Google Combines Maps & Waze Teams To Control Costs Without Any Layoffs: Report

Alphabet Inc GOOG GOOGL Google looks to merge Waze’s more than 500 employees with the company’s Geo organization, which supervises the Maps, Earth, and Street View products, beginning on Friday.
Waze CEO Neha Parikh will exit her role following a transition period, the Wall Street Journal reports.
Google said it planned to preserve Waze as a stand-alone service and did not eye any layoffs under the reorganization.
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Google expects the restructuring to reduce overlapping mapmaking work across the Waze and Maps products.
In September, CEO Sundar Pichai said he wanted Google to become 20% more productive and indicated the company could merge teams working on overlapping products.
The report noted that activist hedge fund TCI Fund Management called on Alphabet to aggressively cut costs in November.
Waze, with 151 million monthly active users of its crowdsourced mapping service, also initiated to build an advertising business in recent years.
The report further added that Noam Bardin, the CEO who steered Waze through its sale to Google, left the company last year to start Post, a competitor to Twitter.
Christopher Phillips, a former music technology executive, leads the Geo organization that will oversee Waze.
Price Action: GOOG shares traded higher by 0.42% at $95.55 in the premarket on the last check Thursday.
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