I would truly like to understand this, but I haven't heard an explanation of why the actions make sense for the organization as a whole.
It makes me worried about investing in GOOG.
But I'm asking for an explanation of why it would be reasonable for the organization as a whole and for its shareholders (the ones who understand what's going on).
Basically every company I've worked at can be roughly divided into the finance side and the business side, and IME all the important shots are called by the finance people. The business side has to justify itself in terms the finance people set, not the other way around. As for how it makes financial sense, I can't speak to that, but things do tend to work out the way the CFO predicts. That's hardly surprising, because the other finance people working on Wall St. are looking at the same spreadsheets and following the same economic theory.
By the way, I don't think this is a good way to run companies. But it's the way I think almost all of them are run.
If you have a lot of money, you have their ear..
Second, there isnt a single budget for hiring that interviews everyone and ships them out everywhere. certain groups/products can be growing within google while others are shrinking. should the chrome team not be allowed to grow because google+ was in the trash can?
third, not every employee is exchangeable, you cant just shuffle everyone around the company. You cant just take someone from the google maps team and have them start working on nexus phones.
all of these things are fairly obvious if you thought about it for more than 30 seconds, so its somewhat concerning you find this topic so perplexing.
True, but even so, you can train the employee for the new role. You need to do the same anyway for a new, external candidate (and it's even worse because they will need to familiarise themselves with internal tools and processes that the Maps employee would already be familiar with).
Google has been hiring people into the same roles and teams where they have laid people off.
> all of these things are fairly obvious if you thought about it for more than 30 seconds, so its somewhat concerning you find this topic so perplexing.
Wow, you are rude.