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Tesla to Cut 10% of Jobs

cnbc.com

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Re: Tesla to Cut 10% of Jobs

#361

Post by bhauer »

The clarification email Musk sent to all staff had this to say:

> Tesla will be reducing salaried headcount by 10%, as we have become overstaffed in many areas. Note, this does not apply to anyone actually building cars, battery packs or installing solar. Hourly headcount will increase.

This addresses any confusion about how two new factories could ramp if overall headcount was going to take a 10% hit. But to be fair to CNBC, they probably didn't have this context when they wrote the article and headline.

Source: https://twitter.com/WholeMarsBlog/status/1532728341865943040

Re: Tesla to Cut 10% of Jobs

#362

Post by ericd »

marvin wrote: post #253
usr1106 wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those producing cars in the factory have never worked from home. The discussion is only about R&D, legal, finance whatever. And most of those don't differ significantly between Yahoo or Tesla.

It's an incredibly unpopular view on HN, but I don't think we can categorically conclude yet that WFH is always equally good as working in-person for all white-collar jobs that have good prerequisites for WFH. For me personally, the train has left the station and I would not expect to ever consider a non-WFH job again in my career. But that's a completely different question than asking whether companies that require…

Thanks for the intellectual honesty, it seems to be a rare thing in the WFH discussion.

Re: Tesla to Cut 10% of Jobs

#363

Post by SpicyLemonZest »

c8g wrote: post #338

Just curious, how much money they can save firing 10% employee? so they can survive almost 10% more days, right? It seems to me it is not that much effective.

They're profitable, so it's not that they're trying to stretch out some fixed pool of money. One big thing that reducing costs can do is help them stay profitable as the economy gets worse, although that's not the only reason they might want to do something like this.

Re: Tesla to Cut 10% of Jobs

#364

Post by alasdair_ »

Symmetry wrote: post #100
that_guy_iain wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When people say "no space in the building to allocate a desk” they mean "No space to neatly put a desk." Companies have often shown repeatedly they can force desks into rooms when needed. Anyways, they can and will buy office space to put the desks when needed.

And am I the only person who has been in a startup going through a "two people per desk" period when growing rapidly?

For a time, the Niantic office in Bellevue was a tiny room with four desks and five people. The manager would sit on a swivel chair in the middle and try to work on a laptop on his knee.

Later we upgraded to a room with twelve people in it where you had to ask at least two other people to stand up and move their chairs out of the way if you needed to get up for any reason.

Re: Tesla to Cut 10% of Jobs

#365

Post by ericmay »

PheonixPharts wrote: post #348
ericmay wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The main issue with that approach is that you basically also lay off all of your good workers who prefer remote. Maybe it's worth the cost for employers. Idk. We're remote-first and hiring. Looking forward to chatting with these employees once companies try and implement their in-office policies.

Been through a couple of layoffs at a variety of different companies through out my career and personally managed to dodge the bullet each time (so this isn't a sour grapes type response). It is very important to recognize: who gets laid off has nothing to do with whether or not they are a "good worker". The "good worker" narrative is there to justify management's decisions and reduce survivor's guilt, but you'll see…

Yes but in this case we're talking about returning to the office, which doesn't have the exact same dynamics.

In the case of the return to office dynamic, you're specifically filtering out high-quality workers who also prefer to be remote, and the results are retention of all low/medium quality workers regardless of remote/office preference, and high quality workers who don't mind or have some reason that keeps them in the office. You don't filter out low-quality workers whatsoever because they'll at least go to the office to keep their job assuming they don't have options (or else they'd be higher quality workers or maybe they just leave the work force).

Re: Tesla to Cut 10% of Jobs

#366

Post by 8ytecoder »

yashap wrote: post #296
photochemsyn wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Parking space? Ride your bike or take public transport, individual cars are not the best option. Electric buses and trains and bikes (for moving people) and electric trucks (for moving goods) are really where the future is going to be.

Tesla’s HQ is on the outskirts of Palo Alto, pre-pandemic most employees commuted in from San Francisco or San Jose. It’s a 3-4 hr bike ride each way from SF, or a 1.5-2 hr bike ride each way from SJ. Not exactly practical. Public transit isn’t great in the area either.

Not to mention Palo Alto is extremely anti-density and housing. No choice but to live in San Jose or SF and commute.

Re: Tesla to Cut 10% of Jobs

#367

Post by MichaelRazum »

mabbo wrote: post #344

It's really starting to feel more and more like the end of 2007 and start of 2008. Stocks on a steady downward trend. Layoffs starting here and there. Growth slowing across various industries. I took a macro economics course at university that year, taught by a professor who was just about to retire after 40 years of teaching the subject. He was blunt with us: "I don't know what's going to happen, but I bet it's goin…

Thinking the same. I think the main difference is that we have inflation AND real economic constrains. Anyway what is the best way to hedge? Some say cash is king, but it is kind of counter intuitive, since inflation is high.

Re: Tesla to Cut 10% of Jobs

#368

Post by NoGravitas »

mjr00 wrote: post #250
xmodem wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While this may be true from the perspective of upper management, it is a very shitty way to treat the people who work for you, or would like to.

What's the alternative? Telling all of your employees "hey we're thinking about layoffs that may or may not happen, and we don't know who will be affected" would be a massive morale hit and make people leave. Until the final decision is made -- and this is a hard decision that everyone, including upper management, wants to avoid making until absolutely necessary -- it's best to keep it close to the chest. Just becaus…

As a worker, I'd prefer to have the time to prepare. By, for example, job hunting. Or at the least updating and polishing my resume.

Re: Tesla to Cut 10% of Jobs

#369

Post by 99_00 »

user3939382 wrote: post #135
cmrdporcupine wrote: post #6

Uh,ok... Two days ago the "Who is hiring" thread here had something like 20+ software engineering positions for Tesla. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31585021 More erratic decision making from Mr Musk. Like, I dunno, the time he told Twitter he was taking Tesla private while tripping on LSD. He needs to step aside from Tesla at this point.

> erratic decision making from Mr Musk I'd be the last person to defend Elon Musk, I don't know the guy, but just want to point out that when you're at his level of wealth and power you also have very wealthy, powerful enemies. I see ongoing, what appears to be coordinated, attempts in the mainstream/social media to paint him as crazy. I have no special access to the truth but I'd be unsurprised if those stories are…

It's amazing to see the regime's golden boy turn into it's black sheep.

You realize that much of our opinions aren't from critical think but are simply assigned to us by elites.

Re: Tesla to Cut 10% of Jobs

#370

Post by renewiltord »

c8g wrote: post #338

Just curious, how much money they can save firing 10% employee? so they can survive almost 10% more days, right? It seems to me it is not that much effective.

Wait, no, that's not right. Say you have $100 in the bank and you make $100/month and spend $110/month on people and that's the only expenditure.

You're going to survive 10 months.

Suppose you fire 10%, so now you spend $99/month and let's say revenue is linear, so now you make $90/month. You're now going to last 100/9 = 11.11 months and that's more than 10% longer already.

Now if you fire from positions that you got in anticipation of them contributing but they don't then you could even go negative to positive.

So it's not 10% more days even in the worst case where you are running something like a consulting business where revenue is proportional to number of heads and for complex operations it can make you profitable.

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