[bitsavers]

"Sir Christopher Hohn A British hedge fund manager knighted by the late Queen Elizabeth II says that Google and its parent company, headquartered in the Bay Area, should lay off more people after axing more than 12,000 people."

Title should read: "Upper class hedge fund manager thinks engineers make too much money, wants it for himself".

[Veen]

He was brought-up working class. His father's a Jamaican-born mechanic who moved to the UK in the 60s. He wasn't born with a silver spoon in his mouth. The class-war stuff probably isn't helpful.

[jszymborski]

He is currently upper class by virtue of his net worth and literal title as a knight.

[Veen]

A bit off topic, but a knighthood doesn't make you upper-class. In England, the real upper-classes are landed nobles with hereditary titles (who will look down on any parvenu with a knighthood and a few billion).

[4k3aa4]

Also most of the upper class don't have much money left, those houses cost a fortune to maintain.

[rpearl]

Then I guess he should stop engaging in class war, shouldn't he

[4k3aa4]

Let's be honest, a big part of the goal of the fed action and these layoffs is to even the playing field between labor and capital. Silicon Valley type engineers especially were getting dangerously close to escaping precarity (and did in a lot of cases). Now the FAANG club gets to the join the rest of the precariat in the "I'm constantly worried about losing my job, probably shouldn't be too ballsy with my vacation or ask for more money" world. Obviously the $ values are higher than a lineworker at Ford, but lets be honest if you are a mid level dev with a family in silicon valley your standard of living is the same or below that line worker in the 70s.

[notacoward]

> even the playing field between labor and capital

No, the goal was to keep it tilted in capital's favor. Which group wields greater decision-making power? Which type of income is more lightly taxed? Capital vehicles (corporations) have almost all of the rights and practically none of the responsibilities - or vulnerabilities such as mortality or geographic limitation - of human laborers. Yes, the playing field needs to be leveled ... the other way.

[Veen]

I wouldn't count among the downtrodden proletariat the extremely well-paid Silicon Valley engineers who sell themselves to rapacious advertising companies. This is one elite individual saying something other elite individuals don't like.

[hellisothers]

This is elite class war, it’s turning the low income against the high income to the benefit of the wealthy and elite. Software engineers are no doubt better off than the vast majority of people, top 3% easily when looking at income but most of them are still “wage slaves” and their luck can turn. Pitting us all against each other is the goal.

[4k3aa4]

The goal is to make silicon valley engineers part of the downtrodden proletariat. Lots of jobs used to be high paying until they weren't.

[mitt_romney_12]

Someone making $1m a year would need to work 7,400 years in order to be worth as much as this dude. Silicon Valley engineers are certainly well off but they are in nowhere near the same class as the kinds of people who are worth $7.48B.

[ninethirty]

The battle between capital and the labor is class warfare.

[Veen]

Maybe so, but traditional left-wing thinking would put Silicon Valley engineers firmly in the bourgeoisie—a group that pretends to have interests in common with the proletariat, but doesn't really. If it is class war, you guys really aren't on the same side as your nannies, cleaners, gardeners, dog-walkers, and people serving food in your free cafeterias. Their interests are very different, even if it pleases you to think defending your elite benefits somehow helps them too.

It seems lots of people commenting here want Google to be a sinecure program for superfluous engineers. They're ardently pro-capitalist when it comes to startups and VC money and fleecing the proles with predatory advertising. But curiously left-wing and we're-all-in-this-together when their privileges are threatened.

[ninethirty]

They might have a lot more in common with the gardeners and carpenters if these hedge funds have their way. Capital is much better at capturing wealth than laborers and that's the core structural issue.

[drcongo]

Do we know that the people laid off by Google, or advocated for layoffs by this billionaire, don't include the cleaners, gardeners and people serving food in the free canteen?

I think painting this as a "capitalists vs the left" thing is reductive and unhelpful. Personally, speaking as someone who Americans would probably consider extreme-left, I very much agree with your second paragraph, but I don't see this as "capitalism vs the left", I see it as the elite rich abusing their position to the detriment of everyone else. A story as old as time.

[quantified]

He obviously should pay himself less so there is more money for the real value-generators. Owning Google stock doesn't help them do anything, but coding, testing, operating, marketing certainly does.

[he_is_legend]

Man who "paid himself nearly $2 million a day in 2022" says google pay their staff too much ...

[Arnt]

I read the article and don't see where he says that. I do see that he thinks Google has too many staff, but not that the payment level is too high.

