Google lays off hundreds in hardware, voice assistant teams

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-01-11/google-lays-off-hundreds-in-hardware-voice-assistant-teams

by dataking • 3 years ago

186 97 3 years ago

bloomberg.com

gennarro• 3 years ago

mymacbook• 3 years ago

This impacted far more orgs including Maps/Search in addition to HW, AR, and Voice.

googledtnifzn• 3 years ago

I can confirm this.

TotoHorner• 3 years ago

does Google have a hiring freeze right now?

pokstad• 3 years ago

It’s amazing how much the industry leaders just copy each other. Google didn’t throw the towel in until Amazon did first.

bryanrasmussen• 3 years ago

If one of google's working theories is they should hire people to keep them away from other organizations then it makes sense they don't fire until they see their competitors start.

choppaface4• 3 years ago

They probably tried to move as many as possible to Bard or to backfill Ads / Android etc but some of these are people who wouldn’t / couldn’t move. It mainly signals that upper management is not up to task and made bad bets. Fitbit was a great product and for Google to axe the founders says “we care about monetizing users not serving them.”

granzymes• 3 years ago

I’m sure there are a handful of domain experts that Google would prefer to keep on staff even if they are working on pet projects, but Google is certainly not hiring thousands of extra engineers to keep them away from Microsoft and Meta.

Laremere• 3 years ago

Everyone is constantly worried about missing out on the next smartphone. Apple and Google got in early, and others who tried to follow failed. Voice assistant and VR are both examples of strategic investment over what the market really supports in demand.

riku_iki• 3 years ago

there were smartphones before iphone and android. Apple and google pushed tech to new level and out-competted opponents.

ecosystem2• 3 years ago

Relative company stock performance dominates executive compensation (iirc, 80% of Alphabet CEO pay is relative outperformance of S&P500), so copying other large public tech companies is an outcome of the incentives.

charlieyu1• 3 years ago

A compensation scheme like this encourage companies to take unnecessary risk to outperform the market.

google1187fd98• 3 years ago

I'm fairly certain this one has been in the works and isn't a spur-of-the-moment decision. The fact that we didn't get our comp letters in December (like in 2022 before the big 2023 one) was a dead giveaway.

choppaface4• 3 years ago

Notably Fitbit and AR are now dead: https://www.theverge.com/2024/1/10/24033994/google-reorganiz...

ajmurmann• 3 years ago

Is there a good explanation for why Google started Pixel Watch when they already had FitBit? I would have understood a rebranding of FitBit to Pixel Watch, but it seems like that's not what happened.

modeless• 3 years ago

I'm sure Pixel Watch as a project predates the acquisition. Garden variety corporate turf war.

choppaface4• 3 years ago

Not the entire answer but apparently Pixel watch massively outperformed Fitbit as of late: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2023/03/pixel-watch-sales-po...

dreamcompiler• 3 years ago

This is speculation based on how stupid-looking decisions typically happen at big companies: Internal politics.

Probably there was an internal team outside the Fitbit group that wanted to build a watch. Their leader(s) had enough political clout to get the okay for a parallel effort, and apparently enough to eventually kill the Fitbit group entirely.

Again this is pure speculation, but once a company exceeds a certain size it's amazing how much waste can occur because of infighting.

resolutebat• 3 years ago

Dupe: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38947224

arnaudsm2• 3 years ago

I bet they'll rehire like crazy in AR once the Apple Vision Pro is a success. I miss when Google had vision instead of trend following lazily

N3cr0ph4g1st• 3 years ago

Get rid of Sundar.

Gow88762• 3 years ago

He may not be Sam Altman, but his position in Google is quite solid. His number is also good until chatgpt happened.

ertian2• 3 years ago

Did it ever really have vision? Honestly, Google kinda seems like it suffers from ADHD: it bounces from one shiny new project to another, quickly losing interest in anything that doesn't immediately take off. In the old days, that was enough: their little experiments really _did_ take off. Now, in a more crowded field, it takes more discipline and focus to get things off the ground...and discipline and focus are two things that Google leadership seems to seriously lack.

pkos98• 3 years ago

Which of their own projects took off? E.g. Android and Maps were acquisitions IIRC. Maybe Google+?

