Tech Tumult: Google's Bold Move and the Future of Global Teams

Everybody, welcome back to the Ally from Corporate Podcast. You know, I got Rico here with me today. We're talking about a hot topic. I'm not sure what it is yet, but Rico tells me it's sizzling tea again. If you're listening on Spotify or Apple. Thank you. If you're turning in and tuning in and watching on YouTube, even better because you can see our smiling faces. If you are interested in career, anything corporate climbing that ladder, you are in the right place. That is what this podcast is all about. So, Rico, what are we talking about today?

Today I got a super interesting topic to you to. To ask you some questions and I am going to see if this person did a savage business move or if it's going to end in a cluster bomb that's going to explode in their faces like you wouldn't believe. You ready?

Yeah. Give it to me straight.

Okay. Google CEO Sundar Pichai LED or whatever, you know that that CEO of Google, they laid off their whole Python team and guess what? You use to program AI Python. Python. So they laid that off. They're going to do offshore. Yeah. So in the news article, it basically says that he fired his entire team and he's going to move it offshore and see where things are going to go Offshore. And you and I hired people offshore and it never ended really well because of time difference, cultural differences, and then.

To get communication challenges, misunderstanding with skill levels, we had a number of challenges. And that's not to say that there aren't people in those countries that would do a great job. But you and I have always tried to save money by hiring freelancers in that area of the world. And we've learned that you get what you pay for. So I'm interested to see where this goes. And also this is the second podcast I've been in this month where Sundar Pichiri's name has come up and I have not known how to pronounce it. So it's time. I'm going to look it up. Sundar Pichai. There we go. Super interesting. You think he's doing this to save money?

No, Google does not need to save money. Google has an infinite money printing machine and it is trying to. I think it's weak leadership. I think it's stupidity on their end. And I feel like it is. I think, and I'm seeing this a lot with CEOs. They're thinking of today's problem. They're thinking about where's it today. They're not thinking big vision. 30, 30, 30 years down the road where Google's going to be, they're thinking about, oh no, now we're behind an AI, so let's just keep doing something. And the Google ecosystem is so beautiful with Android and all these other things that they got that come together with Gmail, Google Drive and all that is so beautiful. But if you have weak leadership, and that's why I sometimes think that These leaders, these CEOs, just like Jamie Dimon, the CEO of Jay. Oh yeah, I think he's a J. It's one of these big banks. You showed me that podcast, completely out of touch with reality, completely out of touch with the normal common folks. And I believe if you're in the club of these CEOs, like Google CEOs, Elon Musk, CEO, all these big CEOs of big banks of big corporations, they're so wealthy, they don't know what's going on at the bottom of their company. They just don't. They're so rich, they're so wealthy, they don't know. I bet you if you ask them what a gallon of milk costs at the store, they couldn't tell you.

They probably haven't been to the grocery store for themselves in a long time. So you said something interesting that he's only thinking like a couple months into the future when he should be thinking years or a decade into the future. But playing devil's advocate, it would be very hard to strategize and have a vision for years and years in the future when technology and AI specifically is changing so rapidly right now. So I see the challenge, but I do think he's doing this to save money. And I haven't read the article. I'm going to go read it after this. But I mean, what other benefit would that be?

So let me ask you this. If you're, if it's an ever fast changing environment, how fast, how agile can your team be? If you have cultural variance, time zone variants and all these other things that come with being abroad. So slow.

Like huge companies are slow moving elephants through a forest and startups are like little mice that just scurry through the forest and they can get through quicker because they don't have as much mass and they can pivot on a dime and they can go different directions with the blow of the wind. So yeah, Google, I mean, this will be an interesting, interesting move that they're making and I'm interested to see like what happens because remember when Elon Musk took over Twitter or X and he laid off a ton of people. And then suddenly there was testing code in the, in like the production environment and people were like, what is this? You guys laid off some pretty important people, obviously. So it doesn't always go well.

Yeah, but see, the thing is, Elon Musk laid off people because he thought it was overstaffed and he didn't lay off the whole future of the business. So if he would have laid off everybody from coding and he only kept on janitors and vice presidents and everybody else was cut, where are you going to be in the future? What's your future going to look like at the company? So these were core people and now, you know, you had these probably these people are highly skilled or they wouldn't be at Google. Right? And now there's no more non competes. Right. And now so what do they do? They go to OpenAI, they go to Microsoft, they go to all these other places that will welcome them with open arms, being like, oh, you worked on the Google stuff, come over here. And they, and I read some somewhere in it that they said, oh, they can find something else in the Google organization or whatnot and try to absorb them like that. But if I was a coder like that, I'd be like, nah, they just, they just screwed me over big time. Let me just bounce out of here and go to another place where I'm actually appreciated. You go to OpenAI where you're at the forefront of it, or you go to another company that is a startup that you're actually going to be making change.

