Prarthana Prakash
Mon, January 23, 2023
Many Google employees were having a normal day on Jan. 20 before their lives were turned upside-down. Some workers had gotten their jobs at the tech giant after years of dreaming about it, and others had been there for over a decade.
Then suddenly that morning Google’s parent, Alphabet, announced that it was cutting 12,000 jobs. In doing so, it joined a long list of tech companies that have eliminated scores of employees in recent months.
An outpouring followed on social media, including the professional networking service LinkedIn. Employees wrote about feeling a mix of gratitude, anger, and uncertainty for what’s next.
Justin Moore had worked at Google for more than 16 years, according to his LinkedIn profile, before he was laid off last Friday. He wrote in a post that being among those who had lost their jobs showed that companies viewed employees as “100% disposable.” He also said he had not received any further information beyond the email stating his role as an engineering manager was impacted by the layoff.
Another employee, Blair Bolick, a recruiter for the business intern program at Google, wrote about the impersonal manner in which the news of layoffs was communicated.
“I can’t feel gratitude in this moment for a company that I gave so much of myself to, but felt it appropriate to part ways by locking me (and 12,000 of my colleagues) out of my corporate account at 4am,” she wrote in a LinkedIn post.
“I’m devastated. I’m sad, angry,” said Bolick, who had been at the company for over four years.
When employees lost access to their company communication channels, it was harder for them to bid farewell to colleagues.
A Google product manager, Manas Minglani, who was impacted by the layoffs wrote that he couldn’t say his goodbyes. His access to work devices had been revoked the morning of the layoffs.
In a TikTok video, Nicole Tsai, who was a program manager at Google, said that the layoffs were “random” and that employees were “blindsided,” as the decision of who stayed or was laid off didn’t appear to be performance-based.
To be sure, layoffs are never easy for employees or the companies that implement them.
Google’s most recent quarterly earnings, announced in October, missed analyst expectations. Afterward, the company’s leadership said it would slash expenses and slow its hiring in the subsequent quarter.
In the email sent to employees early Friday, Google CEO Sundar Pichai wrote that he takes “full responsibility for the decisions that led us here.”
“These are important moments to sharpen our focus, reengineer our cost base, and direct our talent and capital to our highest priorities,” he wrote.
Google did not immediately respond to Fortune’s request for comment.
A Google engineer of 8 years says his 'spidey-senses' detected incoming layoffs — and felt 'isolated' when his 'faceless' severance email arrived
Story by kduffy@insider.com Kate Duffy
Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai announced mass layoffs at Google on Friday. AP© AP
A laid-off Google engineer said his "spidey-senses" detected incoming job cuts at the company.
Zac Bowling told Insider he'd been laid off before and was familiar with the build-up.
He said Google's severance email was "cold," "faceless," and made him feel "isolated."
A laid-off Google engineer said his "spidey-senses" detected incoming job cuts at the company — and the "cold" severance email that followed left him feeling "isolated."
Zac Bowling, who worked at Google for almost eight years, told Insider he suspected layoffs were around the corner because of various changes at the tech giant in recent months and years. He said he's been laid off twice before from other companies and was familiar with the build-up.
According to Bowling, Google had put in place travel restrictions for some employees, cut certain budgets, and implemented a temporary hiring freeze. He said "fun budgets" — money allocated annually for team-building — had been slashed. Over the eight years he worked at Google, Bowling said the perks became "less interesting."
A wave of layoffs that hit dozens of US companies toward the end of 2022 shows no sign of slowing down into 2023.
Google is the latest tech giant to slash thousands of workers. In a memo sent to staffers on Friday, the company announced it will layoff an estimated 12,000 employees, or 6% of its global workforce. Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google parent company Alphabet, wrote in the memo the reductions come after a "rigorous review" of the business and will "cut across Alphabet, product areas, functions, levels and regions."
"Over the past two years we've seen periods of dramatic growth," Pichai said. "To match and fuel that growth, we hired for a different economic reality than the one we face today."
However, Google is not the first major corporation to make significant cuts in the new year: Fellow tech companies, including Amazon and Salesforce, and finance behemoths, like Goldman Sachs, announced massive layoffs in the first weeks of 2023 amid a continued economic downturn and stagnating sales.
The downsizing followed significant reductions at companies including Twitter and Meta late last year.
The layoffs have primarily affected the tech sector, which is now hemorrhaging employees at a faster rate than at any point during the pandemic, the Wall Street Journal reported. According to data cited by the Journal from Layoffs.fyi, a site tracking layoffs since the start of the pandemic, tech companies slashed more than 150,000 in 2022 alone — compared to 80,000 in 2020 and 15,000 in 2021.
