Googler... ex-Googler

"I'm told this comes as a shock to my managers and other Chrome team leaders. I'm told it's not based on merit"

If your manager is shocked by one of their team being laid off, the manager is probably next.

Of course the OP was told it wasn't based on merit, or any other arguable-in-court characteristic.

But it was. Someone decided Google was better off this way, or that OP was better off working somewhere else.

Eh - having had to do these myself at Google for large orgs over the past few years, i would not assume it was based on merit.

The cost disparities can be huge between team members and locations, and a lot of time it's being done to hit some EOY or mid-year budget number. They are also slowly trying to clean up location strategy.

So it's entirely possible it was based on cost and location, and not merit.

It would still be merit "under the covers" if everyone was the same cost/location, but they aren't.