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SpaceX to lay off 10% of Workforce

latimes.com

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Re: SpaceX to lay off 10% of Workforce

#271

Post by _ph_ »

vasco wrote: post #270
antpls wrote: post #265

I don't understand how anyone in the world accept such social contract of being laid off anytime for arbitrary reasons. If you create a company, you take care of it and all of its members. If you have to cut expenses because the company needs to be "leaner" then you cut the salaries starting from the top executives. Eventually you fire management, because the state of the company is in part the result of their decisi…

What about when people get comfortable and stop performing at initial levels. Or if you realize you have too much middle management?

If single employees fail to perform, they should eventually be let go - idealy after given the opportunity to fix their performance.

The cancellation of a major project also might make a whole department obsolete.

But a blanket lay-off of 10% of the work force for a company which claims to be healthy, that is quite employee-unfriendly.

Re: SpaceX to lay off 10% of Workforce

#272

Post by vidarh »

shaklee3 wrote: post #231
FlyMoreRockets wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There have been plenty of satellite price flexibility studies that show there is a marked lag between supply and demand. This is because high launch costs demand extraordinary levels of design and Q&A: there may never be a second chance. Unfortunately, these supply chains have flexibility baked out for some time, perhaps predating the Apollo era. Lowered launch costs and increased launch opportunities offer increasin…

I don't think it has anything to do with launch costs. Satellites take a very long time to develop, and they're hundreds of millions of dollars. You have one shot to get it right, and lowering launch costs doesn't really make a big dent in that.

Satellites are that expensive in large part because if you're spending hundreds of millions on a launch anyway, you can't afford to launch ten cheaper satellites.

To be a bit hyperbolic: if launches were cheap enough you'd have amateurs launching stuff hacked together in the garage, knowing if they fail it doesn't matter - they can just try again.

Re: SpaceX to lay off 10% of Workforce

#273

Post by tanilama »

antpls wrote: post #265

I don't understand how anyone in the world accept such social contract of being laid off anytime for arbitrary reasons. If you create a company, you take care of it and all of its members. If you have to cut expenses because the company needs to be "leaner" then you cut the salaries starting from the top executives. Eventually you fire management, because the state of the company is in part the result of their decisi…

It is not exclusionary. By capitalist logic, a company grows because it makes profit from the market, if a company can't do that or lose its source of investment, it needs to shrink or disappear. What you describe is more like a political entity, where the leader is elected and responsible for the welfare of his/her electorate, and if he/she fails to perform, he/she will get booted out. But that is not a company.

Re: SpaceX to lay off 10% of Workforce

#274

Post by Findeton »

antpls wrote: post #265

I don't understand how anyone in the world accept such social contract of being laid off anytime for arbitrary reasons. If you create a company, you take care of it and all of its members. If you have to cut expenses because the company needs to be "leaner" then you cut the salaries starting from the top executives. Eventually you fire management, because the state of the company is in part the result of their decisi…

You're also hired for arbitrary reasons, so that makes it even.

Re: SpaceX to lay off 10% of Workforce

#275

Post by [deleted] »

_ph_ wrote: post #271
vasco wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about when people get comfortable and stop performing at initial levels. Or if you realize you have too much middle management?

If single employees fail to perform, they should eventually be let go - idealy after given the opportunity to fix their performance. The cancellation of a major project also might make a whole department obsolete. But a blanket lay-off of 10% of the work force for a company which claims to be healthy, that is quite employee-unfriendly.

[deleted]

Re: SpaceX to lay off 10% of Workforce

#276

Post by garmaine »

paulie_a wrote: post #261
sjburt wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Likely they would rather send people home and pay them than risk theft or sabotage.

While there have been cases of that the average person is going to fullfil their obligation and collect the check. Any manager that really is concerned about theft and sabotage in that scenario should not be a manager. Employees steal and sometimes sabotage while gainfully employed too. Everyday the company is already risking that.

> While there have been cases of that the average person is going to fullfil their obligation and collect the check.

It only takes one. Risk to the company is much bigger when you’re building rockets than your typical software shop, too.

Re: SpaceX to lay off 10% of Workforce

#277

Post by raquo »

antpls wrote: post #265

I don't understand how anyone in the world accept such social contract of being laid off anytime for arbitrary reasons. If you create a company, you take care of it and all of its members. If you have to cut expenses because the company needs to be "leaner" then you cut the salaries starting from the top executives. Eventually you fire management, because the state of the company is in part the result of their decisi…

There's at-will employment model on one side, and the Japanese Salaryman model on the other side (low vs high loyalty). As usual, the sweet spot is somewhere in between the extremes.

Re: SpaceX to lay off 10% of Workforce

#278

Post by nullifidian »

antpls wrote: post #265

I don't understand how anyone in the world accept such social contract of being laid off anytime for arbitrary reasons. If you create a company, you take care of it and all of its members. If you have to cut expenses because the company needs to be "leaner" then you cut the salaries starting from the top executives. Eventually you fire management, because the state of the company is in part the result of their decisi…

>If you create a company, you take care of it and all of its members.

Companies are not created to take care of their employees. They are created to make profit and/or accomplish a societal goal. If a company is non-profit then it's just the latter.

As someone from a post-communist state, it's plainly obvious to me that people on average don't work as well as they could if the threat of termination does not exist. My parents told me anecdotes about their coworkers who were reading books on the job, even playing videogames, and that's in an aero-space design bureau in the 80ies, in less elite organizations systematic alcohol consumption by groups of employees on the job was not something to be surpised by. And that pattern repeats itself in many countries where employment is semi-guaranteed.

Re: SpaceX to lay off 10% of Workforce

#280

Post by bsaul »

Since there seems to be various personal preferences on the best way to fire people i wonder if any companies ask « if we should fire you, how would you like it to be done ? » at hiring time.
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