Google CEO Sundar Pichai tells employees not to equate fun with money

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Google CEO Sundar Pichai tells employees not to equate fun with money

Sundar Pichai, Google's CEO, told his employees not to equate fun with money during a company-wide town hall event last week.

Pichai made the comments after employees complained that Google was restricting travel, as well as on-site entertainment and other perks, according to a recording of the meeting obtained by CNBC. The employees argued that the company was nickel- and-diming even as Google sees record-breaking profits.

Pichai responded. I hope all of you are reading the news, externally. I think it is important that as a company we can get through moments like this because we are being a bit more responsible through one of the toughest macroeconomic conditions underway in the past decade. He continued when Google was small and scrappy. Fun didn't always happen, and we shouldn't always equate fun with money. I think you can walk into a hard-working startup and people may be having fun and it shouldn't always equate to money. Pichai and other executives urged employees not to go all out on expenses for upcoming holiday parties. Kristin Reinke, the head of Google finance, has cut back on the importance of teams working together in person.

Where you have summits and big meetings, try to do it in the office. We want people to still have fun. But we're just asking them to keep them small, keep them informal - try not to go over the top, Reinke said.

In late July, Alphabet, Google's parent company, Alphabet, reported $69.69 billion in second quarter revenues for 2022, compared to $61.88 for the same period last year.