Many, many people in the software industry, especially at a place like Google, absolutely do not want to unionize, and for excellent reasons. Pretty much every union in existence assigns value to union members based on tenure, and it pretty much assumes members are "interchangeable cogs" in most other respects. A lot of people reasonably hate that idea, because they know that they can negotiate for more based on their personal value to a company.
I'm not anti-union generally, and I'm glad to see a revival of unionization where it makes sense, e.g. places like Starbucks and Amazon, where workers are largely treated like interchangeable cogs by management already, and so a union improves employee bargaining power. And I also think it would make sense for certain areas of tech, and certain software companies, to want to unionize.
But this is Google. As others have commented, many software engineers at Google easily make hundreds of thousands annually in stock awards alone. I can't imagine any highly competent software engineer there wanting a union, because it means that their bargaining power is no better than the "average" software dev, which is obviously false.
I think Sundar's compensation is absurd, but I also think layoffs were warranted given the obscene levels of overhiring many of these tech companies did during the pandemic. And when you say "compensation is way down", at big FAANGs that is largely due to the value of stock awards, but many people would rather get compensated in stock to begin with - Google employees especially reaped gargantuan rewards up until 2022 based on stock.
I understand this argument, and there are definitely many Google engineers who believe this, but I believe this belief to be mistaken. Unfortunately, most engineers really are replaceable cogs.
Google’s origins can be traced back to really smart people innovating through brilliant new algorithms. So it’s understandable why people at Google believe that being brilliant is an irreplaceable asset. If only enough Jeff Deans could be brought together, something amazing would surely happen. But how accurately does this belief match reality? Most successful companies today innovate on product, not raw technology. 99% of product work really can be done by anyone. There are now plenty of multi-billion dollar companies that had original products engineered by total amateurs. Raw technical ability just isn’t that important anymore. And you see this in Google’s business. For how self-proclaimedly smart Googlers are, they sure have a hard time growing the business through new products.
And when I say total comp is down, I’m not talking about existing employees (although their comp is down too for the reason you mention). Go look at job openings near you. More likely than not, base salaries and equity packages will be much lower than before.
> 99% of product work really can be done by anyone.
LOL
It's true that raw technical brilliance doesn't automatically translate to good products, but it's painfully obvious with Google's non-ability to create compelling products in recent years that product work can't be done by just anyone...
I'm not anti-union generally, and I'm glad to see a revival of unionization where it makes sense, e.g. places like Starbucks and Amazon, where workers are largely treated like interchangeable cogs by management already, and so a union improves employee bargaining power. And I also think it would make sense for certain areas of tech, and certain software companies, to want to unionize.
But this is Google. As others have commented, many software engineers at Google easily make hundreds of thousands annually in stock awards alone. I can't imagine any highly competent software engineer there wanting a union, because it means that their bargaining power is no better than the "average" software dev, which is obviously false.
I think Sundar's compensation is absurd, but I also think layoffs were warranted given the obscene levels of overhiring many of these tech companies did during the pandemic. And when you say "compensation is way down", at big FAANGs that is largely due to the value of stock awards, but many people would rather get compensated in stock to begin with - Google employees especially reaped gargantuan rewards up until 2022 based on stock.