Thread regarding AT&T layoffs

Good article. OP is correct -- it precisely describes our leadership and our company's bureaucracy.

"We're talking about simplifying areas where we have unnecessary layers and removing bureaucracy to make sure the company works better," Pichai said. The thing is, the only reason any of that is true is because Google has built that bureaucracy and added those layers. That didn't happen on accident. It happened over time as the company grew and added managers and processes and products. It happened because of intentional choices about how to run the business. It just turns out that some of those choices didn't pan out.

"Part of leadership is also making the tough decisions that are needed," Pichai said in response to one question. While that's true, an even more important part of leadership is being accountable for those decisions. The changes at Google may be necessary, but only because of the decisions made by Pichai and his team. There's more than a little irony in the fact that Pichai leaves that part out. Of course, even as thousands of Google team members are being told they no longer have a job, Pichai is keeping his.

Until people stop falling for the free market BS these a.holes will continue to own us. People are foolish and fall for all the propaganda. I have no doubt that people will jump all over this post for being insufficiently reverential toward our "God given free enterprise system". It amuses me to see people fall all over themselves defending the system that is fattening the c-suite and impoverishing the rest. When are you going to get it fools.

When you work at ANY large corporation , unless you join with an ironclad contract that has a clear and lucrative seperation clause (ie . golden parachute for an executive), its simply a Faustian bargain, you commit to spending your time doing work for pay, but that's all your guaranteed, nothing more .

Too much of a power shift. Agree the execs are really out of touch at many companies. I think most have their marching orders from Wall St on RTO, so even though removing offices would be a huge cost savings, they were told to make everyone RTO to save Wall St commercial real estate portfolio. Thats why all the RTO announcements from just about every company sound the same. As for pay, yeah, pay has really fallen behind with inflation, people are struggling. Even managers here at ATT are struggling to keep up. Couple that with outsourcing, offshoring, layoffs, people are hurting. But I get the bottom line and costs, you have to make money. As for the stock price, that’s all they care about. No we aren’t a se-y company, we are a telecom, which is pretty much a utility at this point. Slow and steady growth is all we can do. We are in the long run of our business. They could cut all the marketing budgets and sponsorships and it wouldn’t barely impact the bottom line of sales, but would be a big cost reduction.

I think, generally, many CEOs and C-suites are egomaniacs and don't want to give an inch anymore to employees. There will be continued backlash until something pops and execs see the light. Could be this year, or next, or the next, but it will happen. Too much talent is leaving all these firms for them to continue on this path. C-suites are doing the exact opposite of everything I learned in my MBA program the last 2 years. It shocks the conscious imho.