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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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?
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.
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...
But at Google's scale (and profits..) it was a little weird to see(/not see?) no efforts of reorganization before all those layoffs.
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.
Otherwise the state could say “yes prepend, you have freedom of speech, but the church you belong to can’t say stuff.” Etc etc.
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.
If they behave like psychopaths in a systematic way, I don't think they should be granted that right.
Etc etc.
Don’t anthropomorphize corporations. They aren’t people. They are algorithms to maximize shareholder equity.