Google offers 'voluntary exit' to all US platforms and devices employees

[dupe] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42880529 (53 comments, 110 points)

Hm. Why create this environment where the people with the most options will preferentially be induced to leave? Also the impact on the company project seems less predictable. Aside from avoiding the extreme difficulty involved in doing layoffs and choosing folks to let go, what are the upsides of this approach?

EDIT: I see that my take was wrong and too narrow. Thanks to everyone who replied.

This seems like a pretty bold and employee-friendly move. Google recently merged two large divisions, so there's going to be some redundancy. Most companies would resolve this with a layoff, but it sounds like they're trying a buyout at the request of their employees. From the article:

> Some employees at Google have recently been circulating a petition that calls for CEO Sundar Pichai to offer exactly this type of optional buyout before resorting to involuntary layoffs. “Ongoing rounds of layoffs make us feel insecure about our jobs,” the petition said, according to CNBC.

Conventional wisdom is that with voluntary buyouts, high-performing employees who have the most options will leave and lower-performing employees will stay.

We'll see how it turns out.

Enough rounds of layoffs and I bet that would happen anyway, but across the whole company.

Off topic, but The Verge's bottom cookie banner is truly absurd:

"Privacy Notice We and our 868 partners store and access personal data, like browsing data or unique identifiers, on your device."

> Hm. Why create this environment where the people with the most options will preferentially be induced to leave?

Because the alternatives are all worse, and also result in the same thing.

If I'm a highly-paid, high-performing employee, I'm not walking away from a big paycheck and lots of clout. If I was a middling employee without a big paycheck, looking at the prospect of months of job searching once I get laid off, I'd take the buyout and use it to start searching full time.

I feel like this is a cynical take on an admitedly hard reality. It's becoming a meme here in response to these creative fires so I'd like to give a different perspective.

I can say from my own experience that when you hate your job, you're usually not very productive, either. Maybe selecting for people who want out is more efficient than it seems.

The take that only those who can get a new job will take the offer implies that people working there are only there because of a calculation that involves money and nothing else. I don't think it's realistic and I hope others don't live in that world - it sounds pretty miserable.

In a non-cynical world, a great exit package would allow those that wanted to do something else to do so.

Those that wanted to keep at it - because they're engaged with their work - would have colleagues that also want to be there. The company would have a happier, more productive culture. Everyone wins.

It might be that there is an element of this calculation wherein low performers stay, but those people are definitely more desperate than most at FAANG.

> Aside from avoiding the extreme difficulty involved in doing layoffs and choosing folks to let go

Preventing massive emotional turmoil and political conflict sounds like a pretty huge upside, I'd even go so far as to argue that it's precisely the reason why everyone would prefer this situation. What alternative approaches are you thinking about that have more upsides?

> Google recently merged two large divisions, so there's going to be some redundancy

I don't see why - it was corporate games of thrones stuff, the hardware VP got the software VP's toys. (disclaimer: worked 7 years in P&E until I left in 2023)

Does this mean I shouldn't bother apply?

The trick is knowing you're in the second group (and conveniently, this came roughly a week after everyone got their performance review results)

Seems like the opposite happens. The high-performing employee is getting unsolicited job offers all the time — can skip off to a higher salary somewhere else. Middling employee knows a bird in the hand when they see it.

at that point, calling them partners is beyond perverted. they are essentially saying that they are willing to sell your data to body that knocks on their door

Perhaps you can help me answer a question I've had for a long time. How is that hardware VP still there? It seems to me from the outside much better fits have been pushed out, but he's still hanging on. Is he really that good that these games?

I'm embarrassed for Verge employees

If an exit package increases your agency, then take it!

If an exit package doesn't increase your agency, then increase your agency in your current role!

That's true. I happily concede!

You may think Google cares about your performance but when the involuntary layoffs come, it's the highest earners who are first cut. Google is hoping the high earners leave because that saves the most money. There is no long/term thought here, it's short-sighted stock bumps from a company already rolling in money.

Also, for a lot of people working on hardware, the alternatives aren't great. Big Tech players like Apple, Meta, Amazon, etc. all have downsides. Startsups are extremely risky, and don't pay employees as well (ex: Humane, Rabbit, Peleton, etc.)

