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On the occasion of the company’s stock exchange listing in 2004 the founders of Google Larry Page and Sergey Brin attended a series of meetings in different American cities, which took a comically passive-aggressive turn. They shelved suits in favor of casual attire, refused to answer many questions from finance bigwigs, and warned investors that instead of focusing on profits, the new company could use its own resources.”to improve a number of the world’s problemsThe founders feared the restrictions placed on a public company and vowed that Google would never pander to Wall Street. To do so, Page and Brin structured the company to control a majority of voting stock. Instead of giving back money to shareholders, Google pampered the talent behind its innovations, offering to staff perks like massages, free food, and lavish compensation. In late 2010, for example, Page and Brin the employees were shocked announcing a general salary increase of 10 percent, the doubling of the already substantial annual bonus and a thousand-dollar Christmas present. The beneficiaries already had top-of-the-market salaries, plus lucrative equity shares. The generosity of the founders, however, was proof that the two were sincere when they pointed out that Google employees were the heart of the company.
layoffs and cuts
While Brin and Page have had little involvement in Google’s business for years, the tendency to challenge convention has remained strong throughout the company’s 25-year history. At least until this month, when Google’s parent company, Alphabet, has fired 12 thousand employeesabout 6 percent of its workforce, including many senior executives and some of the people hired when the company was in its infancy. For a company famous for pampering its workers, the layoffs accounted for a real shock. Mainly because some of the people concerned have been coldly dismissedfinding access to corporate email blocked before even being able to say goodbye to colleagues.
Alphabet isn’t the only company to have laid off many of its employees lately. THE tops of A half, Microsoft, AmazonSalesforce and others are doing the same thing: They try to patch up what they suddenly perceive as too many employees by cutting staff. The message released by the giant’s current CEO, Sundar Pichai, was similar to other corporate communications seen during this period; the impression is that the technology companies that have decided to reduce the number of employees have drafted them by providing an identical delivery to ChatGpt: “Sadly at a time when we were making tons of money during the pandemic I have been too optimistic on the hiring front so now some of you will have to leave. But this is just a setback in our journey. I can’t wait to see what the future of this club has in store, but some of you won’t be able to be a part of!”.
What’s happening at Alphabet though is different. With the exception of a few hundred sales people in 2009, the company had never resorted to mass layoffs. To this must be added the signs that indicate that the era of unlimited benefits is over (among the people left at home there are also 27 masseurs). Not that the company is in financial jeopardy: despite slowing growth and falling stocks — which has recently engulfed any tech company — In fact, Alphabet continues to collect a lot. In the’last quarterthe company made $14 billion in profits and has 116 billion dollars at checkout; in recent years, then, has spent over 100 billion dollars to buy back its shares, an operation that Wall Street really likes but which is of no use to the company.
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