

Google To Cut 200 Jobs - physcab
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/03/changes-to-our-sales-and-marketing.html

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prakash
Most companies conveniently avoid doing a RCA (Root cause analysis) on why
these folks were hired in the first place, who hired them, and who was
responsible for _created overlapping organizations_.

Firing that person would really help Google, alas in most cases that is some
VP making the firing decisions and is obviously not going to fire
himself/herself.

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sketerpot
Perhaps it was an experiment. Hire people to do a bunch of things, then get
rid of the ones that don't work. Science! Maybe!

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ktharavaad
At least they are firing sales and marketing people and not engineers.

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kailashbadu
And why is that better?

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old-gregg
Perhaps because they realize that the company's long-term future depends on
products people want, as opposed to products people are being convinced they
want?

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krav
As someone who's been on the sales and marketing side (and is now on the Angel
side), I agree. When I look at potential investments, if it's an internet
company run by MBAs or sales and marketing folks, I immediately pass.

Invest in and keep the people who build stuff. They're the talent. The rest
(with exceptions, of course) can always be brought back in, outsourced, etc.

~~~
jwilliams
Ouch.

So much negativity in these threads. They are just stereotypes.

There are (some) bad MBAs, sales and marketing folks out there saying "I'll
pass on the techies - it's just grunt work, I can get it done for nothing in
(insert country here)". Stereotypes again.

Google has simply decided that their marketing department is too big. It
happens. Particularly when you acquire a lot of companies as Google does
(other shared functions such as HR, Finance are in a similar boat).

From the vibe of this thread you'd think they're getting rid of their
marketing function entirely.

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palish
He's saying that sales and marketing is less valuable than engineering, not
that it's not valuable, which is (usually) true. If you had to lay off a bunch
of your staff, wouldn't you lay off the least valuable ones? It's not a
personal decision, it's a business decision.

~~~
jwilliams
They're saying engineers are the "talent" and the others are something you
outsource. Or that engineers do the "real work". Or that " _At least they are
firing sales and marketing people and not engineers._ ".

Doesn't sound like you describe.

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krav
In an internet company, the people responsible for the product (engineers)
_are_ the talent.

In my experience, marketing people at big companies only know how to spend
money. Many sales people just have expensive dinners and long-winded biz dev
meetings.

Give me the sales guy who sold insurance door to door and is passionate about
the product. Or someone who can excite Eskimos about snow to be marketing. The
rest don't belong in startups (or any company trying to maintain a startup
ethic)

~~~
jwilliams
To be honest, when I read something like that, what I hear is "techies are
rude, antisocial, lazy and obstructive". Then you get images of guys with bad
beards and no girlfriend. Because that's the inverse stereotype.

Brand is really important for an Internet startup. Perhaps more important than
many traditional business -- because you're handing money over to someone you
can't see, for product that you can't touch.

I'd say their brand is one of the Google's most pivotal assets. A bit hit to
Google's brand would absolutely impede their ability to do business, and to
subsequently make cool technology (coincidentally, there are threads about
this on HN right now).

Either way, the thread's about 200 people getting fired from Google marketing.
I hardly think I should get emotive on the issue, but certainly not something
I'd ever feel like crowing about -- and not something I think is an "us and
them", which is what this thread is really implying.

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cousin_it
People initially flocked to Google because their search returned the best
results, now here come the marketers calling it a "brand".

You know what a brand is?

A brand is just the business counterpart of a person's name. My name is a
proxy in other people's minds for my professional reputation, but this doesn't
give me loony ideas about "investing" in my name, making it more "catchy" or
somesuch crap.

Sorry for being confrontational: I'd like to hear a marketer's honest response
to unfiltered thoughts of this kind.

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sgrove
A little bit sad about the tone. It's certainly a reasonable thing to do,
reading this,

"We did look at a number of different options but ultimately concluded that we
had to restructure our organizations in order to improve our effectiveness and
efficiency as a business."

An ever-so-slight amount of corporate sheen on the writing, a little bit less
emotion. A dangerous step away from being a personable company people trust.

On the plus side, they are being pretty generous with time for those let go,
outplacement support, and possible severance packages. Just hope they can
retain a personable face.

~~~
menloparkbum
That's a nice way to put it. However, the reality is they went on an insane
hiring spree over the past 3 years and hired a lot of useless people. I'm
surprised they are only cutting 200.

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gaius
Isn't that like 1% of their workforce? 2000 would be news.

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ComputerGuru
Google is still actively hiring engineers. While they're letting go some sales
& marketing people, recruiters, head-hunters, interns, and engineers are still
green-lighted.

~~~
durin42
I've not seen that to be the case - in fact, from what my friends have told
me, they're doing only replacement hiring right now.

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nostrademons
Those two statements are not mutually exclusive: replacement hiring is still
hiring.

~~~
oscardelben
And profitable if you do with a more skilled person. However I hope replaced
people are reallocated somewhere else.

