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Google employees express concern about lay-offs

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Facebook’s social media rival Twitter recently rescinded a job offer to a Palo Alto man as part of the San Francisco-based company’s cutting back on hiring.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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Why Canva boss, Cliff Obrecht isn’t bothered by $20 billion loss

Why Canva boss, Cliff Obrecht isn't bothered by $20 billion loss

Despite a $20 billion fall in its evaluation, a tumultuous economic landscape and a sudden string of tech companies announcing staff cuts and sharp declines, Australia’s start up golden child is not worried.

speaking to the Sydney Morning Herald, Canva’s co-founder Cliff Obrecht believed the bearish market would provide the company with lots of opportunities.

“These times of market uncertainty provide a lot of opportunity and other than the external valuation noise, it’s a huge opportunity for us to grow our business,” he said.

This comes as Australia’s largest venture capital firm Blackbird announced they had reduced the holding value of Canva by 36 per cent. Listed as Canva’s largest investor, with around a 14 per cent stake in Canva, this indicated a drop of about US$14 billion or A$20 billion, in the tech company’s estimated value.

“This holding value of Canva is the result of an independent valuation process that was completed by a big four accounting firm and adopted by Blackbird’s valuation committee, in consultation with our auditors,” the company shared in a statement to news.com.au.

Before this, Canva managed to more than double its worth in 2021. After acquiring a valuation of $19 billion in April 2021, the company skyrocketed to $54.5 billion just five months later.

In internal emails reported by Nine newspapers, chief executive Melanie Perkins said the company was set to mark its sixth year of being profitable. She also assured staff and said the company was still hiring, unlike some other technology companies.

“We had planned to dip out of profitability this year to invest in further accelerating growth,” she wrote.

“However, we changed course as soon as we noticed the macroeconomic environment changing and are now back to being profitable again this year, for the sixth year in a row.”

Founded in 2013, by Perth couple Ms Perkins and Mr Obrecht, and Tasmanian developer Cameron Adams, Canva is a free-to-use design tool that allows users to create social media posts, graphics, videos and presentations.

Since then, it’s become Australia’s most successful start-up – a title it continues to hold. For scale, Australia’s second largest start-up, online payments company Airwallex was valued at $5.5 billion in November 2021.

It’s believed Ms Perkins and Mr Obrecht hold a 30 per cent stake in the company, which given the most recent evaluation is close to $6 billion.

According to its website, Canva has more than 2000 employees and operates in 100 languages ​​and across 190 countries.

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Categories
Business

Why Canva boss, Cliff Obrecht isn’t bothered by $20 billion loss

Why Canva boss, Cliff Obrecht isn't bothered by $20 billion loss

Despite a $20 billion fall in its evaluation, a tumultuous economic landscape and a sudden string of tech companies announcing staff cuts and sharp declines, Australia’s start up golden child is not worried.

speaking to the Sydney Morning Herald, Canva’s co-founder Cliff Obrecht believed the bearish market would provide the company with lots of opportunities.

“These times of market uncertainty provide a lot of opportunity and other than the external valuation noise, it’s a huge opportunity for us to grow our business,” he said.

This comes as Australia’s largest venture capital firm Blackbird announced they had reduced the holding value of Canva by 36 per cent. Listed as Canva’s largest investor, with around a 14 per cent stake in Canva, this indicated a drop of about US$14 billion or A$20 billion, in the tech company’s estimated value.

“This holding value of Canva is the result of an independent valuation process that was completed by a big four accounting firm and adopted by Blackbird’s valuation committee, in consultation with our auditors,” the company shared in a statement to news.com.au.

Before this, Canva managed to more than double its worth in 2021. After acquiring a valuation of $19 billion in April 2021, the company skyrocketed to $54.5 billion just five months later.

In internal emails reported by Nine newspapers, chief executive Melanie Perkins said the company was set to mark its sixth year of being profitable. She also assured staff and said the company was still hiring, unlike some other technology companies.

“We had planned to dip out of profitability this year to invest in further accelerating growth,” she wrote.

“However, we changed course as soon as we noticed the macroeconomic environment changing and are now back to being profitable again this year, for the sixth year in a row.”

Founded in 2013, by Perth couple Ms Perkins and Mr Obrecht, and Tasmanian developer Cameron Adams, Canva is a free-to-use design tool that allows users to create social media posts, graphics, videos and presentations.

Since then, it’s become Australia’s most successful start-up – a title it continues to hold. For scale, Australia’s second largest start-up, online payments company Airwallex was valued at $5.5 billion in November 2021.

It’s believed Ms Perkins and Mr Obrecht hold a 30 per cent stake in the company, which given the most recent evaluation is close to $6 billion.

According to its website, Canva has more than 2000 employees and operates in 100 languages ​​and across 190 countries.

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Business

Australian tech company Appen’s future uncertain as shares plunge by 27 per cent

Australian tech company Appen's future uncertain as shares plunge by 27 per cent

Shares for an Australian tech company have plunged after their earnings were 69 per cent lower than expected.

On Tuesday, Sydney-based artificial intelligence firm Appen posted its results for the first half of 2022, but that had a detrimental impact on its share price.

The company, which provides important data to tech giants around the world including Facebook, Google and Amazon, has been struggling in recent months.

According to The Australian, when its earnings were taken into account before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortization, it had made 69 per cent less than the same period the year before.

Appen generated $8.5 million in net profit over the last six months compared to $12.5 million in the same like period in 2021.

To top that off, the Aussie firm also posted a net loss of $3.8 million.

In total, it suffered a revenue drop of seven per cent to $182.9 million.

As a result, Appen’s share price dropped 27.3 per cent to $4.15 on Tuesday. At time of writing on Wednesday morning, it had recovered slightly, up by two per cent to come in at $4.24.

Appen’s CEO Mark Brayan blamed the poor performance on global market conditions as well as a weaker appetite for digital advertising.

During the earnings call, Mr Brayan said, per the Sydney Morning Herald: “With no improvement in July trading, there remains uncertainty about a continued slowdown of spending from our global customers and their exposure to weaker digital advertising demand.

“As a result, the conversion of forward orders to sales is less certain this year compared to prior years.”

Mr Brayan added in a statement to the ASX that conditions were “challenging” and that they were seeing a “flow-on effect” as customers spent less on advertising.

With lessening demand for their services, Appen also revealed that costs had blown out as the day to day running of the business became more expensive.

It cited investment in product and technology, heightened employee expenses, recruitment, and IT costs as another avenue where money was lost.

Like many other tech companies around the world, Appen has taken a dive, as its share price has fallen 62 per cent this year following massive gains at the height of the pandemic.

At their peak, Appen’s shares were worth around $43.50, back in August 2020. It is now trading at $4.24.

Appen first started on a downward trend in June, after its rival, Canadian IT firm Telus, scuppered a takeover deal.

The Canadian business had proposed a $9.50-per-share takeover bid for Appen, which would have made the Australian company worth $1.2 billion.

It’s unknown why Telus canned the deal.

News.com.au has contacted Appen for comment.

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