Alphabet\u00a0executives, donning Halloween costumes, faced questions from concerned employees at an all-hands meeting on Wednesday, following comments on the company\u2019s earnings call suggesting that more cost cuts are coming.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is a reality to it,\u201d said Brian Ong, vice president of Google recruiting, according to a recording of the meeting reviewed by CNBC. \u201cWe are hiring less than we did a couple of years ago.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ong, who was specifically responding to a question about retention and promotion opportunities, added that fewer positions are open and geographic hiring has changed, \u201cso you may see fewer roles available where you are.\u201d<\/p>\n
A Google spokesperson declined to comment.<\/p>\n
The meeting came after Alphabet reported\u00a0better-than-expected\u00a0third-quarter earnings and revenue Tuesday, sparking a rally in the stock. On a call with investors, CFO Anat Ashkenazi, who recently succeeded Ruth Porat,\u00a0proclaimed\u00a0she wanted to \u201cpush a little further\u201d with cost savings across the company.<\/p>\n
Google\u2019s chief scientist, Jeff Dean, wore a starfish costume to the meeting, while Ashkenazi sported a jersey of former Indiana Pacers star Reggie Miller. CEO\u00a0Sundar Pichai\u00a0wore a black t-shirt that read \u201cERROR 404 COSTUME NOT FOUND\u201d with an image of a pixelated dinosaur.<\/p>\n
Ashkenazi said one of her key priorities in the new role would be to make more cuts as Google expands its spending on artificial intelligence infrastructure in 2025.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a theme that began in 2023, when the economy and market turned, and has continued since. Google has been restructuring its workforce to move more quickly in the AI arms race, where it faces increased competition. That\u2019s included\u00a0layoffs,\u00a0organizational shake-ups, and has led to workers feeling a\u00a0\u201cdecline in morale,\u201d as CNBC previously reported.<\/p>\n
Over the last couple of months, Google has made cuts to its marketing, cloud and security teams in Silicon Valley, as well as in its\u00a0trust and safety unit.<\/p>\n
Google is far from alone.\u00a0Dropbox\u00a0this week announced it will\u00a0lay off\u00a020% of its global workforce, while Amazon continues\u00a0shuttering\u00a0various projects. Within Google, employees have expressed concern that the company is preparing for more layoffs, possibly after the end of the year, according to internal correspondence viewed by CNBC.<\/p>\n
Pichai joked that the quarterly call was perfect preparation for Ashkenazi ahead of the company meeting.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was telling Anat yesterday, earnings calls are a piece of cake compared to TGIF the next day,\u201d Pichai said, to laughs from attendees.<\/p>\n
Some employee comments and questions included praise for \u201canother great quarter,\u201d success in chip advancements and improvements in Google\u2019s hit AI note-taking tool\u00a0NotebookLM. However, other questions expressed fear of what greater cost efficiencies would mean for the workforce.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat exactly was meant by the comments on further efficiencies in headcount\u201d? one question asked, pointing to Ashkenazi\u2019s\u00a0comments\u00a0from the call.<\/p>\n
Ashkenazi didn\u2019t share any more details but said employees are \u201cone of the most important assets we have.\u201d She said that the company is investing in people and that it hired 1,000 new graduates in the third quarter.<\/p>\n
Pichai, who\u2019s been preaching efficiency for almost two years, chimed in to echo past sentiment.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you have to do something new and it\u2019s going to take 10 people, if you can find a way to do it with eight people by making smart trade-offs somewhere and aligning teams better, that\u2019s an example of finding efficiencies in headcount as well,\u201d Pichai said.<\/p>\n
In response to another question about ongoing layoffs and reorganizations and what might be coming in the future, Pichai said, \u201cIf we are making companywide decisions, we\u2019ll definitely let you know.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said the company is spending heavily on AI at the moment, but the need to ramp up those expenses won\u2019t last forever.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are going through an extraordinary period of capex advancement,\u201d Pichai said. \u201cWhen you have these technology shifts, at the earlier stages, you invest disproportionately and then the curve gets better and that\u2019s the transition as an industry we are working through.\u201d<\/p>\n
He added that not all of the cuts are decided on by top executives.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not like all of these decisions are centrally done at a company level,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd so, at the scale of our company, there could be moments where there are small groups of people impacted.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ashkenazi on Tuesday mentioned that one way to get more cost efficiency is by using AI internally. The company said 25% of new code is now generated by AI.<\/p>\n
In response to a question about productivity, Brian Saluzzo, head of \u201cCore\u201d developers, said that while the 25% refers to low-level tasks, leadership is in the midst of \u201cexpanding to more complex areas\u201d within the company.<\/p>\n
\u201cCore\u201d refers to the teams that build the technical foundation underlying Google\u2019s flagship products.\u00a0In May, CNBC reported that Google\u00a0laid off\u00a0more than 200 employees from its Core engineering teams, in a reorganization that included rehiring some roles in India and Mexico.<\/p>\n
Pichai followed up by saying, \u201cIn this transition moment, across all functions, everywhere in the company, it\u2019s worth challenging us to think where we can use AI to be more productive.\u201d<\/p>\n
He added that through 2025, the workforce should \u201cstrive to do more\u201d and \u201chelp customers around the world take those learnings as well.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Alphabet\u00a0executives, donning Halloween costumes, faced questions from concerned employees at an all-hands meeting on Wednesday, following comments on the company\u2019s earnings call suggesting that more cost cuts are coming. \u201cThere is a reality to it,\u201d said Brian Ong, vice president of Google recruiting, according to a recording of the meeting reviewed by CNBC. \u201cWe are […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":11891,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11890","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11890","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11890"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11890\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11891"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11890"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11890"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11890"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}