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Twilio to lay off 11% of workforce

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Re: Twilio to lay off 11% of workforce

#481
post #91

> "were carried out through an Anti-Racist/Anti-Oppression lens" People have lost their damn minds. This is actual institutionalized racism . I wouldn't work for these people in a million years, but I really do wonder how I'd fit into their shallow models (I'm mixed race b/w).

That’s the creepiest thing to me - employers tracking your race seems … strange. And if they’re not tracking it it’s even worse because that means they’re deciding your race for you!

[deleted]

Re: Twilio to lay off 11% of workforce

#482

>Twilio had 7,867 employees as of Dec. 31, 2021. Every single layoff story stupefies me. Confuses. Flabbergasts. What are these companies doing with so many people? What are they doing? Like, what are their day-to-day tasks? My employer has more people but we build nuclear reactors and spacecraft. Our revenue per employee is nearly double Twilio's and is low for a "tech" firm due to the extremely high capital costs a…

I am glad I'm not the only person who has had this thought, and I think it every time I see how many people some of these random tech companies employ. Those are the kinds of employee numbers I would expect from a much larger company than Twilio. For reference, in the past I worked for an immensely profitable eCommerce business and I don't think our entire engineering department ever reached more than 40 people at it…

Twitter has 7500 employees. Its absurd. You could fire 7000 of them and still run the infrastructure just fine.

Re: Twilio to lay off 11% of workforce

#483

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a Latino, I too am growing tired of the way some leadership and HR departments in tech callously, carelessly push and promote these diversity initiatives in a way that creates resentment. Combating racial bias is a sensitive topic. You'd have to be living under a rock to not know that. And yet companies continue to make statements like this without the tact it deserves. Let's give them the benefit of the doubt, an…

Curious how you feel about the term LatinX that all tech companies are embracing? Reason I ask is I have a few really good friends who are Hispanic(Nicaraguan, Dominican, Mexican) and they all despise that term. I don't know why its used and it seems strange as its been forced on us the past few years with no consulting or buy-in from any of the Hispanic employees at these companies. Even outside polls found that a h…

I find the whole Latino/Latinx switch attempt especially shortsighted, because it is commonly just used as a catch-all term for "person from Central/South America".

But, there are millions of native people from those places who don't view themselves as Latino, and, if anything, see the Latins as invaders/colonizers/oppressors. For example, if you're a K’iche’ speaker from Guatemala, you may not even speak Spanish, and you probably don't self identify as "Latino".

Re: Twilio to lay off 11% of workforce

#484

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a Latino, I too am growing tired of the way some leadership and HR departments in tech callously, carelessly push and promote these diversity initiatives in a way that creates resentment. Combating racial bias is a sensitive topic. You'd have to be living under a rock to not know that. And yet companies continue to make statements like this without the tact it deserves. Let's give them the benefit of the doubt, an…

Curious how you feel about the term LatinX that all tech companies are embracing? Reason I ask is I have a few really good friends who are Hispanic(Nicaraguan, Dominican, Mexican) and they all despise that term. I don't know why its used and it seems strange as its been forced on us the past few years with no consulting or buy-in from any of the Hispanic employees at these companies. Even outside polls found that a h…

I’m Spanish and have friends all over Latin America. we often laugh about the term. Some people in the US decided to put a rich variety of cultures and historical backgrounds in the same bag.

Argentina, Peru, Bolivia, Colombia, Mexico… all have fascinating cultures and histories on their own. All erased and stereotyped by a bland externally imposed term like Latinx that is not even pronounceable in Spanish. It feels like the colonialism that some are supposedly trying to fight against.

Re: Twilio to lay off 11% of workforce

#485

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By contrast, I was at two successful unicorns. They were both large (1,000 and 2-3,000 employees). We had the luxury of having significantly more applicants than headcount. I think the mentality is more that the product is already successful, and we have a responsibility to ensure that that oppressed people don't miss out on that success. The irony is that most "oppressed" people hired at the companies we very well o…

I think of this as the Left having lost its way (in its own sort-of marxist terms). It's overly obsessed with identity and forgets the much more important discriminant of class. A cynical analysis is that the upper classes are using this as a successful divide and conquer tactic...

