It feels like the board has said, “We don’t care about the company or it’s future, just the price of our stock.”
Instead the stock market and its adherents will be (are now?) our overlord.
Something akin to venture capital, where it makes many, many tries most of which fail and the occasional success moves the field forward.
Presumably investors want more reliable returns from mature companies.
Page and Brin collectively own 51.2% of Google's voting power. They seem to be happy with the company direction and its leadership.
While they do not run day to day operations, both are on the board https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35810965
(And even if they were running it, it’s no guarantee that it would stick to any respectable values… just “more likely”… but in their case… still very unlikely.)
With their voting shares, what stakeholders, maybe besides the government, could really exert leverage over them?
Berkshire Hathaway invests in public companies exactly not like you describe, generally seeking companies whose priorities are evident in dividends not share price.
Yeah board doesn't care, founders don't care, investors don't care, CEO doesn't care. Who cares then? Google employees because they are taking the biggest risk by being employed there.
Google needs to be innovative, build new products and invest in them.
But they basically have a massive money hose and that isn't going to make their products better. It's going to bloat projects, bog them down in too many people with too many ideas, delay the need to find product market fit and remove any financial constraints in the development process. It's very hard to run lean when you've got all that cash. Take a look at what went on at Meta. They took the money they could've returned to investors and lit it on fire. They've got a mediocre product, no product market fit, and now they're pivoting.
You're more likely to see a team of 5-6 people somewhere within Google come up with a great idea and get it to market than you are going to see a team of 500-600 people. And even if the 500-600 person team does ship, the economics mean that they need to have one of the most successful product launches in history for it to be economically viable.
What has Google really built? Seems to me they try, fail ,and then buy something when their attempts fail (when something is available to buy). Nest? Android? Google is not innovative and they never really were, nor are they actually capable of building any viable new products.
a second laugh when I went to the "migration options" link and it says
"We recommend that you find another way to meet your printing needs."
never change, google
> Google needs to be innovative, build new products and invest in them.
and then
> Take a look at what went on at Meta. They took the money they could've returned to investors and lit it on fire.
You're criticizing Zuck for doing exactly what you said Google should do. Granted the price tag was huge, but you can't innovate without building and testing something first.
Well since the board is hired to represent the stockholders...
Of course courts have also upheld the duty to increase stock value too, but still…
All of the ruminating over short term thinking is also nonsensical. A company that has no future has very little value. Perhaps the share holders, or the board, or their CEO have a long-term vision that you disagree with. But this isn’t anything close to an objective fact, it’s just your own self-aggrandising opinion that if you were running the 4th largest company in the world, that you’d be doing a better job.
Again, why is tech (in this day and age) expected to be different than big tobacco or big pharma? It's about money at the end of the day. Period.
I'm not saying the ceo is right for what he did. I like the previous ceo who kept products alive even when they did not make money. But like IBM, companies do grow up and start acting like adults. This is one of those times.
Poor Sundar. That’s quite some mental gymnastics here.
It's possible that Google becomes a significantly more profitable company as a result of this, but it seems equally plausible that in three months they'll go on another hiring binge. That's what weak leadership like Sundar's gets you: no vision and no consistency.
According to his own words - if he is taking "full responsibility" for layoff conditions, he should be fined or docked his pay right ? Or just resign ?
It's his problem. He will take the consequences. And it's not for everyone to be aware of.
We need to stop acting like schoolchildren where everyone is eager to know how the bad kid gets punished.
I don't buy into your hero worship. Sundar took a crazily profitable company with tens of billions in raw cash and did a messy disorganized layoff where, unlike Alphabet's biggest competitors such as MS, Meta, and even freaking Amazon, Googlers woke up to no access, no chance to transition or hand off, and no chance to say goodbye. It was a disgrace and not something worthy of praise or pay increase.
But I despite hate more. And there is nothing that says hjs penalty needs to be open. Large organizations like democratic govts need openness. Dictatorships need secrecy. And companies are in a category between the two.
Lol at your hate statement and that he received any penalty. His annual salary massively jumped up to $242 million as Google fired tens of thousands of employees, many with no notice. He has now >800 times the median employee's pay. Anyone would love to take those penalties. You might want to take a small step back and objectively evaluate your shining bias.
Unfortunately ceo salaries are not based on how happy the employees are. Or how justly they have dealt with them. They are just indicators on how happy investors are.