He was also pitched a question that wanted an explanation on Google’s “nickel-and-diming employees” by reducing the travel and swag budgets at a time when “Google has record profits and huge cash reserves”.
Pichai said that the company is being “a bit more responsible through one of the toughest macroeconomic conditions underway in the past decade” and that it;s important for them to pull together as a company to get through moments like this.
What he said on cost-cutting
On cost cutting, he said: “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.”
On why the company has shifted from “rapidly hiring and spending to equally aggressive cost saving”, Pichai said, “I’m a bit concerned that you think what we’ve done is what you would define as aggressive cost saving. I think it’s important we don’t get disconnected. You need to take a long-term view through conditions like this.”
He further said that Google was still pursuing investments in long term projects like quantum computing that it’s important to be “to be smart, to be frugal, to be scrappy, to be more efficient” in uncertain times.
Other issues
Employees also wanted to know why the company wanted them to return to the office and not connect in-person or travel.
His answer to this question was: “I do understand some of the travel restrictions at a time like this and RTO and people wanting to see each other, definitely is not ideal. If you haven’t seen your team in a while and it’ll help your work by getting together in person, I think you can do that. I think that’s why we are not saying no to travel, we are giving discretion to teams.”
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