One of the most amazing things about technology is that over time, many things become easier. I saved 100% of the money for my first car (Honda Accord) during NYSC. Then, it was easy to make tons of money buying computer motherboards, hard disks, RAMs, etc and coupling them together for a huge margin. The company, Ultinet Systems, which I registered with within two days of arriving at Jos NYSC Camp found open doors in that city. 

In such, I won the federal contract to lay the structured office wiring of the NYSC secretariat. That was the first time the government paid me. Connecting cables and RJ11 and RJ15 was like a geek-level job. It was like that when I got to Lagos, fixing computers, helping buy devices. Then, they took us out of business: computers became so easy to “install” that geeks were not needed to assemble anything! Today, it is buy, connect and use, with minimal help from any techie.

Yes, the boot diskette is gone and anyone can set up a PC or laptop; they do not even include manuals these days.

That trajectory is also happening in how companies assemble teams and create products: “…Google has made a significant reorganization, including the layoff of at least 200 employees from its “Core” teams”. Simply, the elite teams in Google are now largely plug and play; guys from Mexico and India will do those jobs at fractions of what Google could have paid the American workers! When you add AI into the mix, everyone becomes ordinary. This is how it is going to be in the next few years.

Google needs all the money it can save. The news is that Google’s Alphabet paid Apple $20 billion in 2022  to be the default search engine in the Safari web browser. That is a lot of money just to have a special seat on devices. Google controls 80% of the U.S. search market. Apple generates about 20% of its profit from such payments from Google. If you look at it carefully, this is a circle: Google pays Apple, Google gets funds from advertisers, and sends some to Apple, provided Apple does not allow another company into the party. Apple is happy since it is guaranteed a solid inflow. Government thinks that is illegal. 

Now, with that Apple-Google arrangement on shaky grounds (there is a court case playing with the US government), Google should be worried because if the government breaks that party, Apple will go into the search engine business, and can make its version the default search engine on Apple devices.

One of the most amazing things about technology is that over time, many things become easier. Those days, it was easy to make tons of money buying computer motherboards, hard disks, RAMs, etc and coupling them together for a huge margin. But over time, computers became so easy to… pic.twitter.com/JDz5wwKMfa

— Ndubuisi Ekekwe (@ndekekwe) May 3, 2024

Amid anticipation of its first-quarter earnings report, Google has made a significant reorganization, including the layoff of at least 200 employees from its “Core” teams, according to CNBC.

This restructuring revealed just ahead of the earnings release on April 25, underscores the tech giant’s strategic realignment aimed at optimizing operations and resource allocation.

The Core unit, responsible for building the technical foundation of Google’s flagship products and ensuring users’ online safety, bore the brunt of the layoffs. The affected teams encompassed crucial technical units such as information technology, Python development, technical infrastructure, security foundation, app platforms, core developers, and various engineering roles.

Notably, about 50 engineering positions were eliminated at the company’s Sunnyvale, California offices, signaling a significant shift in Google’s workforce distribution. Many of the eliminated roles will be relocated to Mexico and India, reflecting the company’s focus on expanding its global footprint while leveraging high-growth workforce locations.

Asim Husain, Vice President of Google Developer Ecosystem, conveyed news of the layoffs to his team through an email, citing it as the largest planned reduction for his team this year. He said the company is committed to maintaining its global presence while enhancing proximity to partners and developer communities.

“We intend to maintain our current global footprint while also expanding in high-growth global workforce locations so that we can operate closer to our partners and developer communities,” Husain wrote in the email.

The restructuring aligns with Alphabet’s ongoing efforts to streamline operations and optimize its workforce following a downturn in the online ad market. Despite recent growth in digital advertising, Alphabet has continued downsizing, with layoffs spanning multiple organizations. The company announced plans to eliminate about 12,000 jobs, or 6% of its workforce, early last year.

Chief Financial Officer Ruth Porat announced a restructuring of the finance department, including layoffs and relocations to Bangalore and Mexico City, as part of the broader realignment strategy. During an all-hands meeting in March, Prabhakar Raghavan, the company’s search chief, informed employees that Google intends to establish teams in key markets like India and Brazil, where labor costs are lower than in the U.S., bringing them closer to users.

