Google is changing its philosophy. Hundreds of employees have been laid off.

Here’s the deal: Google is a huge company. The Big G is responsible for not only running the world’s favorite search engine, but also for serving up the operating system that most of the best phones out there run on. Oh, and it also makes some of those phones too.

But that’s just scratching the surface. Google is still heavily invested in all manner of tech. From the — now more defined than ever — Pixel ecosystem, including the Pixel Watch and Pixel Buds, to exciting AR and MR projects, aiming to deliver innovation on a whole new level.

So given Google’s scope, can you imagine what happens when the company decides to change how things get done? Well, people lose their jobs. And that’s always a bummer, especially when experienced professionals are also taking their leave.



There’s no easy way to discuss lay-offs, so instead of doing that, let’s focus on two specific things:

• Who left?
• Why is this happening?

So, for example: James Park and Eric Friedman, the original Fitbit co-founders. And that paints a very interesting picture, given that Paul Greco — VP of hardware engineering — recently took his leave too, as if he saw the future.

Not to mention that Google’s AR division took quite the hit too, with Clay Bavor — ex-head of XR at Google — and Marc Lucovsky, XR OS specialist, no longer being with the company either.

Could Google be giving up on the idea of making AR stuff entirely? Here’s the full statement:



But then there's everyone else that we probably don’t know by name, but have maybe seen a feature they’ve worked on. Makes you wonder. And in wondering, we ask the question: why is this happening?

Well, thus far, Google has had its own internal team for each of its brand divisions. For example, the Fitbit team had its own designers, engineers, etc. Now, the Big G seems to be reorganizing to have less in quantity, but more centralized teams of specialists, which — in theory — would lead to a more unified product line, both in spirit and function, since everyone will be tapping into the same resource pool, in a sense. 

By the way, can you guess who also has a similar work methodology? It’s this little known company from Cupertino called Apple, you may have heard of it in the past. It makes this iPhone thing, it’s great.

I’m inclined to believe that — ultimately — this is a solid means to create a great series of products, so we can probably expect something good to come out of this. That being said, announcing such changes on the day that they are happening doesn’t seem all that… friendly.

But hey: Google is offering its “usual degree of support” and those let go will have the “opportunity to apply to any open positions within the company”. Whatever that means, we hope that a brighter future is waiting for everyone involved in this. Regardless of that, we may be in for some very interesting developments, now that Google seems to be positioning itself to compete with the Big A. 

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