And the non compete thing is super crazy that they finally got rid of that. I hated non competes because. And the companies had non competes for two reasons, I believe. One is so that they wouldn't spend their time, money and resources and energy training you. And then you go and leave and work at their competitor and their competitor got a trained employee for free. And the second reason is because people who work for these companies know the inner workings of the algorithm, the software, the hardware, the design, the patents, the intellectual property, the vision and strategy of the company, the finances of the company. And so if you go to your competitor, sometimes the competitor can talk you into divulging secrets. Remember that guy I met with recently who used to work for that one company I worked for? And he said that the startup he was working for said, we know you just came from our competitor. What's their, you know, what are their patents? What motors do they use? What vendor did they use? And he told me, he's like, I definitely didn't feel comfortable Saying that, telling them any information about what motors we used at the old company, what vendors and what specs we used. And the leadership team literally took him aside and told him, if you don't give us this information, you don't have a future here. That's crazy.

But now he can legally say it.

Well, now he's job searching.

But you know. Yeah, it's crazy. But see, when you let your core team go, it's like at one of your old companies, if they let every manufacturer engineer go and they just keep executives and everything else, but there's no more manufacturing engineers, how's the product going to get done? How is there going to be innovation? And then they're like, oh, we're going to outsource everything to.

But I don't think that's what happened. Let me see, let me look up the article. Because you're saying he let go of his. That they only have janitors and CEOs left. I highly doubt that. So let's see. So Google. So this is from Business Today. Google layoffs, Sundar led company allegedly fires entire Python team. So. Oh, they're building a new team in Munich.

Yeah. Yep. So they're outsourced in. They're outsourcing. Yep.

Okay, so Google plans to hire cheaper labor outside the US to reduce costs for the company.

Yep.

Wow. There's a guy who had a 20 year career at Google and he just got laid off. Okay, I definitely need to read this article. That's crazy. I'm hearing from so many people that they're getting laid off, their husbands are getting laid off, their kids are getting laid off. And you know what's interesting to me? If anybody knows the answer to this, please comment below or like DM me or email me. Do you know if somebody's let go and they get a severance and they're not eligible for unemployment, do they still get counted in the unemployment numbers? Because I got laid off in August. I did get a severance. I tried to file for unemployment and they wouldn't give it to me.

No, you're not counted. You are not counted. Unemployment is. That's how they skew the numbers, really. You need to be filed, accounted for to, to make sure that everything works out. And if you're not in that parameter metrics, you're not counted for.

Wow. So all these companies are laying people off, giving them severance.

Yeah.

And then I think I saw somewhere that, yeah, the CEO of JP Morgan just said that unemployment's only 4%, which is like as low as it ever is. I don't think I'm being counted as the unemployed, but technically, right now I'm unemployed. I don't think I'm part of the numbers. And all those people that got laid off with me last year, I don't think they're counted either.

Nope. And that's how they skew the numbers, and that's how they can come out and scream, the economy is doing so great, and we've added so many jobs or there's so many job listings active. That's like saying that if you move to West Palm beach, one of the most expensive areas, and there's 50 houses for sale, and you just take that into consideration. You just take that spot, that small island, and say, oh, and apply it to the whole nation. And there's like, oh, the average house price is only $50 million per. Per. Per house. But you just took a small bite of the whole state and applied it through it. Right. And so that's what they're doing. They're taking a small amount of data and saying, oh, the great picture's big, but when you look into it, it's really not.

That's shady. I don't like it.

But that's how statistics work. That's really how statistics work. Right.

That's how bias works. And you're not supposed to do statistics like that. But. But everybody's. Everybody's saying, oh, the economy is doing great right now. Unemployment's really low. And they're saying the labor force participation is really high, meaning the amount of people who are able to work. Right now, the majority are working, like a high number. Like people between, I don't know, 16 and 70, but I don't know. This is crazy times we're in.

