Tragedy at Google strikes again! We received news of a senior software engineer dying by way of suicide at Google in New York City. His death on late Thursday shocked the company’s employees and jolted the tech industry. The man plunged to his death from the 14th floor of the company’s headquarters in Chelsea. He was pronounced dead at Bellevue Hospital.
Interestingly this is the second death by suicide within Google’s staff in less than three months. This time, the man was a partnership leader at the tech giant.
Tragedy at Google: Engineer’s Suicide Shocks the Tech Industry
A year and a half after joining as an agency manager, Pratt had become a top Google executive. Police say he jumped to his death from the 14th floor of 111 Eighth Ave. around 11:30 p.m.
We won’t have a name for the victim until the family consents to release the info. A police source stated that officers found handprints on the ledge of an outdoor terrace, but no note was left behind.
Earlier this week, Google laid off about 12,000 of its workers worldwide, the latest in an ongoing round of layoffs sweeping across the tech sector as recession fears continue to escalate. This comes as Microsoft and Amazon have recently announced similar plans to cut their workforces.
The suicide sparks conversations about mental health in the workplace
The fear is that companies could end up pursuing risky projects that don’t pay off, instead of building profitable products. That’s why several companies, including Amazon and Google, have been cutting back on moonshots, those ambitious R&D projects that usually don’t turn a profit but help to boost their reputation for innovation.
While the cuts have caused many to worry that they won’t get a better job at another company, some of them feel that getting rid of those risky side projects may actually be for the better. It could force the companies to invest more in things that are more likely to be profitable, such as AI or other areas where it’s possible for a new product to make a huge impact on society.
