Google to cut down on employee laptops, services and staplers

Wow, just wow. I have no doubt that Google has a lot of excess to cut, but IMO I always see it as the death knell for large companies when they start a nickel-and-dime approach to cost cutting. I can certainly see the argument for cuts where they are needed to improve focus, and lots of the FAANGs had too many "frilly" expenses in the past 5-10 years, but cutting expenses that improve your employee's productivity is just totally boneheaded. I'm reminded of when Bernie Ebbers (of WorldCom scandal fame) railed that employees were "stealing coffee" because the amount of coffee used per filter was out of whack - nevermind that WorldCom was about to collapse in a giant accounting fraud. Obviously I don't believe the fraud aspect applies to Google, but the "focusing on the wrong shit" definitely does.

If I owned any Google stock right now, I&#x27;d be thinking hard about selling it. Not because <i>everything</i> here is silly, but just because:<p>A. over the course of 20+ years in this industry I&#x27;ve noticed a trend that when companies start worrying about things like tape dispensers or staplers (or the free coffee in the cafeteria, or the cost of the subsidized sodas in the breakroom, etc) it&#x27;s almost always a Really Bad Sign for their future.<p>B. (related to A of course) when this stuff starts happening, it tends to send the best employees heading for the doors, either because they feel slighted, and&#x2F;or because they assume (rightly or not) that the company <i>is</i> spiraling the drain. And the best employees leaving can have exactly the effect of sending the company spiraling down the drain...<p>These things have a way of becoming self-fulfilling prophecies (or at least self-reinforcing negative feedback loops). At best, it&#x27;s vanishingly rare for this to be harbinger of anything <i>good</i>.

Surely I can&#x27;t be the only HN reader that thought, &quot;I can&#x27;t remember the last time I touched a stapler.&quot; Frankly, I think the headline writer threw staplers in there just for the sizzle. If I might so boldly suggest reading TFA, staplers are just one example of other things that made a lot of sense. Yoga classes on a Friday afternoon when a lot of folks WFH (or not at all on a Friday afternoon)? Handing out multi-core full-blown laptops to non-technical roles that could just as easily get by with a Chromebook? Buses running with one passenger? Get a company Google&#x27;s size, and that stuff starts to add up to real money.<p>So, yeah, Google is swirling the toilet because someone has to walk to the receptionist&#x27;s desk once a year to get a piece of tape or borrow a stapler. I&#x27;d be more worried about a company that just hands out shit that no one uses, without ever once asking if anyone actually uses it.

I’m not a major Google shareholder, but if I were I would fire the management. I’ve never heard of such a large company itemizing an expense as trivial as staplers.<p>It’s pretty clear the company has lost its innovation culture.

Now that’s just getting petty. How about cutting down on Sundar’s RSU grants? What exactly has he done to deserve them? A stuffed Sundar doll would have done just as well over that last half a decade. He never makes any tough calls. He waits for a consensus to form and then pretends that that was his idea all along.<p>-xoogler who saw him come to power and the complete lack of direction since

I remember during a Conan O’Brien chat with Simpsons writers they told how at the height of billions of dollars of ancillary sales of Simpsons merch, the head of production of 20th Century Fox was complaining that the writers were charging up too much in expenses on pretzels.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;youtu.be&#x2F;DtJ28qOEG1g" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;youtu.be&#x2F;DtJ28qOEG1g</a> at 28:07

One of my best friends landed a job at Google after graduation. She told me about a fellow new hire she met during orientation who said she planned to coast along in the job since she had learned that Google never lays people off.<p>I guess there is no such thing as a completely secure job, even at a company like Google.

Better to start by cutting the number of chat apps being released in a given year? Probably pay for a lot of staplers hmm?

It&#x27;s not about cost savings, it&#x27;s about psychological manipulation of employees as servants to the corporation. Why would they be any exception to its users?

