Pranshu Verma – Days after mass layoffs trimmed 12,000 jobs at Google, hundreds of former employees flocked to an online chatroom to commiserate about the seemingly erratic way they had suddenly been made redundant.
They swapped theories on how management had decided who got cut. Could a “mindless algorithm carefully designed not to violate any laws” have chosen who got the ax, one person wondered in a Discord post The Washington Post could not independently verify. Continue reading
Anthony Gucciardi – It’s not looking too good for everyone’s favorite GMO seed giant. With sales figures crashing down, Monsanto has announced a plan to cut 2,600 jobs in an effort to cut costs — about 11.6% of the workforce.
And this isn’t the first time Monsanto has experienced a serious slump in sales. Back in February of this year, I told you about the ‘beginning of the serious decline’ for both Monsanto and McDonald’s. It’s a notion that would be considered absolutely absurd not too long ago, really. McDonald’s and Monsanto were the two ‘juggernauts’ that everyone loved to hate, but felt powerless against.
They were ‘too big to fail,’ we thought. And perhaps the corporate executives thought so, too. The truth is, however, that both of these companies had decades to actually improve their practices and regain public opinion. Why didn’t McDonald’s stop using cheap fillers and toxic compounds in favor of something that’s at least somewhat higher quality? Monsanto could have actually done something about the numerous reports by mainstream media organizations that detailed Indian farmer suicides as a result of the company’s terrible farming contracts.