- ByStartupStory | February 19, 2024
Google once offered an employee a 300% salary hike to deter them from switching to Perplexity AI, as revealed by Perplexity AI CEO Aravind Srinivas on the Big Technology Podcast. Srinivas, an alumnus of IIT-Madras, highlighted the lengths big tech companies go to retain their staff.
“The employee who received the substantial salary increase was from the ‘search team’ and was not directly involved with the AI division,” Srinivas clarified.
Discussing tech industry layoffs, Srinivas noted that firms target high-salaried individuals who may not contribute proportionately to productivity.
Regarding recent layoffs in the tech sector, tens of thousands have been left jobless in 2024, with the tech industry alone cutting 32,000 roles.
Google CEO Sundar Pichai cautioned employees about impending job cuts, emphasizing the need for “tough choices” to create investment capacity. In an internal memo, Pichai outlined, “We have ambitious goals and will be investing in our big priorities this year.”
Since January 10, Google has terminated over a thousand employees across various departments.
“In 2023, Pichai announced plans to cut approximately 12,000 jobs, around 6% of its global workforce,” the open letter from Pichai stated. Layoffs at Alphabet include staff reductions in various divisions such as the technology development unit X Lab, advertising sales, hardware teams responsible for Pixel, Nest, and Fitbit, and the augmented reality team.
