What you want to know
- Google is outwardly merging the groups behind Maps and Waze.
- The transfer signifies that Waze’s present CEO, Neha Parikh, will step down.
- Google doesn’t intend to put off staff from the Waze workforce as a part of a broader cost-cutting measure.
Waze has maintained full autonomy since being acquired by Google in 2013, with the workforce working independently from its dad or mum firm, however that is now not the case. On Friday, December 9, Google folded the workforce into its Geo enterprise.
According to The Wall Street Journal (opens in new tab), the restructuring is a part of Google’s bigger effort to chop prices by streamlining the enterprise. Waze will proceed to function as a separate app from Google Maps, although it is being merged into the Geo group, which oversees Maps, Google Earth, and Street View. The merger will end in much less overlapping work on each providers.
Waze’s 500 staff will even be a part of Google’s Geo group, which suggests no layoffs are being deliberate for the workforce. Unfortunately, the reorganization signifies that Waze CEO Neha Parikh will go away her position, an organization spokesperson advised WSJ.
Google’s dad or mum agency, Alphabet, acquired Waze in 2013 for round $1 billion. At current, the platform serves roughly 150 million month-to-month customers. While it has remained impartial, a few of its well-liked options have been ported over to Maps, akin to the flexibility to report close by fuel costs, get visitors slowdown alerts, and add stops to your route.
“Google stays deeply dedicated to Waze’s distinctive model, its beloved app and its thriving neighborhood of volunteers and customers,” Waze’s head of PR, Caroline Bourdeau, advised The Verge (opens in new tab).
In September, Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai said that he wanted to make Google 20% more efficient by becoming leaner and dependent on fewer resources.
Many tech behemoths have implemented their own cost-cutting measures in response to uncertain global economic challenges, which have mostly involved mass layoffs. Meta laid off more than 11,000 employees following a similar move by Twitter. Amazon’s employees at its Devices & Services division weren’t spared either.
While the latest move has raised concerns among Waze employees, Google reiterates that it does not intend to terminate existing staff at the service. “By bringing the Waze workforce into Geo’s portfolio of real-world mapping merchandise, like Google Maps, Google Earth and Street View, the groups will profit from additional elevated technical collaboration,” Bourdeau advised The Verge.