It has not been a good week for big tech firms and public image, with the Uber Files disclosing some illicit practices at the ride sharing firm and now Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai has sent out a memo to employees essentially telling them to work harder or else.
While Pichai did not use those precise words, the phrases and messaging in his company memo do not need massive amounts of interpretation to understand what he is alluding too.
To that end, the Alphabet CEO framed his memo within the current economic circumstances being felt across the globe and the continuing uncertainty surrounding them.
“Like all companies, we’re not immune to economic headwinds. We need to be more entrepreneurial working with greater urgency, sharper focus, and more hunger than we’ve shown on sunnier days,” his memo stated.
As such, it looks like Pichai is wanting employees to do more with less, which is often a rhetoric used to instruct employees to work harder, along with warning them that harder times are ahead.
He also informed employees that the hiring frequency will be far less than was seen in the second quarter of this year, with Pichai noting an estimated 10 000 people being hired at Google during that time. Moving forward, that will change significantly, with it stretching into next year too.
“Because of the hiring progress achieved so far this year, we’ll be slowing the pace of hiring for the rest of the year, while still supporting our most important opportunities. For the balance of 2022 and 2023, the company will focus on hiring on engineering, technical and other critical roles,” added Pichai.
At the time of writing, access to said memo has not been made publicly available, nor has Google chosen to comment on the matter.
With Google, and by extension Alphabet, having a sketchy recent history when it comes to treatment of employees and company culture at the C-Suite level, it is unclear what the coming years will hold for the tech giant.
The closing remarks from Sundar Pichai do seem foreboding though. “Scarcity breeds clarity,” he noted.
“I’m excited for us to rise to the moment again,” the CEO concluded.
