[rkomorn]

The "I take full responsibility" thing has been entirely meaningless.

I guess it's supposed to convey that it's not the laid-off folks' fault, and that it was "his decision", but as you said: "taking full responsibility" without any real impact to his life? I may as well take full responsibility for the layoffs. It'd mean just as much.

[tombert]

Yeah, that's the thing; if he's acknowledging that it was his decision to do this, then maybe he shouldn't be getting bonuses and maybe be fired? Why are the regular schmucks the ones being punished for his terrible decisions and not him?

[tasuki]

Maybe it was the right decision at the time to lay them off? I think that's why he got the bonus, actually! I'm sure the layoff was difficult for him as well: he certainly lost a lot of goodwill with his workforce and I'm sure the internal politics were tricky for anyone involved.

No one is getting "punished" - there was no promise of ten years of employment from Google. Like when an employee leaves, you wouldn't say they're "punishing" the employer.

[tombert]

> Maybe it was the right decision at the time to lay them off?

It probably was the right decision to lay everyone off. What was not the right decision, and this should have been obvious, was hiring 10+k more employees than you actually need because you assume that this free money will last forever. He was almost certainly aware and signed off on this mass hiring. Other companies didn't make this mistake; Tim Cook didn't take a bonus that year to avoid mass layoffs.

> he certainly lost a lot of goodwill with his workforce and I'm sure the internal politics were tricky for anyone involved.

He probably did, because he's a bad CEO. He was right to lose goodwill.

> No one is getting "punished" - there was no promise of ten years of employment from Google.

No, there isn't a legal promise or anything, but people go to these BigCos primarily for stability. If you want an exciting job with lots of interesting new things, it's much easier to find that in a startup, but startups can be frustrating because they're inherently unstable. This is partly why startups tend to be made up of very young people; it's much easier to deal with volatility if you don't have a family.

You're obviously not "entitled" to a job, but the people who run Google aren't complete idiots; they know people are joining BigCo because they think it's going to be relatively stable. They depended on that in order to do all this overhiring.

[tasuki]

> they know people are joining BigCo because they think it's going to be relatively stable

And after all this, people will think twice whether BigCo is stable. Just as well! If you want stability, look into small family-run companies.

[tombert]

This doesn’t absolve Google at all. They aren’t morons, they know that people joined because of that perceived stability.

[tasuki]

Well I hope people won't perceive this (nonexistent) stability in the future.

I'm not trying to "absolve" Google, nor do I think they're guilty. They used their reputation to hire people. It turns out that needs to be updated. Perhaps in the future they will do things to improve their reputation again? Who knows...