[OC] How Google makes money (its 2022 income statement visualized as a Sankey diagram)andrewrgross t1_j7eug5j wrote
Reply to comment by fewtradesjack in [OC] How Google makes money (its 2022 income statement visualized as a Sankey diagram) by IncomeStatementGuy
The main thing I take away is that company-wide layoffs don't seem to be motivated by necessity. It's not like some giant unforeseen event just toppled their primary business model. If a correction was needed, it should be enough to reduce hiring in relevant divisions, or trim 1 or 2 % of those relevant divisions. Slicing off 6% of the entire company because you had a 5% decline in operating profit even with roughly a year's worth of gross profit in reserve is just ruthless and greedy as fuck.
Noodles_Crusher t1_j7f5z7k wrote
>The main thing I take away is that company-wide layoffs don't seem to be motivated by necessity.
-21% Net profit yoy.
Also, Alphabet's number of employees through the years:
2021 was 156,500, a 15.67% increase from 2020
2020 was 135,301, a 13.79% increase from 2019
2019 was 118,899, a 20.38% increase from 2018
2018 was 98,771, a 23.29% increase from 2017
https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/GOOG/alphabet/number-of-employees
don't get me wrong, layoffs suck, but even after cutting 12k people they're still way above last year's initial headcount.
dinosaur-in_leather t1_j7fa8s9 wrote
Pandemic hires seem to have displayed old and paternity talent in Google...
Noodles_Crusher t1_j7fds5z wrote
I don't have any insight into that, we're just discussing headcount at this point.
dinosaur-in_leather t1_j823gl7 wrote
Does a head count include the individuals who are expecting parents??? Does it include the individuals who just had kids and got fired??? It's a massive number of illegal firings Google came out and said that they miscalculated severances most likely trying to stay within the legal limits of firing paternity workers. Google do evil
andrewrgross t1_j7hi4sy wrote
The issue I have is that these companies have clearly internalized a belief that layoffs are a tool with no downside and embrace them casually as a part of deliberate, planned strategies.
They didn't need to hire that aggressively. And if any pressure against layoffs existed, they almost certainly wouldn't have.
Layoffs are a part of the trend towards "blitzscaling", which I think is irresponsible in startups, but unconscionable in established firms.
Look at those numbers! They grew their staff 23% in 2018? And then 20, and then 13, and then 15... The company is 24 years old! There is no reason for them to be trying to double in four years! Especially not in the midst of a global upheaval.
My point is that the hiring managers were paying people to relocate in 2022 when they knew that many of those people were likely going to be out of a job within months. We need to stop normalizing this kind of labor economy. Think of the kids who have to move to new schools only to suddenly have an out of work parent while they're trying to reorient themselves. We build the economy. There's no reason to make it so heartless.
Noodles_Crusher t1_j7hujmj wrote
>There is no reason for them to be trying to double in four years! Especially not in the midst of a global upheaval.
>
>they knew that many of those people were likely going to be out of a job within months.
that's a lot of assumptions based on nothing but opinions, unless you're saying that you've got a clear idea of what the people that were hired were doing in the company.
I get it, layoffs bad - and yet, more people (not less) do have jobs thanks for those hiring sprees.
I see it as a net positive, you do you.
vyratus t1_j7fugy7 wrote
Have a few friends at Google, and was recently chatting to a head of EU for a midsize tech company. Consensus is that FAANG type companies are using the market as an excuse to get rid of dead weight, I assume because if they did it when nobody else was it would attract a lot more bad press
andrewrgross t1_j7hgfjd wrote
I think you're right that they're acting as a herd to reduce negative exposure, but I don't think they're removing dead weight. I think they're shedding weight, regardless of whether it's dead or not. From what I've read, the goal clearly prioritized reducing the size of the company over specifically removing low performing individuals or projects.
Nonbottrumpaccount t1_j7gajjs wrote
So its greedy for a company to fire labor they determine don't need?
It isn't like Google has some obligation to spend a certain ratio of its revenue/profit on labor. The fact that this ratio changes just means that they are getting more or less productive as a company.
andrewrgross t1_j7hg1kk wrote
>So its greedy for a company to fire labor they determine don't need?
First, I don't think you mean "need".
Most profitable companies don't need most labor. They gain value from it, but that's different than needing it. I think what you mean to ask is, 'Is it greedy for them to terminate workers if they conclude it's a good financial decision?'
And the answer is that it's subjective. I think it's absolutely a demonstration of greed, but I try to work in objective measures.
I think objectively, the costs of this action are very, very high, unless you strip worker well-being and the well-being of our society at large entirely from the cost assessment equation.
Nonbottrumpaccount t1_j7iqey0 wrote
In what way was your assessment of this situation objective? You didn't offer a single piece of objective evidence that Google (or alphabet) doesn't care about the wellbeing of our society or its workers.
Objectively speaking they employ 10,000s of workers and compensate them extremely well relative to the average worker. They generate billions of dollars for investors, offer products that nearly the entire world uses and benefits from, have an incredible "green" record, and have donated billions to charity over the last 20 years.
On top of this, as others have pointed out in this thread, they hired a lot of people over the last two years and this workforce reduction, or whatever corporate buzzword they use, is taking them back to historic levels of employment.
Of course these companies are "greedy", they only exist if they make money. But relatively speaking, Google and pretty much all other fortune 50 companies, are probably the most generous to their employees and society.
andrewrgross t1_j7j2cc2 wrote
As I said, I think our takes will differ based on what our metrics are.
My metrics include how much agency and stability do their employees feel they have? And how much stability does the larger industry workforce feel they have? How much of employees value addition goes to them versus investors? Does their user base have high trust and use their products enthusiastically? Reluctantly?
But that's the subjectivity. If you look at big tech and judge their success by, "do they make investors money?" then you will likely score a company highly that I think has a lot of room for improvement.
Living-Walrus-2215 t1_j7feojc wrote
>The main thing I take away is that company-wide layoffs don't seem to be motivated by necessity.
You're welcome to hire them on yourself if you believe that to be the case. I'm sure Google would be happy to allow them to keep working if you're the one paying for them.
gibl3t t1_j7hi4c2 wrote
weird take but ok
Living-Walrus-2215 t1_j7hk0fj wrote
Seems like a perfectly reasonable take.. If you want to give jobs to people, you should be the one to pay them.
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