300% Salary Hike! Google Goes All Out To Retain Employee Approached By An IITian's AI Startup

After laying off around 12,000 employees last year, Google is among the big tech giants that have already announced more layoffs in 2024. While cost cutting is a common reason given by most tech giants when they announce layoffs, a recent incident that has come to light, seems to be showing a different story.

Google Hikes Employee's Salary By 300% To Retain Him

google 300% hike/indiatimes

The CEO of Perplexity AI, Aravind Srinivas, recently brought attention to the extent that major tech companies, like Google, will go to in order to retain their employees. This was discussed on the Big Technology Podcast, wherein Srinivas described a particular incident in which Google offered to increase an employee's pay by four times, or by 300%, in order to retain him and prevent his switch to Perplexity AI.

Although the employee in question was not directly involved with Google's AI division and was a member of the search team, the company decided that it was imperative to make a substantial increase in his offer in order to keep him from leaving. The AI startup's Srinivas, who graduated from IIT Madras, expressed his surprise that Google was willing to make such a significant increase in the offer.

Srinivas also mentioned the subject of tech industry layoffs. According to him, it's unclear what standards businesses employ to decide who gets fired. He said he had heard that companies might target high-paid individuals who don't contribute proportionately to productivity. He made the point that workers at places like Google are able to take long vacations without it negatively impacting the business, but there appears to be a shift in the direction of paying closer attention to output rather than compensation.

perplexity founders/fortune

Also Read: How Big Tech CEOs Justified Their Company's Mass Layoffs

How Many Employees Have Been Laid Off By Google?

After nearly 12,000 layoffs in 2023, Google and its parent Alphabet's CEO Sundar Pichai has warned his employees to brace more layoffs in 2024. In an internal memo shared with Google employees on Wednesday, Pichai said ¡°We have ambitious goals and will be investing in our big priorities this year. The reality is that to create the capacity for this investment, we have to make tough choices.¡±

Pichai had mentioned that these role eliminations are not at the scale of last year¡¯s reductions, and will not touch every team.

What CEO Sundar Pichai Had Said About 12,000 Layoffs Last Year

layoffs 2024/shutterstock

When Google laid off around 12,000 employees last year, CEO Sundar Pichai had penned down an email to Google employees, wherein he mentioned this:

"I have some difficult news to share. We¡¯ve decided to reduce our workforce by approximately 12,000 roles. We¡¯ve already sent a separate email to employees in the US who are affected. In other countries, this process will take longer due to local laws and practices. This will mean saying goodbye to some incredibly talented people we worked hard to hire and have loved working with. I¡¯m deeply sorry for that. The fact that these changes will impact the lives of Googlers weighs heavily on me, and I take full responsibility for the decisions that led us here."

"Over the past two years we¡¯ve seen periods of dramatic growth. To match and fuel that growth, we hired for a different economic reality than the one we face today. I am confident about the huge opportunity in front of us thanks to the strength of our mission, the value of our products and services, and our early investments in AI. To fully capture it, we¡¯ll need to make tough choices. So, we¡¯ve undertaken a rigorous review across product areas and functions to ensure that our people and roles are aligned with our highest priorities as a company. The roles we¡¯re eliminating reflect the outcome of that review. They cut across Alphabet, product areas, functions, levels and regions. While this transition won¡¯t be easy, we¡¯re going to support employees as they look for their next opportunity."

Also read: How To Be Financially Prepared Amid Mass Layoff Wave

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