In the wake of significant layoffs at Alphabet Inc.’s Google GOOGL, current and former employees are openly expressing dissatisfaction with the company’s leadership.
The recent layoffs, which affected several hundred individuals from Google’s ad sales team and about a thousand from its Pixel, Fitbit, and Nest divisions, have triggered a wave of criticism according to the New York Post.
Among the critics is Diane Hirsh Theriault, a software engineer at Google, who took to LinkedIn to voice her concerns. Theriault’s critique of the management at Google was stark, describing the leadership as lacking in vision and innovation.
“From the C-suite to the SVPs to the VPs, they are all profoundly boring and glassy-eyed,” she wrote on her LinkedIn page.
This sentiment was echoed by other employees, who were particularly aggrieved by CEO Sundar Pichai‘s approach to communicating the layoffs.
Following these layoffs, Pichai hinted at the possibility of more job cuts in the future, though he assured they would not be as extensive as those from the previous year.
In an internal memo, he spoke of the company’s ambitious goals and the necessity of making difficult decisions.
Kenneth Smith, a former engineering manager at Google, shared his perspective on LinkedIn, emphasizing the importance of personal interaction in such situations.
“Call me old school, but I think that if you find yourself in a situation where you need to let someone go, you owe it to them to meet them face-to-face, look them in the eyes, and acknowledge their humanity,” he wrote.
Smith also reflected on his own feelings of anger and frustration towards Google’s leadership, particularly regarding how they managed the layoffs of 12,000 colleagues last year.
As reported by the Post, Gergely Orosz, a software engineer and tech commentator, joined the chorus of criticism, labeling Google as a “faceless corporation” on social media platform X.
In response to the layoffs, a Google representative emphasized the company’s commitment to responsibly investing in its priorities and supporting affected employees in finding new roles.