Here are the notable examples so far in 2023: See More
But he said he didn't think he'd be among the roughly 12,000 people that Google announced Friday would be laid off from its global workforce.
Insider has seen a copy of Bowling's severance letter.
Google's layoffs followed similar moves by Meta, Microsoft, Amazon, and other major tech firms.
"I had a feeling that we would follow the trend and it's a good excuse for Google to do the same thing that the other big companies are doing," Bowling said.
No goodbyes — just a "cold" email
Bowling said he woke up oblivious to his fate on the day layoffs were announced. After he made coffee, he checked his personal laptop to see that his manager had sent him a LinkedIn message saying they were sorry to hear about the news.
Bowling said he was confused and checked his work email on his phone, but his account was missing. At that point, his heart "immediately sank," he said. When he logged onto his work laptop, his password didn't work for his corporate email and other work accounts.
An hour later, at 9 a.m., he received on his personal account an email from Google informing him that he no longer had a job at the company. Bowling described the email as "cold," "impersonal," and "faceless."
"It's very isolating in that you just feel all alone all of a sudden because you just have no connection back to anything," Bowling said. "You don't even get to say goodbye."
Google didn't immediately respond to Insider's request for comment, made outside normal US operating hours.
A company spokesperson previously referred Insider to CEO Sundar Pichai's blog post announcing the layoffs, saying it was "all we have to share at this time."
Chris McDonald, another laid-off Google engineer, told Insider he was in "a state of shock" after receiving his severance email at 3 a.m. on Friday.
Another ex-Google employee described being laid off as a "slap in the face."
Staff still at Google asked leadership at a town hall meeting about finding "psychological safety" at the company.
Story by kduffy@insider.com Kate Duffy
Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai announced mass layoffs at Google on Friday. AP© AP
A laid-off Google engineer said his "spidey-senses" detected incoming job cuts at the company.
Zac Bowling told Insider he'd been laid off before and was familiar with the build-up.
He said Google's severance email was "cold," "faceless," and made him feel "isolated."
A laid-off Google engineer said his "spidey-senses" detected incoming job cuts at the company — and the "cold" severance email that followed left him feeling "isolated."
Zac Bowling, who worked at Google for almost eight years, told Insider he suspected layoffs were around the corner because of various changes at the tech giant in recent months and years. He said he's been laid off twice before from other companies and was familiar with the build-up.
According to Bowling, Google had put in place travel restrictions for some employees, cut certain budgets, and implemented a temporary hiring freeze. He said "fun budgets" — money allocated annually for team-building — had been slashed. Over the eight years he worked at Google, Bowling said the perks became "less interesting."
A wave of layoffs that hit dozens of US companies toward the end of 2022 shows no sign of slowing down into 2023.
Google is the latest tech giant to slash thousands of workers. In a memo sent to staffers on Friday, the company announced it will layoff an estimated 12,000 employees, or 6% of its global workforce. Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google parent company Alphabet, wrote in the memo the reductions come after a "rigorous review" of the business and will "cut across Alphabet, product areas, functions, levels and regions."
"Over the past two years we've seen periods of dramatic growth," Pichai said. "To match and fuel that growth, we hired for a different economic reality than the one we face today."
However, Google is not the first major corporation to make significant cuts in the new year: Fellow tech companies, including Amazon and Salesforce, and finance behemoths, like Goldman Sachs, announced massive layoffs in the first weeks of 2023 amid a continued economic downturn and stagnating sales.
The downsizing followed significant reductions at companies including Twitter and Meta late last year.
The layoffs have primarily affected the tech sector, which is now hemorrhaging employees at a faster rate than at any point during the pandemic, the Wall Street Journal reported. According to data cited by the Journal from Layoffs.fyi, a site tracking layoffs since the start of the pandemic, tech companies slashed more than 150,000 in 2022 alone — compared to 80,000 in 2020 and 15,000 in 2021.
Here are the notable examples so far in 2023: See More
But he said he didn't think he'd be among the roughly 12,000 people that Google announced Friday would be laid off from its global workforce.
Insider has seen a copy of Bowling's severance letter.
Google's layoffs followed similar moves by Meta, Microsoft, Amazon, and other major tech firms.
"I had a feeling that we would follow the trend and it's a good excuse for Google to do the same thing that the other big companies are doing," Bowling said.
No goodbyes — just a "cold" email
Bowling said he woke up oblivious to his fate on the day layoffs were announced. After he made coffee, he checked his personal laptop to see that his manager had sent him a LinkedIn message saying they were sorry to hear about the news.
