In a letter to Google employees last Friday, Google/Alphabet CEO Sudar Pichai sent a solemn and difficult message to the Google team that 12,000 Google employees will soon be released from their jobs. I told everyone. The news follows massive job cuts from Microsoft (10,000), Amazon (18,000) and Meta (11,000), as the economic downturn and inflation continue to make things very difficult across the big tech companies. I’m here.
I have hard news to share. We have decided to reduce our workforce by about 12,000. We have already sent another email to affected US employees. In other countries, this process will take longer due to local laws and practices.
This means we are saying goodbye to the incredibly talented people we have worked so hard to employ and love working with. The fact that these changes affect the lives of Googlers weighs heavily on me. I take full responsibility for the decisions that have brought us here.
Over the past two years, we have seen a period of dramatic growth. To keep pace with that growth, we have adapted for economic realities that differ from those we are currently facing.
We believe there is a great opportunity ahead of us because of the strength of our mission, the value of our products and services, and our early investments in AI. To fully capture it, you have to make a difficult choice. That’s why we undertook a rigorous review across product areas and functions to ensure that our people and roles are aligned with our top corporate priorities. The roles you remove reflect the results of that review. Across alphabets, product areas, features, levels and geographies.
Retiring Googlers: Thank you for all you do to help people and businesses around the world. Your contributions are invaluable and we appreciate them.
This transition won’t be easy, but it will support employees looking for their next opportunity.
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It’s unclear if this decision was influenced by the sudden rise of OpenAI’s ChatGPT, which has been talked about in recent months. I doubt it isn’t in the conversation. Google has invested heavily in AI, but OpenAI’s impressive ChapGPT partnership with Microsoft to bring the service to search and existing office software weighs heavily on the minds of Google executives. It seems to be leaning against it. Although not a threat in the short term, AI for search is a major threat to Google’s core business model, and staying ahead of the technology is paramount to our survival as a company.
Google’s earnings report last fall showed revenues rising but profits shrinking, and in an economy currently plagued by inflation and a looming recession, it has something to give. not. Unfortunately, this means more focus on our core product, and we’re laying off many employees who have been with Google for too long.
Of course, this comes with a lot of backlash on social media. It’s a reminder of the very difficult balance that exists in these everyday products that are essential for both work and education. It’s important to stay focused on the main idea, but that can mean that these big companies have to make some very difficult decisions to make it happen.
I mourn those who lost their careers not just at Google, but at Amazon, Meta, and Microsoft. It’s tempting to think of tech giants as unstoppable, too-too-big-to-fail giants, but in times like these, that’s never the case, and beneath the company’s bright brilliance is the actual work. At this stage in history, many of them are now looking for other jobs.As a fan of technology and the progress it makes, this kind of story hurts.
