The average worker, adhering to Company Culture, trading their mental space and shaving off their own quality of life in favor of the company's growth, are not the point of the business.
It's not really about the board, Google has become a mature company that's not going to grow 20% YoY anymore and this is what happens to such businesses. Unless they're lead by an exceptionally strong person who can stand up to economic forces, they will turn them into IBM.
> Unless they're lead by an exceptionally strong person who can stand up to economic forces
Isnt the board the ultimate force, including the economic one?
You are supporting OPs claim actually. Becoming a mature company brings declining workforce morale.
> they will turn them into IBM.
because
> The CEOs job is to make the board happy. That’s it.
The easiest way to make a board happy is to stack it with your friends. Preferably those that are not that rich so that they appreciate the several hundred thousand dollar a year gig for very little work.
There’s no other requirement.
You make the board mad you’re fired. You make the board happy, then you’re golden and can do whatever.
The easiest way to make a board happy is to reduce headcount, increase revenues (ideally wherever you have strongest margins) and prevent collective bargaining.
CEO at this level isn’t a people leader like you’d expect because boards don’t care about people (unless they are unionizing). So anything they say about people issues, you can guarantee is a statement made for the board’s consumption.
This fits that perfectly because what he’s communicating is “we got rid of what we consider dead weight loss because those people worked in what we arbitrarily have deemed cost centers instead of what we used to call [important buzzword like “metaverse”]