The year 2024 has started with job cuts impacting the tech industry, as several tech giants including Google, Amazon, YouTube, and others have announced significant layoffs. Now, it has become clear that this trend is likely to continue as Google moves forward with additional employee layoffs. But most notably, this round of layoffs affects Google’s parent company, Alphabet’s laboratory known as ‘X – The Moonshot Factory’. This is being labeled as an attempt by the company to secure external funding for its various ventures.

As reported bloomberg, “Alphabet Inc.’s laboratory for cutting-edge technology is laying off dozens of employees” as it aims to attract outside investors. This division, X (not to be confused with Based on who do not wish to be named. Bloomberg.

This is reportedly due to internal structural changes going on in the laboratory. It aims to spin off the projects as independent startups, with the goal of completing the move with the help of parent company Alphabet and outside investors, as seen in an internal email accessed by Bloomberg.

What did the head of the lab say to the employees?

“We are expanding our approach to focus on more projects as independent companies funded through market-based capital,” lab head Astro Taylor noted in an email. “We will do this by opening our doors to collaboration with a broader base of industry and financial partners and continuing to emphasize lean teams and capital efficiency.”

He said in an email to staff: “This approach will give us more opportunity to focus on what Xers do best: inventing breakthrough technologies to help solve some of the world’s most pressing challenges.”

What does X Lab do?

The lab is the brainchild of Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin and aims to address critical issues affecting the world such as climate change and internet access. However, it is reportedly struggling to facilitate the transfer of major projects out of the laboratory. The lab describes itself as, “X is a diverse group of inventors and entrepreneurs who create and launch technologies that aim to improve the lives of millions, even billions, of people.”

The move comes after Google laid off hundreds of employees from multiple teams, including its voice assistant unit and hundreds of employees from the hardware team responsible for the Pixel, Nest and Fitbit. Additionally, it let go of employees from its augmented reality team and its central engineering team.