from Hacker News

Google chief warns bloated staff of ‘real concerns’ over productivity

by i0exception on 8/2/22, 5:57 PM with 27 comments

• by dang on 8/2/22, 7:48 PM

  Related:

  Google CEO tells employees productivity and focus must improve - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32300444 - Aug 2022 (99 comments)

• by devchix on 8/2/22, 6:24 PM

  An HN user's unforgettable description of Google:

  "At least when I was there, google seemed like an island with melancholic, but smart and kind pandas who never had to compete for food, for the food was brought to them by a ferry, and never had to do any work, unless they had a spark of curiosity that made them explore an interesting rock or mess with sand on the beach. All pandas were consistently exceeding expectations, even if they slept on a tree most of the day."

  https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25609594

  Now, whenever I read "Google", my mind instantly sub "Island of melancholy pandas."

• by PaulKeeble on 8/2/22, 8:02 PM

  Having been the company of determining that high performance teams needing psychological safety he has decided the best course of action is to threaten them all to work harder or get made redundant. I am sure that will have the desired effect. In every business I have ever worked in the sniff of redundancies and the threats that came from management were devastating to creativity and productivity and caused a mass exodus of talent.

• by gsatic on 8/2/22, 6:55 PM

  The real concern is they think showing more toothpaste ads to grandma is a "mission". "Its not about the money, its about the mission guys". Corporate robots should be classified as a separate species at this point.

• by chrismcb on 8/2/22, 10:26 PM

  So we worked at home for nearly two years, and productivity increased. Then we were forced back to the office, and productivity decreased?

• by Apreche on 8/2/22, 9:56 PM

  If Google is so concerned with productivity maybe they should stop having people work on products that they are just going to shut down a month after launching them.

• by rich_sasha on 8/2/22, 8:48 PM

  Here's an idea: let people go to 4 days work for 80% pay (big saving).

  I'd generally take that in a heartbeat.

• by jimbob45 on 8/2/22, 6:11 PM

  There are real concerns that our productivity as a whole is not where it needs to be for the headcount we have

  Why would you say something so stupid? Has the most powerful CEO in the world really never heard the adage, "Praise publicly, criticize privately"? Criticism is fine but blanket criticism of staff is virtually never the right move.

• by harveywi on 8/2/22, 7:55 PM

  Could Kubernetes have anything to do with the decrease in productivity?

• by kernal on 8/2/22, 7:54 PM

  >We should think about how we can minimize distractions and really raise the bar on both product excellence and productivity

  Google needs to do what Coinbase did and give an ultimatum to their woke social justice warriors.

• by elteto on 8/2/22, 7:49 PM

  They are just paving the way for a reduction in force.