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Nonbottrumpaccount t1_j7gajjs wrote

Reply to comment by andrewrgross in [OC] How Google makes money (its 2022 income statement visualized as a Sankey diagram) by IncomeStatementGuy

So its greedy for a company to fire labor they determine don't need?

It isn't like Google has some obligation to spend a certain ratio of its revenue/profit on labor. The fact that this ratio changes just means that they are getting more or less productive as a company.

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andrewrgross t1_j7hg1kk wrote

>So its greedy for a company to fire labor they determine don't need?

First, I don't think you mean "need".

Most profitable companies don't need most labor. They gain value from it, but that's different than needing it. I think what you mean to ask is, 'Is it greedy for them to terminate workers if they conclude it's a good financial decision?'

And the answer is that it's subjective. I think it's absolutely a demonstration of greed, but I try to work in objective measures.

I think objectively, the costs of this action are very, very high, unless you strip worker well-being and the well-being of our society at large entirely from the cost assessment equation.

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Nonbottrumpaccount t1_j7iqey0 wrote

In what way was your assessment of this situation objective? You didn't offer a single piece of objective evidence that Google (or alphabet) doesn't care about the wellbeing of our society or its workers.

Objectively speaking they employ 10,000s of workers and compensate them extremely well relative to the average worker. They generate billions of dollars for investors, offer products that nearly the entire world uses and benefits from, have an incredible "green" record, and have donated billions to charity over the last 20 years.

On top of this, as others have pointed out in this thread, they hired a lot of people over the last two years and this workforce reduction, or whatever corporate buzzword they use, is taking them back to historic levels of employment.

Of course these companies are "greedy", they only exist if they make money. But relatively speaking, Google and pretty much all other fortune 50 companies, are probably the most generous to their employees and society.

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andrewrgross t1_j7j2cc2 wrote

As I said, I think our takes will differ based on what our metrics are.

My metrics include how much agency and stability do their employees feel they have? And how much stability does the larger industry workforce feel they have? How much of employees value addition goes to them versus investors? Does their user base have high trust and use their products enthusiastically? Reluctantly?

But that's the subjectivity. If you look at big tech and judge their success by, "do they make investors money?" then you will likely score a company highly that I think has a lot of room for improvement.

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