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Ask HN: What tech companies/industries will do well in a recession?

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Re: Ask HN: What tech companies/industries will do well in a recession?

#41

Post by bee_rider »

amateurdev wrote: post #9

Power Systems or certain companies in the healthcare space? I was working in a company making software for utilities and oil & gas companies (think competition to GE, Siemens etc). Don't think this will ever be slowed down or have to lay off people specifically due to a 2008-09 like recession

How was it? I've always vaguely wanted to work for the power company. Seems like it would be a pretty stable field, and in the end it is a product that really helps people.

For a while now I've had a vague suspicion that if we poured as much analysis into (broad strokes) smart grid stuff as we do advertising/the stock market, issues like renewables' intermittence would start looking like less of a big deal. (Although I'm aware there are already lots of smart people working on keeping the grid reliable!)

Re: Ask HN: What tech companies/industries will do well in a recession?

#42

Post by mistrial9 »

cj wrote: post #16

Someone from Wells Fargo was on CNBC earlier this week. I liked his viewpoint: They're bullish on a subset of tech that's specifically focussed on efficiency and process automation. I think the same category would do well in a recession. If money is tight, you'll trim down your workforce and you'll cut out "nice to have" goods and services from your budget, but you probably won't cut services/tools that help you get…

business schools have a name for this ... high beta or something like that .. it literally is the sector of business that does well with massive unemployment and similar.. shopping clubs with lower prices for members are one example.

Re: Ask HN: What tech companies/industries will do well in a recession?

#44

Post by [deleted] »

spenvo wrote: post #26
kodah wrote: post #19

Companies that cater mostly to luxury clients Anything energy related. Geography also plays an important role. Places like the valley saw very little impact while the place I was living at in the South basically had it's software ecosystem gutted. It did bounce back within a year though, so just make sure you have enough funds to ride a recession out in the worst case.

> Companies that cater mostly to luxury clients Nah - look at what happened to the Boating industry in 2009. The values of jetskis, sailboats, etc took a major hit as demand dried up. Boats are considered luxury items

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: What tech companies/industries will do well in a recession?

#45

Post by VirusNewbie »

ardit33 wrote: post #36

From all the FAANGMULA companies, only Apple and Facebook haven't had layoffs during a recession. Yes, even Microsoft had some layoffs back in 2008-2009, and Google had some 'stealth' closures. Also they did a hire freeze as well back then. Just right now they laid off the GCP customer support team. We know all the others (Uber, Airbnb, Lyft, etc, had all layoffs as well). It really depends on the CEO's mentality. So…

I'm not sure that means anything. Large companies do layoffs all the time, as it avoids risk of lawsuits. They often solicit managers to voluntarily include some of their people to be included in the layoffs (folks who might be PiPed, etc.) rather than going through a longer process.

It's a really blunt instrument that I don't agree with, but at all of these companies there are going to be people coasting, and layoffs are one way to sort of make people re-interview for their own jobs.

Source: Happened to my division at bigco, lots of people were RIF'ed, but then allowed to transfer to other teams, I and other teammates got offers from other groups only after we 'interviewed' with them.

Re: Ask HN: What tech companies/industries will do well in a recession?

#47

Post by pesfandiar »

During the 2008-2009 episode, analytics companies did well. Apparently a lot of their customers were interested in trimming the fat and needed analytics software for it. I'd guess any tech company that directly helps cut the enterprise costs will be in a good position.

Re: Ask HN: What tech companies/industries will do well in a recession?

#49

Post by vmception »

wintermutestwin wrote: post #46
vmception wrote: post #24

Organizations with lots of cash on hand and very little debt/leverage.

That sounds right, but look at CSCO for a counter example. Plenty of cash, minimal debt and traded down through every recession.

I didn't interpret OP's question as a stock picking question. More about how to weather or avoid massive layoffs. But its not clear what they're asking.
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