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☆ Googlers reportedly grilled execs over low morale after staff missed out on pay rises while earnings surged
▼ + stars: | 2024-05-10 | by ( Beatrice Nolan | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Read previewGoogle execs have been facing tough questions from employees after the company reported blowout earnings last month. The company reported a year-on-year revenue increase of about 15% and issued its first dividend of 20 cents a share . Googlers wanted to know why the revenue boost wasn't leading to higher pay or an end to some of the company's cost-cutting measures, CNBC reported. AdvertisementHowever, a Google spokesperson told CNBC most employees would receive a pay raise this year, including equity grants and bonuses. AdvertisementDuring the all-hands, Pichai told workers the company had hired too much staff during the pandemic, per CNBC.

Persons: —, Googlers, Sundar Pichai, Ruth Porat, Pichai Organizations: Service, Business, CNBC, Finance, TED, Google

☆ Four Google execs got 200% stock payouts for 2023 after strong company performance
▼ + stars: | 2024-05-02 | by ( Shubhangi Goel | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Four Google executives will receive 200% performance-based stock payouts in 2023. Google's senior VP and chief business officer each got $35 million in stock for 2023. AdvertisementGoogle parent company Alphabet paid four of its executives tens of millions of dollars in stock payouts for 2023, based on the company's public-markets performance. AdvertisementA 200% stock payout raised the total stock value for Porat and Walker's 2023 compensation to $23 million each. The executives' compensation was approved in early February after a tumultuous year for the company.

Persons: Google's, —, Ruth Porat, Prabhakar Raghavan, Philipp Schindler, Kent Walker, Raghavan, Schindler, Sundar Pichai Organizations: Google, Service, Twitter

☆ Google's old guard shifts roles as the company searches for itself
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-21 | by ( Jennifer Elias | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +5 min

Jeff Kowalsky | Bloomberg | Getty ImagesA string of Google executives have changed their roles in the span of several months, in a shift that has sidelined many of company's remaining old guard. The changes encompass high-profile executives such as CFO Ruth Porat, YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki, and employee No. Some say they have left their roles for a new challenge and others have left to seek opportunities in AI. While she'll still be in an advisory role at Google, she said, she wanted to "start a new chapter." Google's AI head, Jeff Dean, who's been at Google since 1999, became a chief scientist as part of the change.

Persons: Ruth Porat, Jeff Kowalsky, Susan Wojcicki, Urs Hölzle, Susan Wojcicki —, Sergey Brin, Larry Page, she'll, Robert Kyncl, David Lawee, Hölzle, Morgan Stanley, Porat, Courtenay Mencini, who've, it's, OpenAI, Sundar Pichai, Google execs, Prabhakar Raghavan, HJ Kim, Geoffrey Hinton, Demis, James Manyika, Jeff Dean, who's, It's Organizations: Inc, Michigan Central Station, Bloomberg, Getty, Google, YouTube, Warner Music Group, CapitalG, CNBC, New York Times, McKinsey, Google Research Locations: Detroit , Michigan, Silicon Valley

☆ Google execs admit users are 'not quite happy' with search experience after Reddit blackouts
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-26 | by ( Jennifer Elias | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

Google users have long been able to append their search queries with the term "Reddit" to find helpful resources on specific topics. When thousands of Reddit forums went dark earlier this month, that tactic lost its effectiveness. "Many of you may wonder how we have a search team that's iterating and building all this new stuff and yet somehow, users are still not quite happy," Raghavan said. "What can we do to improve the user experience on the core product that made Google a household name?" At its annual developer conference in May, the company said it was experimenting with an effort called Search Generative Experience, which still isn't available to the public, showing more in-depth results powered by generative AI.

