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Lyft lays off 17% of workforce, furloughs hundreds more

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Re: Lyft lays off 17% of workforce, furloughs hundreds more

#311

Post by notyourday »

saagarjha wrote: post #267
coredog64 wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always find those numbers interesting. IIRC, they come from the Taxpayer foundation and generally stop at “zip code where the Feds send the check”. Hypothetical example: The DoE wants to build a supercomputer from XBox 360s (ASCI RRoD). They select UNM as the lead contractor and write a check for $101M. UNM buys $50M in XBoxes from MSFT in Seattle, and another $50M for compilers and professional services from IBM i…

Note that often the ZIP code that is chosen is a result of senators pulling strings to get it awarded to their constituents, even for R&D–that's often new jobs.

Mostly congressmen, not senators. And that's what earmarks are.

Re: Lyft lays off 17% of workforce, furloughs hundreds more

#312

Post by jshevek »

notyourday wrote: post #263
seibelj wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would prefer that states have more power and we further decentralize authority away from the federal government. This will limit the see-saw that occurs whenever the president switches parties.

> I would prefer that states have more power and we further decentralize authority away from the federal government. No EPA. No DOE. No equality under the law. No EOC. No NLRB. No Amtrak. No federal enforcement of consent decrees. No voting right act. No gay marriage, etc? Edit: Thanks for downvotes. Every single one of these is enforced by federal and not state courts. It is federal court that gave us Roe v. Wade, f…

The parent suggested a degree of change along a spectrum, you list possible consequences that might occur only if one takes the most extreme form.

Re: Lyft lays off 17% of workforce, furloughs hundreds more

#313

Post by RedBeetDeadpool »

fullshark wrote: post #288
subsubzero wrote: post #111

- The tech companies having issues during covid-19 are all heavily invested in travel/transportation(Uber/Lyft/Airbnb etc). - They also are in industries that entirely use gig workers with personal contact in 90% of their services(airbnb the least of these). - I don't see other tech companies getting hit this hard(the sky is not falling!). - I really, really hope these laid off engineers find other jobs quickly and l…

I mostly agree at this point but wonder if covid's economic impact is just getting started and there's gonna be massive unforeseen 2nd and 3rd order effects. Hospitality/transportation and startups that were already in trouble (e.g. WeWork) might just be the tip of the iceberg. Conversely, it's helped some tech companies (Amazon and Zoom) so who knows how this all shakes out.

My thoughts are that amidst the fear, the thing is, this economy was slowed solely due to the lockdown. If there was a bubble, it hasn't popped yet. There really is no reason for the economy being in the position its in except for the virus. I doubt there will be 3rd order effects that are too devastating. The lockdown will end soon enough and the economy will thaw and start moving again, maybe even to the roaring pace it was at before all this happened ... and after all that is when we will likely see the actual once-a-decade market-correction/recession/depression.

Re: Lyft lays off 17% of workforce, furloughs hundreds more

#314

Post by SauciestGNU »

cwhiz wrote: post #252
wonderwonder wrote: post #121

Layoffs are mounting, alternative work is limited, and the unemployment systems in many states are either broken or running out of funding. Add the federal governments indicated desire to let blue states go bankrupt and we are looking at a good combination to enter a depression. Its a pretty sobering time.

McConnell is a shrewd negotiator so I assume he is using the bankruptcy position to win concessions on rescuing the oil and energy industry. Otherwise there will be a handful of Republican states facing their own bankruptcies. Trump is just a spiteful moron but not even he would let New Mexico, Wyoming, North Dakota, Alaska, Louisiana, Oklahoma, and Kansas all fail.

No, but he'd let New Mexico fail (it's blue) and ram through a bailout for the rest out of political patronage, and the legislature would go along with it, since the Democrats seem to be allergic to actually opposing Trump policies.

Re: Lyft lays off 17% of workforce, furloughs hundreds more

#315

Post by pthomas551 »

baron_harkonnen wrote: post #63
fyp wrote: post #37

Uber/airbnb/lyft were considered in the same tier as facebook/google before corona. With google also slowing hiring, are the engineers laid off all going to be absorbed by facebook?

This will play our more like the dotcom burst than the 2008 crisis. For most younger people here this may come as a shock but tech jobs can disappear, for years. The job market in 2019 felt a lot like the job market in 1999, people rushing to get upskilled so that they could get into software and make ridiculous money. After the dotcom burst huge number of people left tech, or at least left the world of software deve…

You're making a sweeping assertion with zero evidence to back it up.