<i>“We have been asked to pull all tape&#x2F;dispensers through out the building,” a San Francisco facility directive stated. “If you need a stapler or tape, the receptionist desk has them to borrow.”</i>

Can I keep my red Swingline stapler?

And thus the wheel of destiny makes another rotation and Google becomes the next IBM.

True story: I was hosting author talks<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;albertcory50.substack.com&#x2F;p&#x2F;culture-at-google-part-two-the-authors" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;albertcory50.substack.com&#x2F;p&#x2F;culture-at-google-part-t...</a><p>and of course those authors aren&#x27;t paid. But I&#x27;d take them to the Google Store and let them pick out a gift for themselves, as a small thank you. They were all very modest in their choices. Eventually Google imposed a hard limit on the amount they could spend. Think of the savings!<p>But staplers! Good grief, how <i>many</i> staplers did I go through? (actually, I don&#x27;t think I had one)

You&#x27;d have to be a master of business to come up with such a brilliant play.

Aside from iOS development, Google laptops are just a terminal into a dev desktop or cloud VM type of environment. Still, top of the line MacBook pros were the norm seemingly just as a &quot;perk&quot; in the very literal sense - I tried reproducing the remote dev experience on a $500 or so Chinese barebones laptop and was satisfied in general with it. Google Meet for some reason was really laggy though, so maybe that&#x27;s why MacBook pros are required to get work done.

A friend of mine worked at a public airline and whenever they had a bad quarter, things like coffee would get cut so people would feel it. But those types of industries operate on razor thin margins.

Strange that the &quot;tape and stapler&quot; part wasn&#x27;t presented as a modernization effort. They must be trying to send a strong message, that times are dire.

I thought it was common in most companies to have a little &quot;hub&quot; where your office&#x2F;section&#x2F;area printers are housed. Here is where you&#x27;d normally look to find a stapler, tape, or any other supplies needed for printing. I don&#x27;t even know who I&#x27;d talk to if I needed to borrow a stapler, just find it yourself at the printing kiosk and leave it there for the next guy.

I used a stapler at home yesterday though I&#x27;m sure I have a great deal of redundant paper-related office stuff I rarely use.<p>I guess the purpose of a company-wide email is to signal &quot;Tighten your belts.&quot; But it absolutely makes sense to cut back on supplies that aren&#x27;t needed as much or don&#x27;t need to be refreshed as much--or on services that aren&#x27;t being utilized with fewer people in offices.

Hm, April Fool&#x27;s? When will Bard burn things down because its metaverse stapler hasn&#x27;t been returned?

If this is true Google&#x2F;Alphabet has really spiraled downward. Such a boneheaded move.

This is a company that provides free food all day, and their first inclination is to cut the tape and staplers? Cutting one meal service across all locations would save a lot more, but maybe that would cause more employees to complain.

This sounds like sending a message to internal culture&#x2F;HR or to Wall Street.

So dumb to cheap out on laptops and computer equipment for employees. Internal IT just gets a tonne of &quot;my computer slow&#x2F;out of space&quot; that is impossible to fix without upgrading the hardware...

Obligatory mention- <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;steveblank.com&#x2F;2009&#x2F;12&#x2F;21&#x2F;the-elves-leave-middle-earth-%E2%80%93-soda%E2%80%99s-are-no-longer-free&#x2F;amp&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;steveblank.com&#x2F;2009&#x2F;12&#x2F;21&#x2F;the-elves-leave-middle-ear...</a>

You can never rule out the <i>velocity and efficiency</i> - it certainly makes sense. God knows where the velocity would stand if not for this efficient decision.

This is all signaling to shareholders that are panic selling because of BARD vs ChatGPT.

The rare insight is that entities start to decline when they have reached their peak.

What does the average Googler even need a stapler for?<p>I haven&#x27;t used a stapler in years.

This made me LOL

God forbid the profit margin drop a tiny smidge below 25% (in a mature market with more competitors every day), that would be a real catastrophe for the shareholders and, therefore, the company.<p>How do the other 99% of American companies manage? &#x2F;s