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.
In their defense they probably didn't know a recession of this magnitude was on the horizon. If they were hesitant to grow in the early days they may have missed a number of key hires or growth areas.
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.