Layoffs and Loyalty in a Liquid Valley

Loyalty is a one way street in business, don't be a fool, do what's right for you.

Exactly. If there's any loyalty, it's in these personal relationships within a company. Regardless of how loyal you are to each other, if the company bottom line says you're gone, then you're gone, and the notice will probably come from a person to whom you are loyal.

It's just bidness.

Wow this highlights how brutal and vulnerable working in the tech space really is.

Do you think it's better elsewhere?

This is a pretty straight call on things. Nobody likes getting laid off, even if they had the day before been wishing they would get laid off. It feels wrong, it feels personal, and it feels bad.

That said, it forces you to look at new opportunities and that can be a good thing. There was a person I knew at Sun who was layed off and that forced them to find a new job and they landed at a company that then went public and they made several million dollars. It really struck me how what seemed like something horrible for them really was the key to their future success.

The key for me was realizing that different people, in different situations, respond very differently to the folks around them. I've seen it work both ways where a "star" from Company A was recruited to work at the company I was working at and they flamed out miserably, and I've seen people that were very unproductive get layed off an blossom in a new environment into superstars.

I wish sometimes someone would do a long duration study of folks in the bay area to quantify the expected value of staying or leaving. My instinct tells me that the smart ones leave, the "loyal" ones pay a price for their loyalty that they don't expect.