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Google employees express concern about lay-offs

Google executives are telling their employees to shape up or ship out, warning that lay-offs are coming if results don’t meet expectations.

Employees who work in the Google Cloud sales department said that senior leadership told them that there will be an “overall examination of sales productivity and productivity in general.”

If third quarter results “don’t look up, [then] there will be blood on the streets,” according to a message conveyed to the sales team. The warning was first reported by Insider.

Employees told the news site that they are fearful of lay-offs after the company quietly extended its hiring freeze this month without making an announcement, the New York Post reports.

The Post you have sought comment from Google.

Google CEO Sundar Pichai told his employees in an all hands meeting late last month that they needed to improve their focus and productivity due to fierce economic headwinds that have forced widespread belt-tightening all throughout the technology sector.

Mr Pichai said that he wanted to solicit ideas from his employees on how to get “better results faster.”

“It’s clear we are facing a challenging macro environment with more uncertainty ahead,” Mr Pichai said.

“There are real concerns that our productivity as a whole is not where it needs to be for the head count we have.”

The search engine also announced a two-week hiring freeze last month, but so far it has not reversed its decision — prompting employees to fear the worst, according to Insider.

Since Mr Pichai’s comments, “everyone has been talking about the company tightening its belt,” one employee told Insider.

Google isn’t the only tech company that has put its employees on notice.

Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO and founder of Facebook’s parent company Meta, blamed “one of the worst downturns that we’ve seen in recent history” for a series of cost-cutting measures, including a hiring freeze.

Mr Zuckerberg also made it clear that the company will part ways with employees who do not perform up to par.

“Realistically, there are probably a bunch of people at the company who shouldn’t be here,” Zuckerberg told an all hands meeting in late June.

Facebook’s social media rival Twitter recently rescinded a job offer to a Palo Alto man as part of the San Francisco-based company’s cutting back on hiring.

Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal informed employees of the hiring pause in a message earlier this year, citing a recent lag on growth and revenue targets.

The company has been thrown into turmoil since Tesla CEO Elon Musk agreed to buy it for $US44 billion — only to back out of the deal. Twitter is now suing Musk in an effort to enforce the terms of the agreement.

This article originally appeared on NY Post and was reproduced with permission

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Technology

WhatsApp privacy updates: Silently leave group chats, appear offline, screenshot blocking

WhatsApp users will soon be able to “silently” slip out of group chats without everyone making a “big deal” out of it.

The update, which will start to roll out this month, is one of several new privacy features for the popular messaging app announced by parent company Meta on Tuesday.

Currently, leaving a group chat can be slightly awkward as everyone receives a notification.

“We love our group chats but some are not forever,” Meta said in a blog post.

“We’re making it possible to exit a group privately without making it a big deal to everyone. Now, instead of notifying the full group when you are leaving, only the admins will be notified.”

In another change rolling out this month, users will be able to choose who can see when they are online.

“Seeing when friends or family are online helps us feel connected to one another, but we’ve all had times when we wanted to check our WhatsApp privately,” Meta said.

“For the moments you want to keep your online presence private, we’re introducing the ability to select who can and can’t see when you’re online.”

A third new feature coming soon will allow screenshot blocking for “View Once” disappearing messages.

“View Once is already an incredibly popular way to share photos or media that don’t need to have a permanent digital record,” Meta said.

“Now we’re enabling screenshot blocking for View Once messages for an added layer of protection. We’re testing this feature now and are excited to roll it out to users soon.”

The updates build on WhatsApp’s existing privacy features including default end-to-end encryption for calls and messages, encrypted backups for chat history, two-step verification and the ability to block and report unwanted chats.

“We’ll keep building new ways to protect your messages and keep them as private and secure as face-to-face conversations,” Meta founder and chief executive Mark Zuckerberg said in a Facebook post.

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Ami Vora, head of product at WhatsApp, said in a statement the company was “focused on building product features that empower people to have more control and privacy over their messages”.