And frankly, if the son of a mechanic can get to the point of earning $2m/day, that's an indication that he has some amount of clue.

[quantified]

> “management should also take the opportunity to address excessive employee compensation.”

He has a clue how he should be paid more, yes.

Google is worth as much as it is because it can afford the best engineers. If it can't, they'll go elsewhere and it won't be worth that much. Obviously they should all be replaced with offshore contractors.

[macjohnmcc]

I saw a quote from him a few weeks ago where he did say they were overpaid.

[voisin]

> wants it for himself

“wants it for his investors”

His job is to advocate on behalf of his investors to get the best return he can. For this service he is well paid. We need to stop demonizing people for doing their job, successfully. Just because he is rich doesn’t mean his argument is wrong.

[pixl97]

>We need to stop demonizing people for doing their job

W.T.F.

I mean I hate to bring up the analogy, but at the Nuremberg Trials we hung people for 'just doing their job' because just following orders can lead to millions dead and other completely and totally terrible outcomes for humanity.

[hindsightbias]

This is the first time I’ve heard Google layoffs equated to the Holocaust.

[quantified]

Not equated, just noting the that the "doing my job" argument is the same. If it isn't, do elaborate. Yes the jobs are different, as are all jobs from each other.

[Kwpolska]

They aren't referring to Google layoffs, the evil people are the hedge fund managers.

[AlexandrB]

Just because he's advocating on behalf of investors doesn't mean his argument is right either. I think the better question is wtf does a hedge fund manager know about running a tech company and why should we give any credence to his ideas about staffing?

[voisin]

I'm not saying he's right or wrong. I'm saying he isn't wrong just because he's rich, or just because he's a hedge fund manager. Both are ad hominem attacks and ignore the actual arguments that Google needs to trim down.

[cmh89]

What's the 'actual argument' here? He's essentially saying that he'd make more money if Google had less costs, and one way to cut costs is firing people. That's it.

He doesn't go into any detail outside of "fire people and pay the ones you don't fire less"

He's just a parasite on society who wants to suck more blood.

[candiodari]

Not to worry. HIS job is increased shareholder value. Google was 92 USD when the layoffs were announced. Currently it's 93 dollars.

Surely if it drops back below 92 he'll change his mind ...

[voisin]

The argument has been made recently by this guy and others that Google grew its ranks second only to Facebook during the pandemic, that it’s performance per employee today hasn’t justified the growth, and that it should stop putting money to inefficient uses given that suddenly there is an opportunity cost to capital with the ending of ZIRP worldwide.

Seems reasonable to me. We learned how inefficient conglomerates are back in the 60s/70s.

[cmh89]

But that's the extent of the argument, and if you take away all the unsupported claims, it boils down to, "Google has more employees than it did, those employees cost a lot, Google should fire employees to lower its cost"

[quantified]

Do they? How much money did they lose this past quarter?

[voisin]

Well isn’t it obvious that if they make the same amount after the layoffs as before, then they lost in the last quarter whatever they paid employees who weren’t adding to the bottom line?

[quantified]

Obvious but wrong. Only salespeople and M&A dealmakers add to the bottom line. All engineers and marketers are cost centers. One acquistion can add billions to revenue. Taking a charge for impairment of good will after a Waymo vehicle kills a busload of Girl Scouts would have nothing to do with that many employees. Earnings changes due to currency fluctuations also have nothing to do with employment. Oh yeah, customers using more or less of paid services doesn't reflect at all on employees either.

[nequo]

> We need to stop demonizing people for doing their job, successfully.

Even when their job is to actively hurt you, your family, and those around you?

[tshaddox]

Other people:

> I don’t like this guy’s job.

You:

> But it’s his job.

Right, they already said that part. They still don’t like his job.

[voisin]

Not exactly.

Other people:

> This guy is wrong because of his job and the fact that he's apparently good enough at it that he's become rich.

Me:

> Neither of these facts has anything to do with his argument. He's neither right nor wrong based on his job or his success at his job.

[pseudo0]

His investors would also be better off investing their money through a fund that doesn't charge 2 and 20 to hold Google stock. Maybe his investors should redirect their focus when it comes to cost-cutting?

[voisin]

Why don’t we assume his investors make decisions in their own self interest and that you probably aren’t the right arbiter of what they’d be better off doing?

[absolutelymild]

You’re right. To be a success capitalist, you need to be maximally greedy at all times. If you’re not greedy enough, someone else will just come and replace you

[mellosouls]

According to his wiki bio he comes from humble origins so the upper class barb isn't that helpful.