Recently, it was reported that Baidu started layoffs and required them to be done by the end of December. According to online rumors, priority is to target two types of people: newcomers who have been with the company for less than one year, and older employees.

On social platforms, there is a self-proclaimed 25th graduate, who has been with the company for 3 months and belongs to MEG's search department, and was laid off to talk about compensation, and the compensation is N+1.5.

Some netizens said that in their MEG group, 7 people went 4 times.

Baidu colleagues also have news to say: "I heard from relevant people that basically can reach N+3, the company has left enough budget, one is that the financial report of the last quarter is good, the boss is in a good mood, the other is that Lao Li is older, and his mentality is much more peaceful and kind (I am still quite moved by this), less than +3, you must strive for it, but don't make a breakup, otherwise it will affect your backtone, it is very important to get together and disperse, don't add blockages to BP, it is not easy for everyone, Baidu's BP is considered humane in the Internet circle."

Some people in the circle of colleagues also said that they got N+3.5, that is, N+1+2 months of year-end + 0.5 signing fee.

Some people asked in Baidu's circle of colleagues if they would continue to talk (layoffs) today.

The Baidu engineer is still worried about the 200,000 shares that will be vested in June next year.

Some netizens said that two fresh graduates of the 25th class who had been in the group for 3 months were talked about, and this time the Guangjin plan did not distinguish between fresh graduates and the elderly.

On social platforms, many Internet giants have begun to fish for people.

A Baidu employee who has just joined the company told Chao Jiao that his compensation is N+1.5.

Another Baidu employee said to Chao Angle that the proportion of layoffs in different businesses varies greatly, and there are personnel adjustments every year, but I don't know why the compensation (N+3.5) is so high this year.

Another Baidu employee revealed to Chao Angle that in addition to the third phase of employees (pregnancy, childbirth, and lactation), last year's M- (a performance level) will be on the list, and there are also some lists discussed within the team. There is no reason, and direct admission is unilateral dismissal. The compensation standard is N+1+0.5+0.5 year-end bonus coefficient.

Therefore, based on comprehensive judgment, the compensation for newcomers and fresh graduates is N+1.5, and the elderly may reach N+3.

It is also reported that Baidu Outsourcing has started a westward relocation plan (moving to Xi'an) and will relocate at the end of December.

An outsourcing employee told Chao Angle that if he couldn't go, the project in Beijing would be over. The outsourcing company will push other positions. "Because I didn't lay you off, although we all know that you have been laid off, he will let you stay on duty, so there is no such thing as compensation. There are also many outsourcing students who discuss with the company and can get compensation, depending on the individual. ”

So what is the reason for layoffs?

It is not unrelated to Baidu's performance.

In the just-released Q3 financial report, Baidu "disclosed AI business revenue for the first time", an increase of more than 50% year-on-year. Among them, AI cloud revenue increased by 33% year-on-year to 4.2 billion yuan; AI application revenue reached 2.6 billion yuan; AI native marketing service revenue increased by 262% year-on-year to 2.8 billion yuan.

It seems that AI revenue is doing well, but at the same time, the traditional advertising business is declining:

Q3 total revenue was 31.2 billion yuan, down 7% year-on-year, and Q2 was 32.7 billion, so it also decreased by 5% month-on-month.

the revenue of "Baidu Core" reached 24.7 billion yuan, down 7% year-on-year; Baidu's core revenue in Q2 was 26.3 billion yuan, down 6% month-on-month.

network marketing revenue was 15.3 billion yuan, down 18% year-on-year, Q2 was 16.2 billion, down month-on-month, and Q3 fell by more than 15% year-on-year.

In terms of net profit, the net loss attributable to Baidu was 11.2 billion yuan, compared with a net profit of 7.6 billion yuan in the same period last year. Non-GAAP, net profit attributable to Baidu was 3.8 billion yuan, compared with 5.9 billion yuan in the same period last year.

That is, in addition to various non-operating data, in the case of a more true reflection of the operating business, the net profit in a single quarter was almost halved year-on-year.

the cost of revenue was 18.3 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 12%. This is primarily due to increased costs associated with intelligent cloud business and content costs.

It highlights the cost rigidity of AI investment, and how to find a balance between continuous investment and profitability improvement has become the key to the future.

Traditional online marketing should still decline, AI business revenue has not yet made up for the gap, open source and reduced expenditure, and layoffs have become a must-choose path.

Just yesterday, Baidu announced the establishment of two R&D departments that report directly to Robin Li.

a new basic model research and development department is responsible for the research and development of highly intelligent and scalable general artificial intelligence large models, which is responsible for Wu Tian, vice president of the group; The new application model research and development department is responsible for the tuning and exploration of specialized models required by business application scenarios, and Jia Lei is responsible. Wang Haifeng continues to serve as CTO, chairman of TSC, and president of Baidu Research Institute. All of the above departments report to Baidu CEO Robin Li.

It seems that Baidu's AI business is speeding up again.