“Over the years, we’ve added interlocking layers of protection to help keep their conversations secure, and the new features are one way we continue to deliver on our commitment to keep messages private,” he said.

It comes as Meta makes a series of changes to Facebook and Instagram in order to win over younger users increasingly abandoning its platforms for Chinese rival TikTok.

Facebook recently launched a new “Feeds” feature allowing users to see the latest posts from their family and friends, separate to the main “Home” news feed which delivers content based on a recommendation algorithm.

“One of the most requested features for Facebook is to make sure people don’t miss friends’ posts,” Mr Zuckerberg wrote in a Facebook post. “So today we’re launching a Feeds tab where you can see posts from your friends, groups, Pages and more, separately in chronological order.”

More recently, Instagram was forced to roll back a series of controversial changes that boosted the appearance of recommended video content in news feeds, after backlash from high-profile users including Kim Kardashian and Kylie Jenner who accused the platform of “trying to be TikTok” .

Amid mounting criticism, Meta said last month it would be reducing the number of recommended posts and videos from accounts users don’t follow that they see in their feeds, as it works to improve its personalization algorithms.

“I’m glad we took a risk. If we’re not failing every once in a while, we’re not thinking big enough or bold enough,” Instagram head Adam Mosseri told TheVerge.

“But we definitely need to take a big step back and regroup. [When] we’ve learned a lot, then we come back with some sort of new idea or iteration. So we’re going to work through that.”

Meta last month posted its first ever quarterly revenue decline, following a privacy change from Apple allowing iOS users to opt out of data tracking, and growing competition from TikTok.

Revenue was down 1 per cent to $US28.8 billion ($A41.4 billion), while profit fell 36 per cent to $US6.6 billion ($A9.5 billion).

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Categories
Business

Elon Musk reignites bitter feud with US politician Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

Elon Musk has said US politician Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) has “great taste in lipstick” in an apparent reignition of his feud with the New York Congresswoman.

The Tesla CEO made the remark on a podcast called full-sendin which several co-hosts made comments about the 32-year-old politician’s appearance.

Two of the co-hosts called AOC “attractive,” then another said the New York Democrat was “all right,” the new york post reports.

Musk then chimed in, saying, “Yeah, great choice of lipstick I think. Great taste in lipstick, I mean, that’s my observation. That’s a genuine compliment.”

Musk then added, “Tell me I’m wrong,” before sipping an alcoholic seltzer and laughing alongside the podcast hosts.

AOC’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Musk’s remarks.

The world’s richest man has a history of sparring with Ms Ocasio-Cortez.

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In April, the politician tweeted: “Tired of having to collectively stress about what explosion of hate crimes is happening bc some billionaire with an ego problem unilaterally controls a massive communication platform.”

Musk responded: “Stop hitting on me, I’m really shy.”

Ms Ocasio-Cortez then said that she’d been referring to Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg – not Musk – then deleted the tweet.

She later posted a screenshot of her back-and-forth with Musk with a shrugging emoji and the caption: “Like I said, ego problems.”

Then in May, she said she was looking to ditch her Tesla Model 3, which she bought in 2020 for commutes between her New York City district and Washington DC She said she was looking to buy a car from a company that uses union labor.

“At the time, it was the only EV [electric vehicle] that could get me from New York to Washington on like one, or one-and-a-half charges,” she said of her Tesla. “I would love to switch.”

Musk, meanwhile, posted a Twitter poll asking his followers whether they have more trust in billionaires or politicians.

His followers chose billionaires – and Musk dared Ms Ocasio-Cortez to run the same poll with her own followers.

The Tesla CEO recounted the exchange on last week’s podcast episode, saying that Ms Ocasio-Cortez “was like coming after me or some bulls**t, I don’t know”.

“She was saying billionaires are evil and you’re a billionaire therefore you’re evil,” Musk said. “And I was like, well you’re a politician.

“People in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones,” he added.

This article originally appeared in the New York Post and was reproduced with permission

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