Cost-cutting, efficiency, and macroeconomics seem to be the keywords that Google CEO Sundar Pichai has been using rather frequently in front of his employees for the majority of this quarter. Now, at a companywide meeting this week, Pichai told employees not to ‘equate fun with money’.
Reportedly, during the meeting, which turned heated at times according to sources, Pichai was asked by an employee as to why the company, despite recording profits and high cash reserves was slashing travel budgets, allowances, and other perks.
“I remember when Google was small and scrappy. Fun didn’t always…we shouldn’t always equate fun with money. I think you can walk into a hard-working startup and people may be having fun and it shouldn’t always equate to money,” said Pichai in response.
Talking about the uncertainty in macroeconomics, the Google boss further added, “How do I say it? Look, I hope all of you are reading the news, externally. The fact that you know, we are being a bit more responsible through one of the toughest macroeconomic conditions underway in the past decade, I think it’s important that as a company, we pull together to get through moments like this,”
It is pertinent to note that Pichai’s statements come in the backdrop of Alphabet Inc., Google’s parent company reporting a second successive quarter of weaker-than-expected earnings and revenue in July.
As reported by WION, earlier this month as well, Pichai talked about the company taking a more conservative approach when it came to hiring and simultaneously increasing the efficiency of the employees as the macroeconomics remained uncertain.
Read more: Sundar Pichai hints at slashing Google workforce, wants company 20% more efficient
“We want to make sure as a company, when you have fewer resources than before, you are prioritizing all the right things to be working on and your employees are really productive that they can actually have impact on the things they’re working on so that’s what we are spending our time on,”
The Google boss further added that as a company they were looking to get 20 per cent more productive, “Across everything we do, we can be slower to make decisions. You look at it end-to-end and figure out how to make the company 20 per cent more productive.”
Read more: Google to slow down hiring, says Sundar Pichai in a memo to staff
(With inputs from agencies)
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