Ever heard of getting a 300% hike in salary?
Yess, the search engine major, Google once offered such a hike to one of its employees who planned to switch jobs to Perplexity AI.
The incident was revealed by Aravind Srinivas, the CEO of Perplexity AI while presenting the Big Technology Podcast.
Basically, this indicates the length to which big tech giants are willing to go to retain their employees, said the IIT-Madras alumni Srinivas.
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Interestingly, the employee who received a massive salary hike was part of the ‘search team’ and had no direct involvement with its AI division, said Srinivas.
Layoffs In IT Industry
Srinivas further talks regarding the layoffs in the tech industry.
Pouring more light, he noted that the firm’s target those with high salaries who do not proportionately contribute to productivity.
The first month of this year has left tens of thousands without jobs, where the technical industry alone cut 32,000 roles.
Some Tough Decisions In Google
Talking about the same, Google CEO Sundar Pichai warned employees last month saying, “to brace themselves for more job cuts.”
Further adding that the company needs to make “tough choices” to create capacity for investments.
“We have ambitious goals and will be investing in our big priorities this year,” Pichai noted, in an internal memo to all Google employees.
Adding, “The reality is that to create the capacity for this investment, we have to make tough choices.”
In a closer look, Google has laid off over a thousand employees in various departments, since January 10.
Earlier, Pichai announced plans to cut approximately 12,000 jobs, forming almost 6% of its global workforce during 2023.
He said, “I have some difficult news to share. We’ve decided to reduce our workforce by approximately 12,000 roles. We’ve already sent a separate email to employees in the US who are affected. In other countries, this process will take longer due to local laws and practices,” in an open letter.
So Far, these layoffs at Alphabet consist of people belonging to dozens at the division for developing new technology X Lab.
But the major impact was in hundreds in the advertising sales team, hundreds across teams, including the hardware team responsible for Pixel, Nest, and Fitbit, and a majority in the augmented reality team.
