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As Christmas Bonus, Google Hands Out "Dogfood"
theodp writes "You know times are tough when the best place to work in America replaces holiday bonuses with a request for unpaid labor. Blaming the economic crisis, Google management has canceled the traditional cash holiday bonus — reportedly as much as $20K-$30K per Googler — and substituted an unlocked Google Android cell phone, retail price $400. An accompanying email calls for employees to celebrate the 'chance for us to once again dogfood a product and make it even better!'" Update: 12/23 01:09 GMT by KD : A reader pointed out that comments to the article note a couple of inaccuracies: the Android phone being offered is an unlocked dev model, which goes for $400; and the reporter may have confused holiday bonuses with performance bonuses. The former have traditionally been in the range of $1,000, according to two comments.
Honestly, Google doesn't really have to worry about the economy. Unless people stop getting internet access, Google has a rather steady source of income via ads and no one but the businesses pay a cent (and really, advertising is only going to slightly increase with a slowing economy as more people want to get more customers). Google isn't like the car manufacturers in which consumers voluntarily have to pay a large sum to get a car and taking a large amount of money to make the car. While Google does have to pay for servers and bandwidth, they have an almost unlimited commodity with a lot of people willing to buy it. Google isn't in bad financial shape.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
Wow what a slap in the face for Google employees. Getting a shitty phone as a gift. I work for a small company and my bonus is $3000 every year. Sucks to be them. The G1 is one crappy phone.