Agingcoder2• 3 years ago

I see their massive investments in AI as some kind of vision.

However, I don’t think they’ve been able to turn said money spending into more than research/demos ( deep mind included ) even pre-openAI ?

Edit : I understand they use it extensively internally, I meant for regular user facing products ( like openAI did with ChatGPT )

solardev3• 3 years ago

Yeah, we'll probably get ten new VR chat apps.

xyst• 3 years ago

Useless C-level executives focusing on short term gains from RIFs rather than innovating.

G is just a shadow of it’s former self. I can’t wait for the great G disruption

asdfaoeu• 3 years ago

Overall probably a good thing for the rest of us having all this talent starting new companies.

guiriduro• 3 years ago

G disruption already arrived, with ChatGPT and Bing copilot, search now has a superior challenger/disruptor it has lacked for over a decade of G incumbency.

jzombie5• 3 years ago

Yep. I personally use ChatGPT far more than Google search these days.

dns_snek• 3 years ago

I don't believe that's going to be a lasting disruption, even if it might alleviate some of Google's shortcomings for now. Just wait until they enshittify the good parts of ChatGPT with ads and start milking paying customers for data. The demand for YOY growth in VC-funded companies mandates this.

As an AI language model, I have a wealth of knowledge at my disposal. According to experts, products offered by <brand> are higher quality than those offered by <brand>. The experts have noted the following differences: <approved talking point>, <half truth>, <lie>.
(5px disclaimer) Source: Verified Trusted Experts at <shell company>

poisonborz• 3 years ago

It already started, but will take a decade+. They cemented themselves as monopoly and gatekeeper wherever possible. Most of their products require huge infra, manpower, moderation, legal moat. IBM had far less encampment and it's still a giant lingering around.

gdsdfe• 3 years ago

Man I was hoping 2024 would look nicer for the job market but it looks like the trend is not stopping

UncleOxidant2• 3 years ago

Yeah, several layoff announcements here today.

solardev3• 3 years ago

It's nice that they at least waited until after the X-mas shopping season.

hipadev23• 3 years ago

Confirms that rest and vest was a zero interest rate phenomenon.

rvz• 3 years ago

Indeed it was. The fact that many HNers here thought it would continue forever was quite hilarious.

marban• 3 years ago

Dupe https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38947224

sidcool3• 3 years ago

I always had a special place for Google in my heart, since 2008. And never thought they would lay people off. It's sad really, despite I never having worked with them. I feel pretty gloomy about tech career overall. Is it even worth continuing to learn fundamentals and stuff?

danjac• 3 years ago

Having lived through a recession or two, this is probably the first time I'm seriously thinking about a change of career (to do what else, of course, is the question).

There's lots of people here whistling in the dark, but honestly the past year has felt more like a sea change in the industry than a temporary downturn. We can blame AI hype or interest rate changes, but probably it's more people taking a serious look at tech for once (whether big corps like Google or little startups) and seeing how much is just not that profitable or ever likely to be. Lots of naked swimmers in the tech industry.

sidcool3• 3 years ago

I am hearing on LinkedIn another 10K laid off. Can't verify.

tock• 3 years ago

Companies become very successful and grow large enough to hire MBAs as leadership and then die a slow death over a few decades.

agnosticmantis• 3 years ago

What are the severance packages like this time?

evilfred• 3 years ago

After hearing for years and years that Google hires for people first, and then assigns you a team, this is a big surprise! Somehow all the worst performers at Google ended up on the same teams and they had to fire them en masse? Or is Google just another tech company now?

mgh2• 3 years ago

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38770151

1vuio0pswjnm7• 3 years ago

Google is no longer on Glassdoor's best places to work list.

