> there was little economical need for Google to have any layoffs
The trouble is, public companies like Google aren't owned by their execs anymore. They've lost control to a bunch of idiots on Wall Street. They optimize for stock price, not employee satisfaction, not customer satisfaction.
What about Meta? Zuckerberg can't be axed and controls 50+% of the voting shares. They are still doing big layoffs and cuts. They have also always been very aggressive about growth and hiring.
They are positioning it as more of a flattening, which may actually be what's happening but I'm guessing plenty of IC's are still losing their jobs there.
You only need to control about 10% to 15% of the stock to force through the kinds of layoffs and money saving activity that is happening. You don't even have to own that much, just band together with similar minded shareholders to form a voting block.
Zuckerberg is culturally very different to Larry and Sergey. VR was definitely an unusual choice, but if you look at the other choices he has made, he responds to the market.
The point with dual-share class is not that the person will automatically do things that are financially terrible, it is that you are beholden to that person's choices. Larry and, to a lesser extent, Sergey are known largely for making bad choices that benefit their employees/friends.
I think this is also due to the nature of their business: Google's search business is the most profitable business in the history of capitalism, you need to deploy almost no capital, you need almost no employees, and you can produce hundreds of billions in revenue...there is no business like it. Zuck is clearly aware that their core business is in decline and has been for a number of years so has been forced to make strategic choices. Google have had to do nothing, their execs are comical, the founders are clearly not up to it...but it doesn't matter. The result they get is nothing to do with the inputs going in.
Larry/Sergey is firmly in control of Google. Even if you buy up all the available GOOGL shares you will be outvoted by them. The company is not owned by Wall Street. Employees and most investors have GOOG stock that has no voting rights.
Usually, those "idiots" are pension funds, mutual funds, and ETFs owned by retail investors. And, this is normal for a mature company to no longer have insiders control the vast majority of voting shares.
Also, Netflix free float stock is no longer controlled by a few people. It is widely held, and it hasn't lost sight of its mission. It continues to optimize employee and customer satisfaction with great success for their stock price. (No, I am not a shill for Netflix.)
The trouble is, public companies like Google aren't owned by their execs anymore. They've lost control to a bunch of idiots on Wall Street. They optimize for stock price, not employee satisfaction, not customer satisfaction.