The recent Google layoffs, affecting 6% of the workforce, have sparked debates about personal ambition, poor leadership, and unrestrained capitalism. The publicly listed tech giant, once known for its "Don't be evil" mantra, has come a long way since its early days, ballooning to a market cap of over a trillion dollars and nearly 200,000 employees. But as the company continued to grow rapidly and compete for top talent, spiraling compensation packages raised questions from investors about the return on their investments. However, instead of addressing the root causes of its wasteful deployment of people, Google chose to take a blunt force approach to headcount reduction, which is unlikely to lead to improvements in productivity and may even harm the company in the long run. The way the layoffs were handled - with some employees being fired by text message and ghosted - has left a bad taste in the mouth of former employees and is a far cry from the company's original vision of serving the greater good. The pressures of public ownership, with its fiduciary duty to act for the benefit of shareholders, have driven Google down a path that prioritizes short-term profits over long-term thinking. This is a problem with unrestrained capitalism, as institutional investors with the means to take companies to court have the upper hand in shaping a company's priorities. Despite the efforts of Google's founders to maintain control and operate as a long-term-focused company, the reality of public ownership has resulted in a company culture that values profits over people trying to pick up…