Google executive Omid Kordestani, the company's sales chief, wrote in the offiicial Google blog that cuts are concentrated in Google's sales and marketing operations, as tipsters told us earlier, and that the company had "overinvested" in areas where it had forecasted growth — growth which is not materializing. One source writes that the division that used to be DoubleClick before Google acquired the banner ad-sales network in 2007 was especially hard hit with more than 50 jobs eliminated in New York. Other sources say layoffs are spread throughout the Google empire; we've heard of at least one cut at YouTube.

A tipster writes:

A friend of mine in the San Francisco office's AdWords division (who wants to remain nameless) was laid off this morning. She also said there were 200 people total. They are still on payroll for two months and have the opportunity to apply for other jobs within the company. If they don't have another job at the end of the 60 days they get a severance package.

The 60-day payroll period sounds consistent with the advance warning an employer would be required to give employees affected by a mass layoff under state and federal laws known as WARN acts. If you know more, drop us a line.

That's not a "major" layoff, as one Valleywag tipster maintained this morning. As Eric Savitz points out in Tech Trader Daily, Apple would have to file through the WARN Act if it was going to conduct major cuts. But the WARN Act does not generally apply to layoffs of fewer than 500 employees.

Perhaps the cuts felt major to workers within Apple's unloved enterprise group. Why is that division getting the business end of cutbacks? The least sexy part of Apple, selling servers and other products to corporate customers, has never gotten much attention inside or outside the company. Steve Jobs has never particularly cared about business customers — in fact, he once ridiculed them as lemmings in an '80s-era Apple ad (see clip above). Even though he's ostensibly on medical leave, the cuts in Apple's enterprise sales are a pretty good sign he still has his hand on the tiller.

Update: An Apple spokesman has denied the layoffs.

Hi Paul,

The company statement is below. For what it's worth, I'd be very appreciative if you used the entire statement:

"Current Media today announced changes to its structure and staffing. Approximately 60 positions have been eliminated in the company’s three U.S. offices and approximately 30 new positions created. Many of those whose positions were eliminated have been placed in the new positions. Current will have approximately 410 employees (after these staffing adjustments). These changes result from the development of a new, innovative programming strategy built around eight cross-platform channels, including news, comedy, music and technology, slated to premiere in the first quarter of 2009. Current’s new programming strategy expands upon its pioneering use of viewer created content to include additional opportunities for participation, creating a far more viewer-influenced network, and further unifies the Company’s online and TV platforms by having each web channel paired with a companion TV show. In addition, these changes enable Current Media to reduce its cost structure, thereby assuring that it will be comfortably profitable in 2009 regardless the depth and length of the recession."

Musk has previously said that Tesla will be able to turn cash-flow positive in nine months, if it receives new investment. He now says he's seeking an additional $20 million from Tesla's current investors, and expects to get it next week.

Do the math: If Tesla has $9 million in the bank, and requires another $20 million to get to positive cash flow over the next nine months, then it is burning at least $3 million a month. And that's after it laid off 24 percent of its workforce and announced plans to shutter its Detroit office.

But autos are an expensive business, thoroughly dependent on free-flowing credit for their manufacture and sale. Tesla's high-end electrics, a status symbol in good times, now seem excessive; who wants to drive a $109,000 car into a half-empty parking lot? Siry says that the company's moves aren't driven by demand, which remains healthy.

Rather, Sorkin's publicist, Joy Fehily, tells us, on his behalf. Or whoever answers her email. With all the layers of secretaries and managers and representatives in Hollywood, you can never tell. Yesterday, Sorkin's agent's assistant issued a nondenial, before politely informing us, "I have to hang up on you now."

Likewise, the skeptics will have to hang up on any remaining doubts that Sorkin is behind this movie. Really, could anyone else do the movie? Sorkin is the master of the office drama, picking up on the details that make an inside-baseball story at once believable to insiders and entertaining to outsiders. If it had been anyone but Sorkin, we would have scoffed, too.

Monitor110 was burning cash more quickly than expected due to revenues falling short of projections. We did have a disagreement with our VCs about a bridge. The contingencies they thought were baked into the commitment were different than those we perceived. Did this suck? Yes, it certainly did from management's side of things. But did it cause Monitor110's ultimate demise? No. Poor execution did. And I'm not sure simply adding more capital would have enabled us to grow out of our deeply-seated problems.

Ehrenberg does contest one bit of speculation in our post, on why he omitted the tale of DFJ's treachery: "Most likely explanation is that he knows he might do business with Draper Fisher Jurvetson again, and he doesn't want to be blackballed."

In today's rebuttal, Ehrenberg made it very clear that he will not need Draper Fisher's money ever again:

I don't need DFJ to do my next deal or any other deal and the issue of being "blackballed" is beyond a red herring. It's moronic. I have money. I have access to lots of money. I have access to plenty of non-VC money.

It's settled: Draper Fisher Jurvetson and Roger Ehrenberg have no plans to do business again — you heard it from Ehrenberg.

Foolish disregard for his severance agreement aside, one has to ask this about Lodwick: What kind of entrepreneur or investor puts his deal terms online, in napkin or any other form? That's an easy one: the same kind of entrepreneur or investor who would relentlessly blog his sad relationship with noted New York nobody Julia Allison, quit the Internet over its injustices, rejoin the Internet in an effort to spread Ayn Rand's message, and then, in a huff for the ages, quit the Internet once more.

Update: Ouellette has taken the memo down, saying he posted it to the Web by accident.