A slightly better story for those working on software (e.g. Google Photos App or Backend). They have more options, but relatively good jobs (high pay, flexibility, great coworkers non-crazy hours, etc.) as still hard to come by. They exist, but not sure about the quantity.

I imagine it's mostly going to be folks who were planning to leave anyway, and this is the nudge they needed to do it sooner.

The downside to this approach is that they will probably tilt more towards senior and staff engineers who have been driving important projects and likely were going to leave once the project ships (or cancels).

Now, they leave 6 months earlier, and leave teams full of new or junior level employees without much context. The company is full of smart folks though and they will recover. It will just be a painful year as teams scramble to figure everything out.

It's also a potential F-U to Meta's approach who just did broadcasted performance based layoffs. Future employees will keep note and it will make it harder for Meta to recruit.

Theoretically, but in practice I'm not sure recruiters or other companies can tell the difference between a high performer and a mid-performer.

> This seems like a pretty bold and employee-friendly move. Google recently merged two large divisions, so there's going to be some redundancy. Most companies would resolve this with a layoff, but it sounds like they're trying a buyout at the request of their employees.

Or they’re afraid the union at Google will gain more traction. The employees should unionize now before the layoffs happen.

Why?

I was an early hire at a company that became a Big Tech in this position and I left even without a buyout. Well compensated employees might not be top 1% rich but they're usually wealthy enough to find a different shop and tolerate some risk while living comfortably. I found over time that my peers at Big Tech became way too disinterested in making things and more interested in corporate politics or maximizing compensation for unit effort spent. If I had been offered a buyout I would have taken it in a heartbeat.

(Consequently, when I read these threads I'm reminded of my good fortune of building my career in Silicon Valley. The kind of work environment I like is hard enough to find in the Valley but would have been impossible to find outside.)

I agree, they can't, unless we're talking like true experts in a field. Which is a very small % of the people.

Does this mean Google is exiting the phone business?

I once worked at a BIGCORP. The newly appointed CFO said the new philosophy was that if a division which was its own corporate entity was not number one or two in its industry, it was best to sell and exit. They did this for many years and wound up selling everything. I would argue this is a net negative for society and consumers who have less choice less competition and higher prices.

In 2015 YouTube was separated from Google with both owned by Alphabet. My guess is that Sergey Brin couldn’t care less if both companies went out of business. All they care is ROI.

My thinkings basically the same as yours. I probably also have about as much info as you on the matter, but then again, even knowing the "facts on the ground" aren't misaligned with that conclusion says something.

I honestly don't really know if there were better alternatives. But I definitely lost a lot of faith somewhere between the Google IO where they packed every announcement for the next two years they could think of, managing to announce AR glasses again, only to have to cancel them a year later.

If the sell was professionalism via Motorola experience, that's not what happened.

But quite the loyal soldier, I think the public record has a very clear accounting of how many boneheaded decisions were made at the altar of Good Budgeting*, and the MBAs have thoroughly ate the company in general. They must enjoy his work.

* bungling maintaining the tablet; marching onto a nonsensical goal to have Android eat ChromeOS while embarrassing themselves publicly mumbling about how its because AI, when really, its because politics. Meanwhile fantastic software work that would have fit right into a world with LLMs was shitcanned at the altar of Efficiency™ and focusing on getting products out.

> high-performing employees who have the most options will leave and lower-performing employees will stay.

How do you figure? High-performing employees will stay because they're not worried about impending layoffs. Lower-performing employees will leave because they know they're on the chopping block.

Google is also notorious for having tons of talented deadwood, since they don't want them to go to other companies. Such companies are ripe for cutting the fat.

I believe the ChromeOS -> Android move was because the CrOS model of having Google pay for the testing support of partner devices was not working out, and moving towards Android's model would cut costs while also cutting duplicate development costs.

Google, maybe. P&D, no.

When you do layoffs, all the employees who didn’t get laid off this time will start wondering if they’ll be next, and they’ll look for a new job. The best employees are the ones who’ll find it easiest to get another job, and they’ll leave.

> In 2015 YouTube was separated from Google with both owned by Alphabet.

That is incorrect. When Alphabet was introduced YouTube remined part of Google, and still is.

This kind of nonsense was definitely a factor in cancelling my upcoming Meta interviews.

I'd like to think that if I (or anyone) was not performing up to par, our managers would TELL US instead of the CEO deciding to do a layoff and character assassination. One of these is productive, the other one puts on a show for Wall Street at the expense of your employees.