Bowling said he was confused and checked his work email on his phone, but his account was missing. At that point, his heart "immediately sank," he said. When he logged onto his work laptop, his password didn't work for his corporate email and other work accounts.
An hour later, at 9 a.m., he received on his personal account an email from Google informing him that he no longer had a job at the company. Bowling described the email as "cold," "impersonal," and "faceless."
"It's very isolating in that you just feel all alone all of a sudden because you just have no connection back to anything," Bowling said. "You don't even get to say goodbye."
Google didn't immediately respond to Insider's request for comment, made outside normal US operating hours.
A company spokesperson previously referred Insider to CEO Sundar Pichai's blog post announcing the layoffs, saying it was "all we have to share at this time."
Chris McDonald, another laid-off Google engineer, told Insider he was in "a state of shock" after receiving his severance email at 3 a.m. on Friday.
Another ex-Google employee described being laid off as a "slap in the face."
Staff still at Google asked leadership at a town hall meeting about finding "psychological safety" at the company.
Google is cutting workers in the Bay Area, including at the Googleplex
Sundar Pichai, the CEO of Alphabet and Google, said the latter's job cuts are needed to refocus the company.
By Max A. Cherney – Senior Reporter, Silicon Valley Business Journal
Jan 25, 2023
Google LLC is cutting more than 1,600 jobs in the Bay Area and more than 1,800 statewide as part of its 12,000-person layoffs.
The biggest hits are coming at its headquarters campus and surrounding offices in Mountain View, where it's laying off at least 1,436 workers, according to a batch of letters Anna Raske, Google's vice president for Googler and community relations, sent to state employment officials Friday. The layoffs are set to begin March 31, Raske said.
"Separations resulting from this action are expected to be permanent," she said in the letters, which were made public Tuesday.
Google representatives did not respond to a request for comment on the cuts.
As part of the layoffs, the search giant, a subsidiary of Alphabet Inc. (Nasdaq: GOOGL), is cutting staff in the following Bay Area cities:Mountain View: At least 1,436 people (Raske separately listed 1,447 jobs by title that were affected by the cuts) across some 87 sites.
Palo Alto: 53 people across three different sites, nearly all from subsidiary Nest Labs Inc.'s headquarters at 3400 Hillview Ave.
San Bruno: 119 people across five different sites at Google-owned YouTube LLC's headquarters campus
Additionally, Google is cutting staff in Southern California:Los Angeles: 53 peopleacross six sites
Playa Vista: 124 people across two sites
Irvine: 60 people total from two sites
All told, Google is cutting at least 1,845 employees in California. That adds to more than 15% of the overall layoffs it announced last week. The company is planning on cutting 12,000 employees in its restructuring, or about 6% of its workforce. On Monday, Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai told employees the staff cuts would help the company get through a difficult period.
"I am confident about the huge opportunity in front of us, thanks to the strength of our mission, the value of our products and services and our early investments in AI," Pichai wrote in a memo to Google staff last week, announcing the layoffs. "To fully capture it, we'll need to make tough choices."
One engineer who was laid off told the Business Journal there weren't any warning signs within Google, only that other big tech companies have also announced substantial layoffs.
"It was even a little surreal," the former employee said. "There was a shock associated with it. It was surprising. It was a little scary, given that a lot of tech companies are doing layoffs, and tech is kind of in flux right now due to the looming recession."
Ahead of the job cuts, Google (Nasdaq: GOOGL) had 36,603 local employees, which made it the top employer in Silicon Valley, according to Business Journal research.
Google CEO Sundar Pichai defends layoffs at 'town hall,' says exec bonuses will be cut
Pager Duty, Innovaccer and UberFreight announce layoffs
Google is among the many large tech employers that have announced significant job cuts in recent weeks. Amazon.com Inc. last week said it is planning to cut 261 employees in the Bay Area. Earlier this month Intel told state and local officials that it planned to cut over twice the number of jobs in Santa Clara than it previously expected.
Sundar Pichai, the CEO of Alphabet and Google, said the latter's job cuts are needed to refocus the company.
By Max A. Cherney – Senior Reporter, Silicon Valley Business Journal
Jan 25, 2023
Google LLC is cutting more than 1,600 jobs in the Bay Area and more than 1,800 statewide as part of its 12,000-person layoffs.
The biggest hits are coming at its headquarters campus and surrounding offices in Mountain View, where it's laying off at least 1,436 workers, according to a batch of letters Anna Raske, Google's vice president for Googler and community relations, sent to state employment officials Friday. The layoffs are set to begin March 31, Raske said.