Persons: Prabhakar Raghavan, Google's, Raghavan, that's, Bard Organizations: Google, YouTube, CNBC Locations: U.S

☆ Laid-off Google employees may not get paid out for approved maternity or medical leave as severance terms deadline looms
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-17 | by ( Jordan Hart | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Former Googlers are pleading with execs to compensate them for approved paid time off following mass layoffs, CNBC reported. The "Laid off on Leave" group said they've sent three letters to CEO Sundar Pichai and company leaders. In a statement to CNBC, a Google spokesperson emphasized the existing severance package mentioned in Pichai's January memo to staff. Others reported having their access to Google's on-site One Medical facility cut off the same day they were laid off. The Laid off on Leave group reiterated this notion in their letters to the C-suite execs, and referenced Google's original core value, "Don't be evil."

Last month, Google started testing limited news censorship as a potential response to a Canadian government bill that aims to compel online platforms to pay publishers in Canada for news content. Google has claimed that the test is like thousands of other product tests the company conducts on a regular basis. The tests, which the company says affected less than 4% of Canadian users, began on Feb. 9 and were scheduled to run for five weeks. Speaking to a parliamentary committee investigating the tests, Google's public policy manager Jason Kee confirmed that the tests would end next week. During the panel, questions were raised about local journalism outlets, like the 13-14 local, weekly papers that MP Martin Shields has in his riding.

☆ Two Google engineers built a ChatGPT-like AI chatbot years ago, but execs reportedly shut it down due to safety concerns
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-08 | by ( Aaron Mok | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Ex-Google engineers developed a conversational AI chatbot years ago, per The Wall Street Journal. Google is now racing to catch up with Microsoft's AI and plans to release its AI chatbot this year. "It caused a bit of a stir inside of Google," Shazeer said in an interview with investors Aarthi Ramamurthy and Sriram Krishnan last month. But Google's AI plans may now finally see the light of day, even as discussions around whether its chatbot can be responsibly launched continue. Alphabet chairman John Hennessy agreed that Google's chatbot wasn't "really ready for a product yet."

☆ Google execs tell employees in testy all-hands meeting that Bard A.I. isn't just about search
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-03 | by ( Jennifer Elias | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +10 min

In the lead up to the Bard announcement, Google executives repeatedly said the technology it was developing internally would integrate with search. “We’re working to bring these latest AI advancements into our products, starting with Search,” the company said in a blog post. That same week, at an event in Paris, Google search boss Prabhakar Raghavan unveiled some fresh examples of using Bard within search. "You see the stories of ChatGPT coincides with an event that we’re having that was actually focused on search," Krawczyk said. Specifically, the question asked why Google lost so many key people who were listed on a paper about much of the AI technology behind Bard.

☆ Google asks employees to rewrite Bard's bad responses, says the A.I. 'learns best by example'
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-15 | by ( Jennifer Elias | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +1 min

Google execs understand that the company's artificial intelligence search tool Bard isn't always accurate in how it responds to queries. The email, which CNBC viewed, included a link to a do’s and don’ts page with instructions on how employees should fix responses as they test Bard internally. "Bard learns best by example, so taking the time to rewrite a response thoughtfully will go a long way in helping us to improve the mode," the document says. Google unveiled its conversation technology last week, but a series of missteps around the announcement pushed the stock price down nearly 9%. Employees criticized Pichai for the mishaps, describing the rollout internally as “rushed,” “botched” and “comically short sighted.”

☆ Googlers prize 'psychological safety,' but it won't save them from layoffs
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-25 | by ( Rebecca Knight | Shana Lebowitz | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

Some Google employees said the company's layoffs violated its commitment to psychological safety. Research suggests that psychological safety is critical to team success and helps drive creativity, build resiliency, and improve decision-making. "It's so important to be clear that psychological safety is not the same thing as job security," Amy Edmondson, a professor at Harvard Business School who pioneered research on psychological safety, told Insider. Google execs said psychological safety doesn't guarantee job securityAt the all-hands meeting, Google's leadership took issue with the notion that it breached its commitment to psychological safety. "Psychological safety is about interpersonal dynamics, not about economic or organizational reality," he told Insider, adding, "You can still have psychological safety without necessarily having job security."