It didn't help that Meta demanded that I re-interview for the same level that I interviewed for and they offered me two years ago, either.

The Google union, AWU, is a complete clownshow and more focused on TVCs than engineers. They suggest engineers pay insanely high dues so that they can spend it on other people.

It's a bunch of new college graduates LARPing as the leaders of a real labor movement and could not become a federally recognized union even if it tried. If I hadn't met some of the people in charge and seen how serious they were about it, I'd think that the whole thing was a plant designed to stop an actual engineers' union from forming.

Incompetent VPs have a way of sticking around at Google and rising up into higher positions of power even if employee surveys show managers and ICs underneath have no confidence in them, at least based on the bad VPs I had to deal with while I was there (in a different org).

I've been fortunate that my manager previously told me "if you're surprised at the performance review, I've failed at my job". That feels like the right approach - everyone should know their situation as soon as something starts going wrong, not suddenly at company-level layoffs.

You are correct. YouTube is owned by Google.

What typically happens to unvested stock grants with these severance packages?

That is just a dumb as hell CFO. That philosophy is based on absolutely nothing.

If you’re “second best” as a product then you need to position yourself as being better at something that the market leader isn’t doing as well.

Fascinating...I did well-known work at G, but at the end of the day just a line-level report on Android. I'm a little bit surprised, but, in ways a line-level report would be. Naive ways. (who cares!? You gotta test on partner devices anyway!! and who cares?! Google can afford it!)

Thinking on it, it's rational if that was the impetus. Why lose money? I guess I'm more sore over BSing ('because AI'), that TQ was shitcanned in the name of "let's ship devices", just to turn around and do N years of getting ChromeOS onto Android. Finally, I always saw ChromeOS as *awesome*, much better than Win/macOS...modulo the hardware...and the Linux VM perf penalty...but man its complex. To start unwinding the Android VM perf penalty, you'd have to shift off an Android VM onto Android anyway...

gah I should stop writing. Tough problems, no easy answers.

Just really disappointed it went this route. I joined G in 2016 as an Apple fanboy and was really chuffed by this new hardware division that'd induce discipline and steadily build out a real ecosystem. It's 9 years later, there's no real commitment beyond the phone and watch, which were both ~ready in 2016, and multiple half-assed commitments that were rolled back.

Fyi a couple of years ago Google's management's internal battle cry leaked in which they said that if Google Cloud won't become number 1 (so beating Amazon and MS) in 2-3 years, they will close the whole thing.

Never trust Google with anything, if don't want it to be inexplicably and suddenly closed.

True, unions, in general, hurt employees no matter how competent or incompetent said unions are. Unions are the privatization of governmental bureaucracy: more evil than "exploitative" big tech corps.

Right. This is related to the observation that, for companies with a big product line, maybe 20% of the products produce 80% of the profit. So cut the losing 80% of the products, right? Margins get better, and the company becomes smaller and more efficient. Profits increase.

A few iterations of this, and you're down to a tiny but profitable product line. Now you're irrelevant to the larger market and someone with a bigger product line can knock you off by under-pricing their alternatives to your few products.

Stellantis, which owns Chrysler, Jeep, Fiat, and a bunch of other minor brands, did this. There is now only one Chrysler product, a mini-van.[1] Profits down. Stellantis cars sitting on dealer lots for more than a year. Angry letter to CEO signed by most dealers. CEO fired.

[1] https://www.chrysler.com/all-vehicles.html

Rick must be good at executive politics.

Mergers of orgs this big are rarely about organization efficiency and are instead about scope and retention for SVPs. Rick wanted more power. Sundar must like Rick. So Rick got more power.

Using this as an excuse for layoffs (we all know that after the voluntary ones will come the non-voluntary ones) is garbage. The people making the decision to merge these orgs knew how big they were. It isn't like this is a surprise to anybody.

In 2023 people who were laid off got a fairly long chunk of vesting events. Since then the layoffs have largely not included equity. In this case, the severance is just based on salary with no vesting past the last day at work.

That makes a huge difference to the desirability of taking the deal I'd imagine.

This is my org, use to be on the Pixel Watch, and I can tell you - all the best talent has already left.

Having to do the work of 3 people is a great way to become low performing...