One obvious counterpoint to this argument is that this recession was not caused by markets realizing that many publicly listed tech companies actually had no market and no path to profitability.

Also, non-tech companies took on a large number of engineers in the late 90s to address Y2K - many of whom got laid off afterwards. Not an issue here.

Re: Lyft lays off 17% of workforce, furloughs hundreds more

#316

Post by vmception »

landryraccoon wrote: post #194
vmception wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nice logic, the only reality is that wall street tolerated being dumped on by employees in the theoretically high growth tech sector. no voting rights, no dividends, create shares, dump on investors the limits of this tolerance was pushed and pushed in the macro environment of there being nothing else to invest in if share price goes up, profitability "just a few quarters away", the employee value proposition or exec…

That still means the company is toast. You're basically arguing that companies were way overpaying for their employees, and their stock price was inflated to begin with. The stock should still go down in that case.

I'm not arguing that at all. I am recognizing the psychology in the macroeconomic environment and helping you understand why you are on the wrong side of the market today.

Re: Lyft lays off 17% of workforce, furloughs hundreds more

#317

Post by notyourwork »

wonderwonder wrote: post #121

Layoffs are mounting, alternative work is limited, and the unemployment systems in many states are either broken or running out of funding. Add the federal governments indicated desire to let blue states go bankrupt and we are looking at a good combination to enter a depression. Its a pretty sobering time.

As sad as it is, I hope all those who voted for this are willing to accept the fate bestowed upon us from our 2016 election and the political stonewalling from both parties.

Re: Lyft lays off 17% of workforce, furloughs hundreds more

#318

Post by RedBeetDeadpool »

johntiger1 wrote: post #30

Crap, I was scheduled to go on internship with them this summer, but I feel like that might quickly no longer be an option..

They likely have so much going on they have forgotten about the people they are bringing on board. Reach out with the expectation that you'll get a response along the lines of, 'let me check what's going on' followed by 'due to this unprecedented time we are unfortunately ...'

Re: Lyft lays off 17% of workforce, furloughs hundreds more

#319

Post by bilbo0s »

afterburner wrote: post #298
bilbo0s wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't. There is a comfort that comes from the instability of party switches. The parties don't cooperate, which means less can get done. Anything that puts anyone in an area where one of the gangs of politicians can actually do something, is to be avoided. We've learned that the hard way in Wisconsin. As a general rule, it's always best to split up your government as much as you can.

Less gets done means the country gets worse and people get more radicalized trying to improve things. The polarization in the US is likely a direct result of the massive deadlock. Your strategy is one guaranteed to ruin your country.

There are democratic nations with many more parties than we have, and the quality of governance in many of these nations has proven to be as serviceable as the quality of governance in the US. (Some might even argue that many of these nations have displayed superior governance to the US despite the power being split up among so many parties that they need coalitions to accomplish the little they can get done.) I've never really found myself persuaded by the skepticism against split governments.

Now there may be a point of diminishing returns. As in 5 parties are as good as 10, are as good as 15. But that's an academic question, and we're not even at 5 parties yet.

On the other end, maybe 500 parties is self defeating, as you say. But we're nowhere near that either.

Re: Lyft lays off 17% of workforce, furloughs hundreds more

#320

Post by hamandcheese »

wonderwonder wrote: post #168
Loughla wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Real questions. I'm not a history buff. Has there ever been a time in US history that the federal government has been so openly antagonistic and overtly willing to attack opposite-party state governments? If so, what were the outcomes? If not, is there anything even close? Current question - what is the endgame for those who what blue states to go bankrupt? What do they get if that happens, outside of talking points?…

End game for people like McConnell is that it puts downwards pressure on unions. A bankruptcy if a law is passed actually allowing states to go bankrupt would be a process overseen by federal courts, many of which are chaired by Trump appointed judges now. The judge gets to decide which debts are paid, meaning that pensions are very likely going to be chopped, hurting union members. There are other reasons. Bottom li…

Could the union strike (after the bankruptcy proceedings are complete) and force the state to take on new debt?

Can states (or municipalities) not declare bankruptcy, and instead default on only the obligations they don't want to pay? That would be similar to how I as an individual can just stop paying one credit card but not the other. Or are those left holding the bag able to sue and force bankruptcy proceedings?

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