Google’s cruel January

Hi, it's Davey in New York and Julia in San Francisco. Google is cutting and cutting and cutting. But first...Three things you need to know [View in browser]( [Bloomberg]( Hi, it's Davey in New York and Julia in San Francisco. Google is cutting and cutting and cutting. But first... Three things you need to know today: • Google plans to invest $1 billion in [new UK data center]( • Meta pushes for [generative AI watermarking standards]( • Vision Pro isn’t likely to [help Apple’s struggling shares]( Slow, steady, invisible TS Eliot might beg to differ, but January is the cruelest month for Googlers. In January 2023, about 12,000 Alphabet Inc. employees were jolted with the news that they’d lost their jobs. Many didn’t know anything was amiss until they found they couldn’t log into their work email accounts. Some had recently been promoted. The layoffs sent shock waves through the Silicon Valley. While Google had occasionally done reorganizations that forced employees to find new jobs within the company or pack their bags, mass layoffs were considered out of bounds. One year later, it’s become clear that that very bad day in January was not an aberration. Layoffs have apparently become part of the company’s MO. In keeping with the new tradition, Google last week [cut hundreds of jobs]( in hardware, central engineering and teams working on the company’s voice-based Google Assistant. But there’s a catch this time. Rather than happening in one fell swoop, the cuts are slowly rippling across the company all month long. Google has declined to say exactly how many jobs are being eliminated, offering only vague ballpark figures — a “few hundred” jobs cut from the Assistant team, “several hundred” from hardware. In an email sent to Googlers on Wednesday, Alphabet Chief Executive Officer Sundar Pichai addressed the ongoing cuts for the first time. The internal reorgs and elimination of some roles, he wrote, was about “removing layers to simplify execution and drive velocity in some areas.” The layoffs align with another cycle of retrenchment in tech. Amazon.com Inc. cut hundreds of workers across its content creation units, including [Prime Video]( and the live-streaming site [Twitch](. Unity Software Inc., maker of software powering mobile games like Pokémon Go, said it’s [reducing its workforce]( by 25%, or about 1,800 jobs. Duolingo Inc., which makes the popular language learning app, [cut 10% of contractors](, partly because of a greater reliance on artificial intelligence. Though the industry’s workforce reductions haven’t cut as deeply as last year’s, some tech companies have signaled a new strategy of rolling layoffs. Google, which often acts as a weather vane for cultural shifts in the Valley, has once again helped set the tone. “We’ve seen those slow, steady, invisible layoffs that have been happening in bits and pieces,” said one Googler who lost his job, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of professional repercussions. “It just kills the morale of this company.” The approach makes it hard to quantify the true scale of the cuts. Public filings offer some clues: A disclosure filed by Google in California revealed that 630 workers in the state were dismissed in early January, including four vice presidents and 25 directors. (Employees at those levels typically earn millions of dollars in yearly compensation, according to a person with knowledge of the matter.) One worker [wrote](on X, formerly known as Twitter, that he’d been cut after 19 years at the company. The exit of such senior, long-serving talent leaves workers with the impression that no one is safe. Some Googlers are trying to fight back. The Alphabet Workers Union organized demonstrations at five Google campuses on Thursday under the banner Googlers Against Layoffs. “For the first time in the company’s history, we are seeing layoffs become business as usual at Google,” Stephen McMurtry, a senior software engineer at Google and communications chair of the Alphabet Workers Union-CWA, said in a statement. Google has framed the layoffs as a necessary step to free up resources to invest in AI, which has emerged as an existential crisis. And the pain may not be confined to January. In the email this week to Googlers, Pichai wrote that teams would continue to assess their operations “throughout the year where needed, and some roles may be impacted.” —[Davey Alba](mailto:malba13@bloomberg.net) and [Julia Love](mailto:jlove78@bloomberg.net) The big story Quantum computers may allow for more [complex transactions in financial markets](. New technologies like it could drive innovations and redefine the meaning of payments. Get fully charged Sam Altman discussed AI-related worries, describing them as [more stressful than his OpenAI firing](. Masimo’s CEO said people are better off without Apple’s smartwatch [blood oxygen feature](. A Brazilian payment startup’s ambitions include [expanding to the US and outer space](. More from Bloomberg Get Bloomberg Tech weeklies in your inbox: - [Cyber Bulletin]( for coverage of the shadow world of hackers and cyber-espionage - [Game On]( for reporting on the video game business - [Power On]( for Apple scoops, consumer tech news and more - [Screentime]( for a front-row seat to the collision of Hollywood and Silicon Valley - [Soundbite]( for reporting on podcasting, the music industry and audio trends - [Q&AI]( for answers to all your questions about AI Follow Us Like getting this newsletter? [Subscribe to Bloomberg.com]( for unlimited access to trusted, data-driven journalism and subscriber-only insights. Want to sponsor this newsletter? [Get in touch here](. You received this message because you are subscribed to Bloomberg's Tech Daily newsletter. If a friend forwarded you this message, [sign up here]( to get it in your inbox. [Unsubscribe]( [Bloomberg.com]( [Contact Us]( Bloomberg L.P. 731 Lexington Avenue, New York, NY 10022 [Ads Powered By Liveintent]( [Ad Choices](