[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.