How Low-Ego Leaders Are Outperforming the Loud Ones
05/13/2025
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Loud leaders once ruled the boardroom. Charisma was currency. Big talk drove big valuations.
July 14, 2022: -On Tuesday, CEO Sundar Pichai emailed employees on Google parent Alphabet will hinder the speed of hiring and investments in 2023.
“Like all companies, we’re not resistant to economic headwinds,” Pichai wrote in the memo.
“We need to be more entrepreneurial, which works with greater urgency, sharper focus, and more hunger than we’ve shown on sunnier days.”
He acknowledged that “the uncertain global economic outlook has been top of mind.”
Alphabet shares are down 21% this year, which drops alongside the rest of the tech industry as investors rotate out of the stocks that drove the bull call of the past decade. The company missed analyst estimates for the first quarter, and Chief Financial Officer Ruth Porat warned another rough period could stand.
Growth in the initial quarter slowed to 23% from a year earlier, down from 34% growth in the rather three months of 2021, when the economy was reopening from the pandemic. Still, Pichai said in the letter that the company hired 10,000 employees in the second quarter.
“Because of the hiring improvement achieved so far this year, we’ll be slowing the hiring speed this year while still supporting the most important opportunities,” he wrote. “For the balance of 2022 and 2023, the company chooses to focus on engineering, technical and other critical roles.”
A Google spokesperson declined to comment.
Google, which has historically invested heavily in research and development, will also be more particular about where it spends money during this period of economic anticipation.
“In a few cases, that means consolidating where investments overlap and streamlining processes,” Pichai wrote. In different instances, it will mean “pausing development and re-deploying help to higher priority areas,” he said.
Pichai ended the note by informing employees that “scarcity breeds clarity” and emphasizing, “I’m excited for us to increase to the moment again.”
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