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At a companywide all-hands meeting this week, Pichai was faced with tough questions from employees related to cuts to travel and entertainment budgets, managing productivity, and potential layoffs. The firm is convinced that a sharp growth slow will impact advertising revenues, its main source of income.
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Pichai was trying to justify why the company was taking drastic cost-cutting measures while profits remained strong. Alphabet (GOOGL, $98.74) announced in late July a net income of $16B for the second quarter. Quarterly revenue increased 13% to $69.7B.
Why it matters
"We don’t get to choose the macroeconomic conditions always," Pichai told employees. Just like all businesses the search behemoth is feeling the squeeze from growing economic headwinds. In a heated company all hands, Pichai was grilled about the cuts that the company will face including work perks. At the beginning of September, Pichai had already begun to prepare minds for possible layoffs to come. He added that he wanted to "make the company 20% more productive".
