Google and The Sushi Chefs

Mar 23, 2008 – 13:55 by Ryan

Earlier this month, Kevin P. Ryan and Henry Blodget from AlleyCorp discussed Google’s recent market decline and what this means for the company. It is Ryan’s opinion that Google will be forced to reduce their workforce. This will be the real test of Google’s conviction to give back to their employees. The founders and early investors have amassed billions of dollars from the success of the company and now it’s time to see how they handle this situation.

photo credit: pittaya

From a practical business standpoint, Kevin may be right. Based on the recent loses, Google may face an investor coup d’etat if they don’t reduce their expenses. Below is Google’s six month chart:

Landing Where?

If Google does reduce their headcount, where will the engineers go? The majority of Google’s infrastructure is proprietary, so a lot of the tools/libraries that engineers have been exposed to won’t be too practical in the market (what do you mean you don’t have Bigtable?). Of course you can argue that a talented engineer is useful anywhere, however experience with software/technology that is in widespread distribution might be more valuable to some hiring managers.

Recreating the culture at Google will also be difficult. A company like Google, which has amassed so much wealth in such a short period of time, can afford to be more liberal in their employee benefits and productivity expectations.

We imagine a lot of cashed-out Googlers will end up hiring engineers for startups.

The Chefs

Having enjoyed the luxurious Google cafe several times over the last year, we decided that the litmus test for the wellbeing of the entire company is the sushi chefs. The state of the union for the 16,805 person company worth somewhere in the neighborhood of $135.86 billion is directly related to the employment of the sushi chefs at the various campuses. Having witnessed several less than stellar quarters at DoubleClick, we understand the difficulty that must come with justifying sushi chefs to ravenous investors.

A personal note to the sushi chefs: We like cream cheese with our asparagus roles. It’s a cheesy lowbrow taste acquired at an inexpensive Sushi restaurant on Khao San Road in Bangkok, but we just can’t shake it. But, in all honesty… we’re pulling for you!

photo credit: rick