[bdw5204]

The thing is that Alphabet made a $13.62 billion profit in Q4 of last year[0] so these are not "lean times". Their profit was down from $13.91 billion in the previous quarter.

In other words, this is a company that is making at least $50 billion a year in profit yet is pretending to be so poor that layoffs are necessary! Even if Google lost a billion or 2 in a lean year, that's still a drop in the bucket compared to their profits and what an actual leader would do.

[0]: https://9to5google.com/2023/02/02/alphabet-q4-2022-earnings/

[Thorrez]

Revenue is generally highest in Q4 due to Christmas spending.[1] So comparing 2022 Q4 to 2022 Q3 isn't really fair. If you compare it to 2021 Q4, it's much worse. Operating income declined from $20.6B in 2021 Q4 to $13.6B in 2022 Q4.[2] Disclosure: I work at Google but don't have any insight into company finances.

[1] https://ycharts.com/companies/GOOG/revenues

[2] https://abc.xyz/investor/static/pdf/2022Q4_alphabet_earnings...

[newswasboring]

Dude, it's still 13.91 Billion in income. Unless they are projecting losses I don't see where the need for layoffs is. It's smells like investor greed. I don't think they hired 12000 people in the last year, so justifying layoffs due to a loss of profit is plain and simple greed.

[Thorrez]

From the same report, Google had 156,500 employees on 2021-12-31 and 190,234 employees on 2022-12-31. That's a growth of 33,734. Amount hired would be even higher than that due to people who left during that period.

[newswasboring]

I see your point, and acknowledge my oversight, but I still stand by what I wrote. One downward trajectory point in profits should not prompt a mass layoff. People uproot their lives to come work somewhere. It's not just about money, but I guess nobody wants to admit that companies are made up of humans.

[ugh123]

Yep! Sundar was strong-armed by investors, plain and simple.