Google executives spooked employees at a creepy meeting this week — wearing festive Halloween costumes as they fielded questions about further cost-cutting and layoffs, according to a report.
During the all-hands meeting on Wednesday, Google’s chief scientist, Jeff Dean, wore a starfish costume. CFO Anat Ashkenazi wore a sports jersey of former Indiana Pacers star Reggie Miller.
As for CEO Sundar Pichai, the boss wore a t-shirt that read “ERROR 404 COSTUME NOT FOUND” with an image of a pixelated dinosaur.
During the meeting with employees, a Google spokesperson told The Post that executives answered around 20 questions across a range of topics, including one or two questions concerning cost efficiency.
A day earlier, Google parent Alphabet reported better-than-expected earnings and revenue, but on a call with investors, the recently hired Ashkenazi said she wanted to “push a little further” on cost savings.
When asked whether layoffs might be coming in the future, Pichai said: “If we are making companywide decisions, we’ll definitely let you know.”
“I was telling Anat yesterday, earnings calls are a piece of cake compared to [the meeting] the next day,” Pichai joked during the employee meeting.
Employees are worried that the company is preparing to slash more jobs after the end of the year, according to internal correspondence viewed by CNBC.
“What exactly was meant by the comments on further efficiencies in headcount?” one employee asked during the meeting, referencing Ashkenazi’s comments during the earning call.
Ashkenazi did not share details, but said employees are “one of the most important assets we have.”
She said the company is investing in its workers, even hiring 1,000 new graduates in the third quarter.
Pichai said there are ways to boost efficiency and restructure the company aside from layoffs.
“If you have to do something new and it’s going to take 10 people, if you can find a way to do it with eight people by making smart trade-offs somewhere and aligning teams better, that’s an example of finding efficiencies in headcount as well,” Pichai said.
Google has been spending big on its artificial intelligence infrastructure to compete with other tech giants and AI startups like OpenAI, Anthropic and Elon Musk’s xAI. The company has laid off workers — trimming its marketing, cloud, security and safety teams — to try to save on costs.
“There is a reality to it,” said Brian Ong, vice president of Google recruiting, according to a recording of the meeting reviewed by CNBC. “We are hiring less than we did a couple of years ago.”
Ong said fewer positions are open and geographic hiring has changed, “so you may see fewer roles available where you are.”
Though the company is splurging on its artificial intelligence units, Pichai said that push will not last forever.
“We are going through an extraordinary period of capex advancement,” Pichai said. “When you have these technology shifts, at the earlier stages, you invest disproportionately and then the curve gets better and that’s the transition as an industry we are working through.”
However, he left the door open for further job cuts, saying not all decisions are made by the company’s executives.
“It’s not like all of these decisions are centrally done at a company level,” Pichai said. “And so, at the scale of our company, there could be moments where there are small groups of people impacted.”
During Tuesday’s earnings call, Ashkenazi said using artificial intelligence internally could help the company trim down on expenses.
Google has said that 25% of its new code is generated by AI.
That 25% number refers to low-level tasks, but the company is working on “expanding to more complex areas,” Brian Saluzzo, head of “Core” developers, said.
The “Core” teams build the technology behind Google’s products. In May, Google laid off more than 200 employees from its Core engineering teams and rehired some of those roles in India and Mexico.