☆ Google's management has reportedly issued a 'code red' amid the rising popularity of the ChatGPT AI
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-21 | by ( Aaron Mok | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Google issued a "code red" in response to the rise of AI bot ChatGPT, NYT reports. CEO Sundar Pichai redirected some teams to focus on building out AI products, per the report. The move comes as talks abound over whether ChatGPT could one day replace Google's search engine. ChatGPT "is not something that people can use reliably on a daily basis," Zoubin Ghahramani, who leads the Google's A.I. Instead, Google may focus on improving its search engine over time rather than taking it down, experts told the Times.

☆ Many laid-off tech workers are bouncing back stronger than ever. Here's why.
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-15 | by ( Diamond Naga Siu | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

I'm almost certain that this prescient verse was talking about how over half the tech workers who got laid off recently are now earning more than what they made before, according to new analysis. Laid-off tech workers are actually finding jobs quickly. Because tech workers are typically college-educated, with specialized skills in high demand across many industries, their chances of finding new jobs are pretty good in any economy. But right now, those odds are unusually good — and many tech workers are bouncing back stronger than ever. Even though tech companies are doing terribly right now, a lot of businesses in other industries are fine.

☆ Google execs say the company isn't launching a ChatGPT competitor because it has greater 'reputational risk' than startups like OpenAI
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-14 | by ( Britney Nguyen | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Employees asked execs if failing to launch a chatbot like OpenAI's ChatGPT is a "missed opportunity," CNBC reported. Alphabet's CEO and Google's head of AI said the company has a greater "reputational risk" than startups like OpenAI. ChatGPT reached over one million users within five days of its launch, and is backed by Google's rival, Microsoft. In addition to LaMDA, Google's BERT and MUM AI language models, which are used to improve its search engine, are competitive with ChatGPT. A former Google executive told Bloomberg that ChatGPT could "disrupt" Google's ad business by stopping users from clicking links that have ads.

☆ Google execs warn company's reputation could suffer if it moves too fast on AI-chat technology
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-13 | by ( Jennifer Elias | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +7 min

Some of them are wondering where Google is in the race to create sophisticated chatbots that can answer user queries. After all, Google's prime business is web search, and the company has long touted itself as a pioneer in AI. Billions of people across the globe use Google's search engine, while ChatGPT just crossed 1 million users in early December. Taking Google 'for granted'Employees had other concerns about Google search. Industry estimates still show that Google holds at least 90% of the search market, and the company remains under scrutiny by regulators.

Google employees are increasingly concerned that layoffs will hit their company, as rivals including Amazon and Meta slash more than 20,000 jobs. From the end of 2018 to earlier this year, the company added almost 100,000 full-time staff, nearly doubling the workforce. "There's a lot of people openly nervous," another Google employee said, while noting that Googlers have been posting internal memes to express their anxiety. "Performance plans are the next step if folks don't respond to the check-ins," a person familiar with the changes said. 'Google execs will want to cut people'Widespread layoffs at Google would be unprecedented.

☆ Google adds new search features to try to give users the 'vibe' of a city or neighborhood
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-28 | by ( Jennifer Elias | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

Google launches new "vibe" feature that allows users to show the business, weather and features of a particular location on any given day. Google now says it has enough local data to predict a neighborhood's “vibes" in search results. It's part of the way Google is more tightly integrating maps data as it redesigns its search features to go beyond text and images. The features combine artificial intelligence with local data from Google Maps users who add more than 20 million “contributions” including reviews, photos and videos, the company said. The "immersive view," will be able to combine aerial views with weather, traffic and crowds data.

☆ Everything you'll need to know about Amazon's second Prime Day
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-27 | by ( Jordan Parker Erb | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

That's right: Amazon has confirmed it's hosting another Prime Day-esque event, slated to take place next month. It's official: Amazon is hosting a second "Prime Day" sales event. Here's what we know so far:The "Prime Early Access Sale," will be held on October 11 and 12. As with Prime Day, the Prime Early Access Sale is exclusively available to Amazon Prime subscribers. But as long as you sign up before the event ends on October 12, you'll be able to partake.

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