Google CEO hints at layoffs, says he ‘wakes up and worries’ about feds
Google CEO Sundar Pichai warned that extra layoffs might be within the offing as the corporate seeks to spice up its effectivity by 20% whereas staving off fierce financial headwinds and antitrust investigations.
“The extra we attempt to perceive the macroeconomic, we really feel very unsure about it,” Pichai informed a tech convention in Los Angeles on Tuesday.
“The macroeconomic efficiency is correlated to advert spend, client spend and so forth.”
“We wish to make sure that as an organization, when you’ve got fewer assets than earlier than, you’re prioritizing all the appropriate issues to be engaged on and your staff are actually productive that they will even have influence on the issues they’re engaged on in order that’s what we’re spending our time on,” Pichai mentioned.
Pichai’s feedback had been reported by CNBC.
The chief govt additionally admitted that he was involved in regards to the federal authorities’s antitrust probes.
Final month, Bloomberg News reported that the Biden administration is getting ready to sue Google for alleged anticompetitive conduct within the digital promoting market.
“Do I get up and fear about all of the stuff that’s coming down?” Pichai mentioned.
“Completely.”
Pichai denied that his firm was engaged in monopolistic practices. He cited the surging reputation of TikTok in addition to established giants like Apple and Microsoft as examples of tech firms which have thrived.
Pichai mentioned Google was “pro-competitive.”
“Competitors in tech is hyper-intense,” Pichai mentioned, including that TikTok’s rise “reveals there may be competitors within the area” and “how vibrant the market is” in comparison with earlier years.
In 2020, the Justice Division sued Google for allegedly violating antitrust legal guidelines in consolidating its maintain over the search engine market.
Final month, the news site Insider reported that executives within the Google Cloud gross sales division issued blunt warnings to staffers that they wanted to choose up the tempo — or get a pink slip.
If third-quarter outcomes “don’t search for, [then] there will likely be blood on the streets,” in accordance with a message conveyed to the gross sales staff.
Staff who work within the division mentioned senior management informed them there will likely be an “general examination of gross sales productiveness and productiveness generally.”
In July, Pichai introduced that the corporate would institute a hiring freeze. He circulated a memo to staff telling them that “productiveness as a complete just isn’t the place it must be for the top depend we’ve got.”
Staff informed Insider that they’re frightened of layoffs after the corporate quietly prolonged its hiring freeze final month with out making an announcement.
