Live data from Hacker News

Lyft lays off 17% of workforce, furloughs hundreds more

cnbc.com

411–420 of 595 posts

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

#411

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.

Part of that tension is what's led to the the current situation with COVID— the federal government is where the CDC is, so there's an expectation that they're the ones providing centralized coordination and guidance for a measured, unified, national response. If each state has its own version of the CDC (and other similar agencies), then that's fine, but they also need to have a lot more sovereignty over things like…

Each state does have its own version of the CDC.

https://www.fsis.usda.gov/wps/wcm/connect/fsis-content/inter...

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

#412
post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing is, right now there seems to be a disturbing pattern of the world falling apart at the end of every GOP administration. This is problematic, because we still need the GOP so that we can vote out democrats when they mismanage the nation's affairs. We can't have one party, that's not safe for us as the citizenry for obvious reasons. At the same time, we can't have this, "the world ends", at the end of every G…

> We just need for the reps to stop running the nation into the ground when it's their turn If you think that is what the Republicans are doing each time it's their turn, not sure there is much hope in changing that pattern. After all, they clearly think they are not running the nation into the ground when it's their turn.

They'd probably agree that they were, actually, as long as you constrained the definition of 'nation' to 'federal government.'

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

#413

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.

If we kept a common market, and common currency, you would see lots of failed states like we’ve seen with Greece in the EU.

Yes but you would also see lots of extremely advanced states like we’ve seen with Germany, France, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, the Netherlands, Austria, Belgium, and Estonia in the EU

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

#414

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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? To be honest the most interesting thing to me is the US media. I don't think it has ever been so openly hostile towards one party and so hungry to cause a civil war. They're not even h…

The media's job is not to fawn over the president, actually. They are to report the news and tell the people when the president lies. Therefore, they are doing a great job. By the way, the most watched cable news is Fox News. I assume you aren't talking about them?

> The media's job is not to fawn over the president

I wonder if you felt the same way from 2008 to 2016 when they were fawning over the previous president. It's interesting that they do a great job only when a certain political party happens to be in power.

It's easy to be the most watched cable news when every other mainstream channel is carrying water for the opposition party.

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

#415

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, the civil war.

The federal government was attacked to touch off the Civil War. Like, by men with guns. That's a rather critical distinction.

I’m not sure it particularly matters which side started it, you still had basically open violent conflict between democrats and republicans for decades, before and after the war.

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

#416

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's amazing that the US Federal government seems to be able to provide trillions of dollars in liquidity on a moment's notice to anyone and everyone - except the states. Airlines? Of course. Junk bond investors? Sure, why not? States? "We're not going to bail out Democratic-run states."

It would be immensely helpful to see uniforms with all of the campaign contributions each has like a race car driver so you know who butters their bread.

I would vote for that constitutional amendment.

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

#417
post #405

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seriously? We're going to blame old people for not wanting to live in poverty while the heights of the economy sequester trillions of dollars in a power law curve?

Many pensions are not the "have $27k/yr starting at age 67" kind, but the "have $100k/yr + benefits starting at age 55" kind. Its the latter that people find upsetting - nothing close to poverty level.

Sure, but people took those jobs in large part because of those pensions. It is part of the entire compensation package. They often times took less money up front in return for better pensions.

The problem is that this was not properly budgeted for when funding the pensions.

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

#418

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't know that. I thought it was because of their engineering chops.

I always thought Big 4 was because they were basically the top 4 biggest market cap companies in the US

I’m not sure if Netflix ever had market capitalization higher tahn Microsoft

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

#419

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was an interesting piece in this week's Atlantic on the motivation for having states declare bankruptcy: "Under the Constitution, bankruptcy is a power entirely reserved to the federal government. An American bankruptcy is overseen in federal court, by a federal judge, according to federal law. That’s why federal law can allow U.S. cities to go bankrupt, as many have done over the years. That’s why the financia…

Is it legal for a state to declare bankruptcy or would Congress have to pass a law? It doesn't seem like the House would be interested.

It's not legal for a US state to declare bankruptcy. There are three relevant parts in the US Constitution that preclude this action. One says that US states are not allowed to abrogate their contractual obligations (pensions, debts, etc). Another says US states are sovereign in their own right. The Federal government cannot act on them directly. All bankruptcy procedures (personal, corporate, municipal) are dealt with at the federal level. Having a federal court process a state bankruptcy would violate state sovereignty, because the federal government would be acting on a state directly.

A law would have to be passed and there would probably be a challenge to it that would eventually go before the US Supreme Court.

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

#420
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?

> Uber/airbnb/lyft were considered in the same tier as facebook/google before corona So was wework by many. Facebook/google cannot be more different from uber/airbnb/lyft. FB/G are in high margin business, operating largely in virtual space, where scaling to new markets has low marginal costs. Uber/airbnb/lyft are in historically low margin, capital intensive space, where scaling to new markets has very high marginal…

Odd that you say that. I got an offer from WeWork, which I declined because of weird cult-y vibes I was getting during the interview. A few months later they blew up.

I got rejected by Uber, was too scared of rejection to try Airbnb or Lyft. But I considered all three a tier (or more) above WW.

I'd have hands down, without hesitation, accepted a job from Uber even if I would have been laid off at some point down the road. Having Uber (or Lyft, or Airbnb) on the resume would open doors I imagine having WeWork (even disregarding the whole scandal) would not.

Post reply on HN