News Summary

• Even during a particularly nasty week of tech layoffs, Google led the way by suddenly cutting over 1,000 people with barely any explanation.Since 12,000 people were axed a year ago, smaller layoffs have continued to roll through the sprawling conglomerate at a steady clip, creating a feeling of unease..
• He’s covered the tech industry for over a decade at The Information and other outlets.“Thank you, our corporate overlords, for our new annual tradition.”If you had taken a peek last week at Memegen, Google’s irreverent internal meme board for employees, you’d have seen that quote with thousands of upvotes..
• Not all of these prior cuts have been covered publically, such as a roughly 10 percent downsizing of the public policy group in mid November.This story is exclusively for subscribers of Command Line, our newsletter about the tech industry’s inside conversation..
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• By Alex Heath, a deputy editor and author of the Command Line newsletter..