see, that's just untrue. you could see the company turning all sorts of knobs to increase revenue over the last ten years - cutting down on perks, cutting down on food quality, increasing ad density, making promo harder, etc, etc - this was all happening and it was all happening at a high enough rate to let Ruth announce records almost every quarter. it was a finely oiled machine. and people grumbled, but quietly - it was fine!
doing mass layoffs absolutely changed the game - it showed that Pichai would be pushed around by random "researchers" publishing revenue guesses, it showed that the company would provide dire consequences for employees who were on projects that didn't pan out or were bad ideas, etc. the cost for all that is now everyone is correctly more nervous and pissed off!
> I can't think of another company where a greater share of its employees actively despised the industry that paid for them all to be there.
this is absolutely true, but as you say, it was fine - people still ran the ads machine and processed the firehose of cash, and a thousand other machines besides.