In a company-wide meeting held this week at Google, the CEO, Sundar Pichai, received some heated questions from the frustrated employees, who seemed disturbed by the loss of some perks. Google has been facing some productivity breakdowns for quite some time, and this can be confirmed from internal audio that CNBC procured recently. The audio reveals that the conflict between employees at Google and their CEO is continuously gaining momentum amid concerns regarding the “slowdown” in their entertainment budget.
Responding to their queries at the meeting, Pichai said, “I remember when Google was small and scrappy. We shouldn’t always equate fun with money. I think you can walk into a hard-working start-up and people may be having fun, and it shouldn’t always equate to money. ” He said this because the employees were frustrated with keeping them short of the facilities like entertainment, traveling, staffing, etc. To that, Pichai addressed them by saying that it’s not always about the money, sometimes you have to work hard and get rewarded instead of any monetary benefit.
However, the main reason for all the cost cuts is the financial condition of Google. This is because, for the past two years, Google has not been living up to its forecasts, and recently, it has been reported that the earnings for the third quarter at Google have been anticipated to be 40% less than those reported in the previous year. All of this accounts for the economic factors at the company, which seems to be a little bit tough for the company in terms of its financial growth. As already noted, the employees are not happy at all.
Citing all these issues, the CEO responded, “Look, I hope all of you are reading the news. We are being a bit more responsible through one of the toughest macroeconomic conditions underway in the past decade. ” On the other hand, he was also questioned regarding the cuts in pay and other additional incentives, whether these measures have been implemented for the top executives or not, to which Pichai preferred to not answer the questions and rather said, “I think it’s important that as a company. We pull together to get through moments like this. “