It’s a communist tactic to sow division in society by raising tension along identity lines like race, etc. Of course schools usually cover this part of history as “McCarthyist nonsense.”

Re: Twilio to lay off 11% of workforce

#486
post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People are not being let go because of who they are This is a common tactic from progressive in that they flat out deny the reality that everyone else see. They just say "it doesn't happen" when the CEO in a letter that was filed stated they specifically did this.

Dude, I don't know why you're trying to paint me as something when I'm the OP of the thread that has taken umbrage with the layoffs. First, go outside and breathe. Second, the statement clearly says that it is a part of the calculus. Nobody is fired because they are white or black or whatever. The statement is just that it is taken into consideration (which is something that I have issue with). Please (and I mean thi…

I cannot think of another reasonable interpretation of what the CEO said than "we considered race/class/some other attribute as part of a person's performance and suitability for continued employment at the company". If two people were otherwise equal int heir performance, but one was black, and the other white, I woudl expect that to be the determining feature.

I don't have any insight into what they are actually doing.

Re: Twilio to lay off 11% of workforce

#487

Earlier quoted context omitted.

serious question - instead of debating the issue, why do you quiz them on their personal knowledge of history? If you'd like to make a point, make it. but demanding they justify their knowledge of history isn't a point in your favor, it rather appears you're incapable of providing a logical argument so will ad hominem their knowledge of history instead. Who are you to quiz random people on the internet on historical…

Race is a social construct that only has any relevance in it's historical context. If somebody is not aware of the relevant context as it relates to the US (they specifically said they were not from the US) then of course it would be very difficult to understand the point of the policies. Most people are willfully ignorant and like to "play dumb" while making bad faith arguments about issues like this. I was merely t…

race "the social construct" is still closely related to genetic history. Pretending there is no relationship isn't very useful. In making your response, assume I am a scientists who knows facts.

Re: Twilio to lay off 11% of workforce

#488
post #448

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a whole ideological movement in vogue that has a really hard time defining what a woman even is.

I always enjoyed that attempt at a definition that led to people pointing out it made women out of chairs and horses. Some of them do manage to be ideologically consistent and exclude vast swathes of cis women from womanhood just to get at trans women, but most just fall back on "but science!" even as actual scientists point out science doesn't support anti-trans ideology.

There are appropriate, consistent definitions for what a woman is. The fact that there are somewhat vague boundary cases is true of any definition of real world things and not an indictment of its utility.

Re: Twilio to lay off 11% of workforce

#489
post #450
post #366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the proposed solution? Put a finger on the scale against the privileged group? By how much? for how long? Lumping any race together and treating it as the same is a problem in my view.

> What's the proposed solution? There actually is an equitable solution there: help all of the poor equally. To the extent any identifiable group has been historically disadvantaged, this solution will balance things out by disproportionately helping those groups. I really don't know why it's not more popular as a way to make society more fair, or why group-based interventions are seen as necessary despite the existe…

I agree, and this is more of what many other developed countries are doing with things like cheap or free education, social safety nets, wealth transfer etc. But the US seems to be allergic to all of those.

Re: Twilio to lay off 11% of workforce

#490
post #388

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If there is an unfairness in obtaining opportunity, either lack of education opportunity or whatever, that seems like the right thing to address. Not at the end of the process and then trying to tilt things.

That reminds me of what happens when we see a house on fire: We let it burn to the ground (don't want to upset the status quo of the house on fire), then say we'll make a few small tweaks to the building codes to prevent any house fires in the future. A major problem should be tackled in all of the areas where there is injustice. The beginning, the end and the middle.

That's not what I'm saying at all. I'm saying (in my opinion), there are other areas more worthy of investment that for whatever reason the populous aren't behind. How about we provide easier and cheaper access to education? More after school programs, child care, social safety nets etc so that disadvantaged groups don't stay disadvantaged.
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