Best Places to Work 2023:

    1. Gainsight
    2. Box
    3. Bain & Company
    4. McKinsey & Company
    5. NVIDIA
    6. MathWorks
    7. Boston Consulting Group
    8. Google
    9. ServiceNow
   10. In-N-Out Burger

Best Places to Work 2024:

    1. Bain & Company 
    2. NVIDIA 
    3. ServiceNow NOW 
    4. MathWorks 
    5. Procore Technologies 
    6. In-N-Out Burger 
    7. VMware VMW 
    8. Deltek 
    9. 2020 Companies 
   10. Fidelity Investments

sokoloff2• 3 years ago

I predict that VMWare as a "best place to work" is not going to age well given the Broadcom takeout of VMWare.

foogazi2• 3 years ago

What do we do with this info?

Is In-N-Out hiring SWEs ?

ulfw2• 3 years ago

No but burger staff is harder to replace by AI than SWEs.

greenyoda• 3 years ago

A company with $1.823 billion in revenue[1] would have a sizable IT department and do a lot of forecasting, maybe even using machine learning.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In-N-Out_Burger

jerlam• 3 years ago

Not FANG salaries, but managers at In-N-Out are being paid a tidy sum. Here it lists 160K in California:

https://www.inc.com/bill-murphy-jr/managers-at-in-n-out-burg...

As an employee, if I'm compensated well and have a career progression path, I would be content - I don't have to be an SWE.

ulfw2• 3 years ago

It doesn't deserve to be on it.

tensility• 3 years ago

It apparently does more so than Google.

crossroadsguy2• 3 years ago

    3. Bain & Company
    4. McKinsey & Company
    7. Boston Consulting Group

Are these really best places to work at? I have met many people from these places and I have been told that there is no on-call at these places. Because you are always expected to be working without exception. Always! And often you are actually always working - always as in morning, day, evening, night kinda.

Is that true?

operatingthetan• 3 years ago

And often you are actually always working - always as in morning, day, evening, night kinda.

Not normally, but sometimes in an emergency.

hatenberg• 3 years ago

Look. When your execs summarily execute the morale of the entire sales org to position investor narrative, you know the company is in deep shit.

Gemini Pro (future) beats GPt4 (today) by single digit percent when you use COT 32x - aka spend insane amounts of money. It’s bullshit.

The layoffs will continue until growth can be achieved. Which in AI is a long time away for them.

yonisto2• 3 years ago

I admit that I never understood what was going on with Google's voice assistant. As a user for the past 4-5 years or so (mainly using smart home devices), it hasn't shown improvement in quality; at times, it even seems to regress. What were all those people doing day to day??? This is a serious question.

I remember thinking the same thing about Twitter: Why do they have all those employees? And, with an 80% reduction in workforce, they are still operating. Yes, the new management is ruining the business side of things, but the service is still functional in the same way as it was 3 years ago.

MrDresden• 3 years ago

Yes, the new management is ruining the business side of things, but the service is still functional in the same way as it was 3 years ago.

Have you ever thought that perhaps the quality of the work done by the people that Musk let go might have anything to do with that?

If the foundation is solid, then there is nothing saying that a skeleton crew couldn't keep the lights on for a while.

Until such a time when some major incident happens. Then the remaining workforce might hit a wall with what they can accomplish (not due to lack skill necessarily but lack of support).

yonisto2• 3 years ago

It could be. But it doesn't add up. According to wikipedia [0] 2017 - 3,372 Employees ( by this time building the foundation for 7+ years) 2021 - 7,500+ Employees

And the functionality remained the same. I never found a good explanation what doubling the number of employees actually did.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitter,_Inc.

sidcool3• 3 years ago

How much of this is Sundar's fault?

lern_too_spel• 3 years ago

All of it. Google's management is rotten all the way up and down the entire organization, but Sundar has now had several years to fix it. According to my sources, all he's done is remove any internal measurement of the problem, so now he just has the lagging indicator of the market.

addandsubtract• 3 years ago

C levels at fault? Good one.

Google lays off hundreds in hardware, voice assistant teams

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