"Separations resulting from this action are expected to be permanent," she said in the letters, which were made public Tuesday.
Google representatives did not respond to a request for comment on the cuts.
As part of the layoffs, the search giant, a subsidiary of Alphabet Inc. (Nasdaq: GOOGL), is cutting staff in the following Bay Area cities:Mountain View: At least 1,436 people (Raske separately listed 1,447 jobs by title that were affected by the cuts) across some 87 sites.
Palo Alto: 53 people across three different sites, nearly all from subsidiary Nest Labs Inc.'s headquarters at 3400 Hillview Ave.
San Bruno: 119 people across five different sites at Google-owned YouTube LLC's headquarters campus
Additionally, Google is cutting staff in Southern California:Los Angeles: 53 peopleacross six sites
Playa Vista: 124 people across two sites
Irvine: 60 people total from two sites
All told, Google is cutting at least 1,845 employees in California. That adds to more than 15% of the overall layoffs it announced last week. The company is planning on cutting 12,000 employees in its restructuring, or about 6% of its workforce. On Monday, Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai told employees the staff cuts would help the company get through a difficult period.
"I am confident about the huge opportunity in front of us, thanks to the strength of our mission, the value of our products and services and our early investments in AI," Pichai wrote in a memo to Google staff last week, announcing the layoffs. "To fully capture it, we'll need to make tough choices."
One engineer who was laid off told the Business Journal there weren't any warning signs within Google, only that other big tech companies have also announced substantial layoffs.
"It was even a little surreal," the former employee said. "There was a shock associated with it. It was surprising. It was a little scary, given that a lot of tech companies are doing layoffs, and tech is kind of in flux right now due to the looming recession."
Ahead of the job cuts, Google (Nasdaq: GOOGL) had 36,603 local employees, which made it the top employer in Silicon Valley, according to Business Journal research.
Employers, Silicon Valley
Ranked by Local employee headcoun
RankBusiness NameLocal Employee Headcount1 Alphabet/Google LLC 36,603
2 Apple Inc. 25,000
3 Tesla Motors Inc. 22,000
View This List
Google CEO Sundar Pichai defends layoffs at 'town hall,' says exec bonuses will be cut
Pager Duty, Innovaccer and UberFreight announce layoffs
Google is among the many large tech employers that have announced significant job cuts in recent weeks. Amazon.com Inc. last week said it is planning to cut 261 employees in the Bay Area. Earlier this month Intel told state and local officials that it planned to cut over twice the number of jobs in Santa Clara than it previously expected.
Google CEO Sundar Pichai says he will take less pay this year as he joins JPMorgan’s Jamie Dimon and Apple’s Tim Cook in taking a compensation hit
Prarthana Prakash
Tue, January 24, 2023
Tech companies were at their heyday not too long ago. Anywhere you looked, it was jobs galore and the stocks of tech companies were performing great too.
That was until a major stock market plunge and a slew of layoffs took over the tech world. Seemingly powerful giants like Meta, Amazon, and Microsoft weren’t spared from it, and as of last week, neither was Google.
Last week Google’s parent company, Alphabet, announced that it would cut 12,000 jobs across the company. The news was unexpected for many employees, some of whom took to social media to describe the process as “random” and say they felt “100% disposable.”
The announcement comes at a time of economic uncertainty and period of tumult for tech companies across the board. Close to 60,000 jobs have been eliminated in 2023 so far from 174 tech companies, according to Layoffs.fyi, a layoffs tracking website.
As questions piled up over the weekend, Google CEO Sundar Pichai addressed the entire company in a meeting on Monday to answer questions, and announced then that top executives would take a pay cut this year as part of the company’s cost reduction measures, Business Insider reported.
Pichai said that all roles above the senior vice president level will witness “very significant reduction in their annual bonus,” adding that for senior roles the compensation was linked to company performance. It was not immediately clear how big Pichai’s own pay cut would be.
Google did not immediately return Fortune’s request for comment.
Pichai’s move to cut the pay for senior executives comes only weeks after Apple’s Tim Cook announced his compensation would be 40% lower amid shareholder pressure. The iPhone maker had a strong 2022 and remains one of the few tech behemoths that hasn’t announced layoffs yet.
And last week, the board of JPMorgan Chase, an investment bank, announced that it would do away with the “special award” component of CEO Jamie Dimon’s pay. The one-off payment for Dimon paid the previous year amounted to nearly $50 million, and this year he will be making $34.5 million.
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