Beyond looking good to Wall Street, I’ve been wondering how much the boosts in compensation/ benefits and all of the reflexive “back to the office!” pushes factor into this. It would not be out of character for senior executives to be thinking of their workers as too demanding or even disobedient and the economic slowdown is a great excuse to send a message to everyone reminding them who’s in charge.
Ask HN: Why are big tech companies having mass layoffs?
81–90 of 94 posts
Re: Ask HN: Why are big tech companies having mass layoffs?
#82Earlier quoted context omitted.
This sort of buries the lede though. WHY they're laying off thousands isn't as important as HOW they're able to do that and still function. The reason tech companies are able to layoff all of these people is because they were so overly bloated and had too much deadweight. When you can layoff tens of thousands of people and not miss a beat, maybe those people weren't adding much value to the company to begin with..?
No doubt, but I think that only reinforces "gross mismanagement and active negligence", and again, the CEOs should be out as a result, for cause and therefore without their "my family and I are even more permanently wealthy" severance packages.
Yeah in theory, but the Board's let it happen so they really have themselves to blame. The Board's answer to the shareholders (again, in theory) and yet the composition of musical Board chairs never seems to be affected.
So we just keep peeling away layers of the onion until we get to the abuses of proxy voting by large fund managers (e.g. Larry Fink of Blackrock), who unfortunately seem to be accountable to nobody.
Re: Ask HN: Why are big tech companies having mass layoffs?
#83Because the capitalist system we have built demands constant growth. Even a very stable solidly profitable business is no good. A time comes when revenues go down and/or costs go up, that inhibits growth. The companies are so big they could weather the storm. Even if they kept all the employees and increased compensation, they would still be profitable. But if they did that, they wouldn't be growing. The stock price…
There are many class groups that have a potential grievance against capitalism. But pretty sure that FAANG engineers are not one of them.
FAANG engineers are still labor, they're just well paid labor.
We don't have an AMA or Bar association gatekeeping entry, even.
Re: Ask HN: Why are big tech companies having mass layoffs?
#84Earlier quoted context omitted.
> They all bet that this was a permanent 5-year jump-ahead. They were wrong This is the part that really needs explanation. How was every CEO of every major tech company wrong? Why aren't we having a big tech CEO layoff for massive wrongness? It certainly feels like there's a lot of groupthink here in any case. The Google severance looks pretty generous? That plus the last couple years of overhiring is going to end u…
Something I'd like to see is if large, profitable, private tech companies are also doing layoffs. Like, it's reasonable for unprofitable companies to do layoffs. I can see investor pressure causing something similar in large public companies like Google and Amazon, even if they're profitable. But profitable private companies should be snapping up all the best talent now.
But it's not about capturing Talent. It is about the marginal benefit of the next worker that you hire. If they cost more than they raise your bottom line, there's no reason to hire them
Re: Ask HN: Why are big tech companies having mass layoffs?
#85Amazon, Shopify, Wayfair, Google, Meta: all of these companies make money because e-commerce exists. The higher the proportion of all sales taking place on e-commerce, the more valuable the companies are. For Google and Meta, it's the advertising portion, but it's still impactful. If we track online sales as a proportion of all sales over the last 20 years, there's a pretty stable trend of increase. Then COVID hit, l…
> They all bet that this was a permanent 5-year jump-ahead. They were wrong This is the part that really needs explanation. How was every CEO of every major tech company wrong? Why aren't we having a big tech CEO layoff for massive wrongness? It certainly feels like there's a lot of groupthink here in any case. The Google severance looks pretty generous? That plus the last couple years of overhiring is going to end u…
Apple still haven't has one yet. If they aren't having one later this year or if it's much smaller percentage than the other bigs, it really speaks how well Time Cook and the leadership is in forecasting and running the biggest company in the world.
Re: Ask HN: Why are big tech companies having mass layoffs?
#86Earlier quoted context omitted.
There are many class groups that have a potential grievance against capitalism. But pretty sure that FAANG engineers are not one of them.
FAANG engineers are still labor, they're just well paid labor. We don't have an AMA or Bar association gatekeeping entry, even.
Unless you have an insanely optimistic viewpoint on socialism, it's very unlikely that every laborer will gain if capitalism ends. Even Lenin recognized the need to cap the wages of the highest paid skilled laborers.[1]
[1]https://www.marxist.com/wage-differentials-under-lenin-and-t...
Re: Ask HN: Why are big tech companies having mass layoffs?
#87Earlier quoted context omitted.
Getting rid of high-earners is more correct. Among the highest earners, they pick the bottom 10% of the performers. Or do some MBA-ish cost/productivity calculations and lay off based on some (probably nonsensical, for programmers) "valuation".
Also not what happened on my team. The system did not prioritize more senior vs more junior engineers (in terms of level). Nor did it prioritize people who had unusually large sign-on packages.
So what do you think it was then? Just randomized?
Re: Ask HN: Why are big tech companies having mass layoffs?
#88Earlier quoted context omitted.
Also not what happened on my team. The system did not prioritize more senior vs more junior engineers (in terms of level). Nor did it prioritize people who had unusually large sign-on packages.
So what do you think it was then? Just randomized?
I think that there was some VP or senior-director level review of which teams would get cut by how much. Then I think that there was some procedure for choosing people on these teams based on level, tenure, and rating history. But I have no idea what this procedure would be.
Re: Ask HN: Why are big tech companies having mass layoffs?
#89They overhired. I've heard on the grapevine that FAANG companies were lowering their standards to keep up with the high pace of hiring demanded by the higher-ups. It seems like they were all stuck in an arms race and now they're all overcorrecting.
Re: Ask HN: Why are big tech companies having mass layoffs?
#90Earlier quoted context omitted.
FAANG engineers are still labor, they're just well paid labor. We don't have an AMA or Bar association gatekeeping entry, even.
Unless you have an insanely optimistic viewpoint on socialism, it's very unlikely that every laborer will gain if capitalism ends. Even Lenin recognized the need to cap the wages of the highest paid skilled laborers.[1] [1] https://www.marxist.com/wage-differentials-under-lenin-and-t...
I was more offering an opinion on where we all fit into the class system. Not offering opinions on any variety of socialism.