Yeah, it is absolutely crazy. And there's so many people that are heard about it. And now we're looking at these big tech companies that are like, oh, we'll. We'll outsource. I think Covid was a blessing and was a curse because it told companies, oh, you don't need to have us employees. But as I figured out myself, I always thought that outsourcing was the greatest thing on earth. You know, like, you go to a. A cheaper place and you get labor that are highly skilled from another place. But then comes to find out time changes, cultural differences, and your people are fed up. People are really fed up with not having customer support, not having. Talking to robots, talking to these AI bots that are. If you have an issue of like, hey, just. Just chat with me you know, 24 7. And then it's like, oh, you need an agent for this. Every other question's like, oh, you need an agent for this.

You know what this is reminding me? When you talked with bluehost this week and you probably have spent two or three hours on customer support phone calls with bluehost recently, on multiple phone calls. And I, I could just tell by the way they were helping you and not helping you that they had outsourced their customer service team. And it was very clear they didn't know their product, they didn't know how to best serve their customer base. And it was just so clear there was a huge gap there. Remember how frustrating that was?

Yeah. And they didn't put me on mute. And I hear them talk in a different language, so I know they're not. Even though they get names. And I've actually called somebody from VRBO or something. And then they're like, oh, we're located all over. Like, oh, it seems like you have an accent from the Philippines. And then they're like, yeah, that's where I'm located. But we're a global team. That's what they say. They can't give you the location, but we're a global team. And I feel like customers aren't, you know, like, companies should focus more on the customer than on their shareholders, because if they focus more on the core customers, they will make their shareholders happy with giving a better value. But the company's so worried about their quarterly earnings and making and satisfying their.

Shareholders, they're taking shortcuts and cutting corners. And you. I can tell. I can tell. And I want to be clear. Like, we're not saying there's anything wrong with diversity of thought, diversity of background, diversity of geological origin. I'm all for a global team, but if you're going to have people spread all over the world, all over the country that are going to be providing for your customer, you better be so aligned. Even more so than when we were all in the same office together. You need even better communication. And I, I'm going to be watching, like, what happens with this Google team because, yeah, now they're dispersed in the job market and they are top candidates that are going to be hired. And who knows if Google's team is going to suffer if, if they're going to be able to maintain company culture across international lines and still be able to serve their, their customers.

You know, you said something interesting. You know, I'm all for having teams that are around the world, you know, like, oh, you can do it. But the time zone is a huge barrier. So if you're not in the right time zone, communication just gets 10x harder. And I. I'm working with a global team. I'm, you know, my Airbnb manager is globally located. And it's really hard because I know that there's a time zone that he's in where he's not that active because there's change in, you know, where he goes home and somebody else comes because 24 7. Yeah. So there's. There's all that and it's. And it's great, but it's not. It saves you money. But in the long term, I think that's going to hurt companies and it hurts. Yeah, it hurts your bottom line at the end.

It hurts your brand image, too. Now, I do not like Bluehost. I'd probably buy a domain from GoDaddy next time. Like, that sucked. What we had to go through. Also, before we end, one more little, like, metaphor here. Remember when my grandma was in the hospital and you and I used to visit her in the hospital and you could tell when the nurses had changed their shifts because a new one would come and they would have no idea what happened in the last nurse's shift. And we'd have to, like, update them and they'd have. They were like, oh, we just have to follow the protocol. We just have to follow the protocol. I think these teams that, like, freelance and outsource to you have SOPs, and you have systems and processes that you train them on. But I think in a lot of cases, things slip through the cracks. Little details, little nuances, and they crack this facade that reaches the customer and you can just sniff out bad communication within a company.

Yeah. I think that AI has huge possibilities through AI, not like the Amazon AI where they said, we have a thousand people in India monitoring the store at all time. And then if you put something back, we'll return it and when you walk out with it. But true AI, where it's going to be like 247 and just really specific for this one task, like monitor the patient's heart rate and every deviation will be shown and documented. Or everything know it will record just everything.

Yeah.

At a hospital. So that's going to be really interesting.

Yeah, super interesting. It's a crazy world we're living in, but thank goodness we have this podcast so we can update people on the happenings in the world of tech and the working world, the workforce. I think this was a great episode. We talked about a lot. But, yeah, if you're listening, if you're watching, thanks for tuning in. Make sure to give us a good rating if you have been enjoying this podcast. I love getting good ratings. You guys know that if you watch my Instagram, our little Airbnb nightmare recently. But that's neither here nor there. Let's wrap this up. This was great. Thank you for joining, as always, sweetheart.

And I'll see you in the next one.

See you guys. Bye.