the impact of these mistakes is real, their degree of control over this outcome was basically zero.

The problem with the statement is not that there is no action to go with the words, it's that actually they are not responsible for this outcome in any meaningful way which in some ways is worse.

Those employees didn't fire themselves, nor was this the decision of their direct managers. The CEOs are absolutely responsible, and doing mass layoffs while a company is growing should be (and is, in much of the world) illegal.

>Sorry, but these antics require revolution.

Maybe it just requires people not buying that rosy corporate lingo BS in the first place.

"I take full responsibility"

Translates to "I accept it's my fault but I am still going to sack you."

Having just gone through this yesterday I can tell you that while some of this has to do with $$$, these layoffs/reductions are also used to quickly recalibrate the team by removing low performers and cultural misfits.

> I need to see these "I take full responsibility" people actually punished.

Sundar Pichai has an estimated net worth of 1.3bln.

There is no lawful way to "punish" a billionaire unless they've done something very illegal.

It is not about the saving from the 6B in salaries. It is about how much the leadership at Alphabet is hoping that the stock will rebound because of this decision in a month.

high salaries are only possible because no one is unionized

what you’re describing is what if employees were all unionized and had more protections

Elon musk set a precedent - you can treat your employees (serfs) like shit and get away with it. Layoffs, perks being removed, the tone has generally shifted to "look we have free coffee" to "we own you, be glad to have a job, oh and you might not actually have a job after all".

This is a change of winds, instead of pandering to engineers companies are trying to debase us and remind us where we are in the totem pole.its not about revenues, its about power.

Oh, please. Elon has nothing to do with this. Workers have had the shaft for centuries. Tech workers have been treated with kid gloves compared to the “real” world.

Tech workers have been treated with kid gloves compared to the “real” world.

Depends on where you live. In many European countries you cannot just fire someone, e.g. you have to show that the company is in a financially difficult situation or a structural decline in revenue. If your revenue growth looks like this:

https://www.statista.com/statistics/267606/quarterly-revenue...

You need other reasons (e.g. wrong behavior). Otherwise, you just find another position in the same company.

>Tech workers have been treated with kid gloves compared to the “real” world.

This is my reaction reading this thread. It's astonishing.

This same crowd is typically anti-union, cheers on coal mine closures (learn to code!), want to throw finance people in jail, wants all car dealerships to disappear..the list goes on and on. They never seem to realize these business consist of normal people, most making salaries significantly lower than SV.

But high paid software engineers lose their jobs and the same people want a revolution? I'm sorry to say, but the tech crowd doesn't have many labour allies in the "real" world anymore.

Careful, I appreciate your sentiment, but it's quite likely the set of people making the anti-Google comments are not the same set of people making the other comments you find distasteful. Or at least, the intersection of those two sets is small.

> Elon musk set a precedent - you can treat your employees (serfs) like shit and get away with it.

Really? That habit is older than Henry Ford.

To some extent I agree with the sentiment.

COVID seemed to create an awareness amongst employees that they could have better living conditions. There was a capitulation on the part of employers (especially in the tech industry).

Now it seems employers are firing a warning shot across the bow, reminding employees where the power truly lies.

Seeing twitter cut in half and continuing to function probably begs questions at other companies about how many folks are “essential”.

The macroeconomic situation is probably a factor but one could make the argument that it’s only creating a window of convenience for a little house cleaning.

> Seeing twitter cut in half and continuing to function

It continues to function as an app, but does it really continue to function as a company?

It lost enormous amount of trust on all sides: advertisers, users, developers. My Twitter feed is way more quiet than it was a few months ago. Advertisers are leaving[0]. Some developers just lost access to API (3rd party clients) with no warning.

They also kill/abandon products - Twitter Spaces (their answer to Clubhouse) looks abandoned, and still doesn't work (or at least is not visible) on the web. Revue (Substack competitor) was killed in December. No idea what happened to communities, but I think they're abandoned as well. From creator's perspective, Twitter is very unreliable.

[0] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/jan/18/twitter-r...

> Elon musk set a precedent

No. This is giving him an absurd amount of credit. Organizations have treated their employees like this for decades (perhaps centuries). I remember the 90s were rife with profitable companies laying off employees to boost profit.

layoffs are herd behavior among tech execs right now. nobody really knows why they have to do it but everyone else is and wall street likes it. it’s irrational, hurts morale, has little impact on the bottom line, it’s just stupid.

Gavin Belson feelings.

Silicon Valley (the TV series) should be re-categorized as documentary.

Should companies keep paying people they don’t need or want ?

No, but they also don't have to bullshit people by saying "I take full responsibility" when the responsiblity is shared between them and the employees that are now sacked. Nobody insists they say this, and it is just bullshit. I think it is fine that google fired them, but just own up.

Instead of:

> The fact that these changes will impact the lives of Googlers weighs heavily on me, and I take full responsibility for the decisions that led us here.

Just say:

> The fact that these changes will impact the lives of Googlers weighs heavily on me, and I admit that decisions I made have led us here.

But even this is probably wrong, because while the CEO is the top executive, he does not make decisions in a vacuum or operate in a vacuum.

To be fair though I think that his statement is fine in some specific sense of the word responsibility, i.e. sense 1.b.2 from https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/responsible

> being the cause or explanation

It is just that in every other sense of the word it is not really accurate.

I'm not sure.

As much as I like and admire the spirit of your comment; the game is capitalism.

Just because you can afford something, surely you would sanction doing it unless there's need?

So basically, if a company has enough in the piggy bank, its main purpose is to become a mass supplier of make-work jobs? Sounds like communism to me.

Neoliberalism is a hell of a drug. Well put.

But it sounds better than "Sorry for terminating your positions but we need to keep our finances in check not to loose share values, and we are accountable for shareholders" (edited from "Sorry for terminating your positions but we need to keep our finances in check not to loose share values, and according to law it is only thing we are force to do")

Which law ?

Public company is accountable to shareholders, in case if share prices will go down shareholders will want to know why, and some activist investor may go to the court complaining that company was able to have better financial results it should not work on some stuff and should fire people.

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