More than a dozen memes from employees have filled Google's internal discussion forums, many with several hundred likes, according to posts viewed by CNBC. One meme with more than 1,200 likes referred to comments from finance chief Ruth Porat, who wrote last month in a rare companywide email that the company is making "multi-year" cuts to employee services. CNBC found"Ruth's cost savings applied to everyone… except our hardworking VPS and CEO," the meme said.
Another popular meme showed an image of Shrek character Lord Farquaad with the text "Sundar accepting $226 million while laying off 12k Googlers, cutting perks, and destroying morale and culture." A quote from the character read, "some of you may die, but that is a sacrifice I am willing to make." In the computer-animated fantasy from 2001, Lord Farquaad is the ruler of Duloc who exiles many fairytale creatures to the swamp.
The topic of Pichai and money has been a controversial one dating back to late last year, when the CEOthat "we shouldn't always equate fun with money." At the time, he was responding to certain perks the company was eliminating, but he dodged employee questions about cutting executive compensation. Some of the frustration is being directed at Google's plan to repurchase $70 billion in stock, a sign the company has more than enough cash to cover its operations and investments. A recent meme that was liked more than 700 times read, "$70 billion in buybacks shows we respect external shareholders more than Googlers."