A major Google investor doesn’t believe the company’s 12,000 job cuts are enough and is calling for 30,000 instead.
Sir Christopher Hohn runs The Children’s Investment Fund. He was already a proponent of layoffs, raising the possibility to Google leaders in November, according to The Register.
In an open letter to Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai, Hohn makes the case that the company’s recently announced layoffs don’t go far enough.
“The decision to cut 12,000 jobs is a step in the right direction, but it does not even reverse the very strong headcount growth of 2022,” he writes. “Ultimately management will need to go further.”
“I believe that management should aim to reduce headcount to around 150,000, which is in line with Alphabet’s headcount at the end of 2021. This would require a total headcount reduction in the order of 20%,” he added.
Interestingly, Hohn takes aim at “excessive employee compensation” as well, saying the median salary at Alphabet was almost $300,000 in 2021, with the average being even higher.
That specific criticism is — shall we say — “interesting,” coming from an individual who reportedly paid himself a whopping $690 million salary, or $1.8 million per day, in 2022.