Google Offers Massive Pay Increase to Keep Employee from Joining AI Startup: In a surprising move, tech giant Google has reportedly offered a staggering 300% salary hike to dissuade an employee from leaving for Perplexity AI, an emerging artificial intelligence startup.
Aravind Srinivas, CEO of Perplexity AI and an alumnus of IIT-Madras, disclosed this incident during an interview on the Big Technology Podcast. Srinivas highlighted the lengths to which major tech companies are willing to go in order to retain their valuable employees.
The employee in question, who was part of Google's search team and not directly involved in its AI division, received the substantial salary increase as an incentive to stay with the company.
Srinivas also addressed the recent wave of layoffs in the tech industry, expressing concerns about the targeting of high-salary employees who may not be proportionately contributing to productivity.
Tech Layoffs Surge in 2024
The tech industry has been rocked by a significant wave of layoffs in the early months of 2024, leaving tens of thousands of workers without jobs. Among the companies taking action, Google alone has cut 32,000 roles.
Google's CEO, Sundar Pichai, recently cautioned employees to prepare for further job cuts, citing the necessity of making "tough choices" to free up resources for strategic investments.
In an internal memo circulated to Google employees, Pichai emphasized the company's ambitious goals for the year ahead but acknowledged the need for restructuring to support these objectives.
Since January 10th, Google has laid off over a thousand employees across various departments, continuing a trend that began in 2023 when Pichai announced plans to reduce the workforce by approximately 12,000 roles.
The layoffs at Alphabet, Google's parent company, have affected multiple divisions, including the X Lab for developing new technologies, advertising sales teams, hardware teams responsible for products like Pixel, Nest, and Fitbit, as well as the augmented reality division.
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