Google, one of the biggest search engines, once gave a worker who intended to move to Perplexity AI a 300% pay increase. This incident was disclosed by Perplexity AI’s CEO, Aravind Srinivas, on the Big Technology Podcast episode which was out on 17th of February. Srinivas, an IIT Madras alumnus, discusses the extent big tech companies will go to in order to keep their staff.
Google offers high pay to their employees
According to Srinivas, the worker who got a huge pay increase was a member of the “search team” and was not specifically connected to the company’s AI division.
Srinivas also discussed the tech industry’s layoffs. According to him, companies specifically target high earners who don’t make a proportionate contribution to productivity.
Tech layoffs in 2024
This disclosure of an employee receiving hike comes amidst the ongoing 2024 layoffs where tens of thousands of people lost their jobs due to layoffs in the first month of 2024; the tech sector alone lost 32,000 positions. Google CEO Sundar Pichai forewarned staff members last month that there would be additional layoffs. “Tough choices” must be made by the company, he said, in order to make room for investments.
Pichai stated, “We have ambitious goals and will be investing in our big priorities this year,” in an internal memo sent to every Google employee. He said, “The reality is that to create the capacity for this investment, we have to make tough choices.”
Google has let go of more than a thousand workers across a number of departments since January 10.
In 2023, Sundar Pichai declared intentions to eliminate 12,000 positions, or about 6% of its total workforce worldwide. “I must break some tough news. We have made the decision to cut about 12,000 positions from our staff. A separate email has already been sent to the impacted US employees. This process will take longer in other countries because of local laws and customs,” Pichai stated in an open letter.
Numerous employees at Alphabet have been laid off, including hundreds in the advertising sales team, hundreds in the hardware team (which makes Pixel, Nest, and Fitbit devices), and most of them are in the augmented reality team. Dozens more have been laid off at the company’s X Lab division.