The reorganization underscores Google’s proactive approach to adapting to evolving market dynamics and regulatory challenges. With heightened competition and a more challenging regulatory environment, the company is strategically positioning itself for long-term success while remaining responsive to escalating regulatory scrutiny and consumer expectations.

In a separate email, Pankaj Rohatgi, Google’s security engineering vice president, told his team, “In order to optimize for our business goals, we are expanding work to other locations, which will result in some role eliminations and proposed role eliminations.”

Google’s annual developer conference, Google I/O, slated for May 14, serves as a platform to unveil new developer products and tools. Against the backdrop of advancements in generative AI, including Google’s Gemini, the company is poised to redefine software development paradigms, ushering in a new era of innovation and efficiency.

The Core layoffs encompass the governance and protected data group, crucial in addressing regulatory challenges ahead, especially as global lawmakers increasingly scrutinize AI advancements. The European Union’s Digital Markets Act, effective since March, targets anti-competitive behaviors within the tech industry.

While the Core layoffs reflect a significant restructuring effort, Google said it remains committed to supporting affected employees through outplacement services and opportunities to apply for open roles within the company.

“As we’ve said, we’re responsibly investing in our company’s biggest priorities and the significant opportunities ahead,” the spokesperson said in an email. “A number of our teams made changes to become more efficient and work better, remove layers and align their resources to their biggest product priorities.”

Pay Paid Apple $20 billion for Default Search Box

From LinkedIn: Google parent Alphabet paid Apple $20 billion in 2022 for Google to be the default search engine in the Safari web browser. That’s according to newly unsealed court documents in the Justice Department’s antitrust case against Google, which heads into closing arguments Thursday and Friday. The feds argue that Google has illegally dominated the online search market and its related advertising. The case has revealed exactly how much Apple relies on those payments from Google, which made up more than 17% of the iPhone maker’s 2020 operating income. A decision is expected later this year.

“Commercial banks in Nigeria closed 2.021 million bank accounts in the first quarter of 2024, Q1’24, to clean their books of questionable accounts and comply with regulatory orders on the linkage of bank accounts to the National Identity Number, NIN.

“This is contained in a report by the Nigerian Interbank Settlement System, NIBSS, which also indicated that the number of inactive bank accounts grew month-on-month, MoM, by four million or 2.0 per cent to 19.7 million in March 2024 from 19.3 million in the previous month, February. A bank account is classified inactive when it records zero transactions including deposits, withdrawals, transfers or point-of-sale transactions for six months” – Vanguard wrote

On the closure due to lack of NIN and BVN, what happens to the balances in these accounts? Are banks expected to convert them to profits? No one has explained to me what is going on here? On closure due to inactivity after 6 months, that is unfortunate. So, you close it, do you contact the person or the next of kin, or does that become part of the bank’s treasury?

I have an account in a bank with a balance of N200k but no NIN/BVN is connected to it. Since it is possibly closed now, what happens to that N200k?

Nigeria needs to update the Bank Account Closure regulation if there is anything like that. There needs to be a clause which indicates that if the bank cannot track the owner or next of kin, the funds must be returned to the Nigerian treasury. My personal email has not changed since I opened this account; the bank has not emailed.

In the United States, they used to allow gift cards to expire anyhow. But one day, the US Congress added a small clause, stipulating that once the card expires, send the value to the US Treasury. Magically, only a few cards expire these days.

Good People, that someone has been unable to add NIN or BVN to an bank account does not mean the bank does not have an obligation to use available contacts to reach him or her to return the money even as the account is being closed. Sure, before you close, what efforts have you made to track the owner?

We must not allow these regulations to become an avenue to disenfranchise vulnerable citizens. State Attorney Generals can mobilize and write banks, asking for assets belonging to their citizens, since the Federal Government is not interested in this matter. At least, that “State of Origin” will serve a useful purpose in the bank database. “Bank, if you cannot find this person, the money belongs to the state”… how does it sound?