IT#23 As shareholder I'm concerned

 IT#23 As shareholder I'm concerned

#sharesvalue #effectivemanagement #IT #ITManagement

A slight digression from the topic

On Monday I had to visit a doctor. Here is what Google Maps suggested me:

Now, please, look at the left part of the picture. And notice, that's just ⅓ of proposed routes. Now, the question:

How a human being is supposed to make a choice???

No, it cannot. We, humans, are not equipped with an equivalent of a SQL engine in our brains. We are not good when facing a lot of choices.

You may say, don't criticise, offer a constructive alternative. Here it is. The whole thing should have being structured as:

  1. Get to HB (main railway station).

  2. From there get to Stadelhofen.

  3. Then take 5 stops on Tram #18 to Waldburg.

  4. And then it's a two minute walk to your doctor.

Then #1 and #2 could have variants, plus for especially masochistic customers, you could give routes that avoid HB, but that's it.

Is it so hard to implement? Maybe, but doable. The problem is, it requires not coders, but talented software engineers with systematic thinking. And most of those were fired in two rounds of 2023 and 2024 layoffs. Plus some left the company on their own, disapproving the new management practices. And those who were left, alas, they cannot do the job.

As I said in previous article:

And that's not all. Engineers don't work on a million small projects, they essentially work on one huge project - your company business. So, when you fire 25% of your people, you don't get 75% of your former business. Most likely you will get a broken business.

Back to business

Ok, I was affected in 2023. Unfairly, yes, dishonestly, yes, but it's in the past. So now I'm not a Google employee, but I'm still a Google shareholder, and Google shares constitute a significant part of my wealth. Therefore, I would support the cannibalistic management practices of Sundar Pichai, after all they worked so far. Only if I could be sure they will continue to work.

And for how long a company may have its shares rising if they cannot handle their core business as described above?

Frankly, this is not new. I had a similar article in 2009 about layoffs at Microsoft. The pattern is well known:

  1. Do a couple of rounds of layoffs.

  2. Institute management by fear practices in the company, converting an IT company into an industrial age company.

  3. Let the speculator predators cash on high stock prices.

  4. Then leave to manage Coca-Cola and leave to your successor to clean up the mess, since the castrated and industrial age company cannot do its core business.

IBM and Microsoft already went this route and they had to completely redefine themselves to survive. Globally, it could be a good thing. They open space for new things like Google in 2000 to be born and flourish. Maybe it's the time for something new to be born and shadow Google.

But as a Google shareholder, I'm concerned. I'm very concerned.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

IT#13 The brief history of corporations, shares and layoffs

Image
  #ITManagement #Economy #layoffs See it on YouTube:   I wanted to start this series with very basic questions like "What is 'science'?" or "What is 'Computer Science'?". But today, in early 2023, the topic of layoffs is unfortunately dominating the minds of people in IT. So here we are. Prehistory In the early 17th Century the English and the Dutch sent their first trading expeditions to India (in 1600 and 1602). The sea trade was not a novel idea at that time, well known to Phonecians, Greeks, Arabs (have you heard of Sinbad the Sailor?), but the terms that we speak about came from Europe. A ship fully loaded with goods to trade was an expensive enterprise, so often several traders joined their funds to finance one. That was the first prototype of a corporation. Essentially it was a partnership, which was well known before the word "corporation" was used. The companions put their shares together and that's why shares, which we can tra...
Read more

IT#22 How much do mass layoffs cost? - Dated 2009

Image
Recently I recalled that I already wrote an article “How much do mass layoffs cost?” in 2009, specifically 06/25/2009. Which shows that Google 2023 is essentially Microsoft 2009. Here is that article:   As you know, Microsoft recently conducted two rounds of mass layoffs due to difficult economic times. The motivation was to save money and “the right allocation of resources” and, well, "this is the right thing in the current circumstances!" I'm not going to discuss this case, it's not my job. After all, " The boss said - a ferret! And no gophers!" No, really, if I were elevated at Microsoft into execs, then I would discuss that decision, but since this is not the case, it’s none of my business!   Yesterday Toastmasters magazine came in the mail. If you've read my blog, you should know that I'm part of this interesting community. And inside I found an article, "Taking Through Tough Times at Work." An article is about an interesting ...
Read more