The CEOs of Alphabet, better known as the Google family of online services, and Meta, better known as the Facebook family of same, have each warned their massive employee rosters that diminishing profits in the past quarter will result in the companies taking a hard look at everyone on board, to see if they are sufficiently pulling their weight. From FOX Business:

Following a disappointing fiscal quarter, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai both told staffers they have productivity concerns and are “turning up the heat” on managing staff performance.

According to audio obtained by Reuters, Zuckerberg, whose company suffered its first revenue decline in history, told staffers last week that his hope is to raise expectations and have more aggressive goals.

“Just kind of turning up the heat a little bit,” Zuckerberg was quoted as saying. “I think some of you might decide that this place isn’t for you, and that self-selection is OK with me.”

Translation: I’m too much of a wuss to fire people, but I’ll make working here so miserable you’ll want to quit, and I won’t have to pay you unemployment.

Meanwhile, Pichai issued similar concerns. Pichai reportedly told staffers last week that there are “real concerns that our productivity as a whole is not where it needs to be for the head count we have.” The comments were first reported by CNBC.

Google’s revenue growth during the past quarter decelerated to its slowest pace in two years as advertisers reined in their spending amid intensifying fears of an economic recession. Second quarter revenue rose 13% this year compared to 62% in last year’s comparable quarter.

But remember, we’re not in a recession.

While soaring gas prices should, in theory, lead to more people spending more time online as they avoid driving–as noted, inflation is driving the economy straight off a cliff. Not even the behemoths are immune. Market Realist notes:

In March, Google laid off several employees that were working in the cloud support area. To some, the layoff round was interesting given that it occurred right around the time that Google acquired Mandiant for a whopping $5.4 billion. Those affected by the cuts were engineers in Zurich, Sydney, Austin, and California. It isn’t clear if another layoff sweep is coming for Google but signs say one might be on the horizon.

For its part, Meta implemented a hiring freeze this past May. Talk is hot and heavy within company walls that as much as 10% of the current staff could be laid off. Or lay themselves off, as noted above.

It is forever lamentable that George Santayana’s truism (“Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it”) bears the stain of having been posted above the madman Jim Jones’ “throne” in Jonestown from which he launched his satanic reign of murder and coerced mass suicide. Even as Google has abandoned its “don’t be evil” mantra in favor of hardcore leftist censorship, Facebook doing the same, both have forgotten that online entities and services can have notoriously short shelf lives.

America Online was once a wildly popular institution replete with multiple online communities; now, it is a seldom-visited website. Cyberspace knows no loyalty, but it does understand economic reality. Google and Facebook’s warning shots fired over their own employee’s heads might be enough to alert even the mollycoddled young that when God told Adam,

“By the sweat of your brow
will you have food to eat
until you return to the ground
from which you were made.
For you were made from dust,
and to dust you will return.”

He included them in the warning.