[throwaway94a9e3]

Lord no. My thinking was "I wonder what high-priority project required the talent that was working on Hire that they had to reorg the teams to it and kill the product."

I don't think Google has ever had any layoffs. (The use of contractors allows many companies to downsize without actual layoffs, but I don't think even that strategy has really been the case during Google's history so far, which has been growth heavy and cash rich for the most part.)