Meet Silicon Valley’s rattled layoff ‘survivors’ • Hacker News Board

Re: Meet Silicon Valley’s rattled layoff ‘survivors’

#21

Post by dasil003 » Sun, Oct 02, 2022, 3:50 PM UTC

MikeTheRocker wrote: post #13

AzzieElbab wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, we should all be very very worried when companies with 1m profit per employee start laying people off. Excesses of SV aren’t really relevant from my point of view

Agreed. Tech workers at large companies often earn income commensurate with the economic value they produce. When each employee nets the company 7 figures on average, it's hard to make a case that they shouldn't earn some meaningful fraction of that IMO.

“Should” doesn’t really enter into it though. And in any case it’s impossible to attribute impact in that way since the money tends to come from a few huge engines that are not sensitive to individual hires. At the end of the day, tech salaries are a market like any other—driven by what competitors are willing to pay, not by what is “fair”

Re: Meet Silicon Valley’s rattled layoff ‘survivors’

#22

Post by orzig » Sun, Oct 02, 2022, 3:51 PM UTC

Experienced 'survivor' here: You're going to feel (and sometimes be explicitly told) that your stress is not valid, because others have it worse. Both these things can be true. Others have it worse, and the stress you're feeling is real. If you don't acknowledge the effects and act on them (in whatever way works for you), you will undergo entirely avoidable suffering.

Again, others might be suffering more, but nobody wins when you self-flagellate.

If, in addition to taking care of your health, you want to take action on suffering, there are many options. I recommend considering an expansive moral circle and checking out: https://www.givewell.org/

Re: Meet Silicon Valley’s rattled layoff ‘survivors’

#23

Post by duxup » Sun, Oct 02, 2022, 3:51 PM UTC

dasil003 wrote: post #17

> from a Snap survivor: ”So it’s frustrating; they expect us to still go out and win with these products, yet we have fewer resources.” I don’t know what function this is it their manager is telling them, but this quote really reflects a bull market mentality that success is a function of resources applied without acknowledging the inefficiency of throwing money at a problem. People who want to be successful over the…

Amen.

I work at a small shop, 3.5 devs. That presents limits to some extent.

And yet we were faster and more flexible than a company who had wads of cash thrown at them by some parent company who is now shutting them down.

Re: Meet Silicon Valley’s rattled layoff ‘survivors’

#24

Post by mancerayder » Sun, Oct 02, 2022, 3:54 PM UTC

I've met, lately, a really massive number of people who work in tech companies but say they work in "marketing" or "branding."

I'm not really sure what they do exactly, but I think it's to do with the amount of money in the ad tech business that drives profit for the likes of G, FB, etc. I guess decisions have to be made on product strategy, I suppose meetings with clients to discuss ad spend.

Question is doesn't that capital spend dry during recessionary times?

Re: Meet Silicon Valley’s rattled layoff ‘survivors’

#25

Post by wil421 » Sun, Oct 02, 2022, 3:57 PM UTC

SanjayMehta wrote: post #18

dzink wrote: post #7

After a layoff, a lot of the best people among the remaining staff end up leaving as well. In addition to the extra work, the workplace acquires a bunch of mental tombstones of a time that would never repeat itself. If you are any good, that lowers the threshold of reasons not to quit, and the upside of quitting remains untouched (higher salary, new experiences, better title elsewhere, more learning). The reasons to…

The best people leave first, triggering the death spiral.

Just to add a bit, the better ones will know the layoffs or downturn is happening and jump ship well before it happens.

Re: Meet Silicon Valley’s rattled layoff ‘survivors’

#26

Post by 300bps » Sun, Oct 02, 2022, 3:57 PM UTC

dzink wrote: post #7

After a layoff, a lot of the best people among the remaining staff end up leaving as well. In addition to the extra work, the workplace acquires a bunch of mental tombstones of a time that would never repeat itself. If you are any good, that lowers the threshold of reasons not to quit, and the upside of quitting remains untouched (higher salary, new experiences, better title elsewhere, more learning). The reasons to…

After a layoff, a lot of the best people among the remaining staff end up leaving as well

Agreed. But I was always the one that stayed. I remember in 1999 when our company got acquired by another company and started doing layoffs - I had a very good friend that chose to leave the company at that point because things were going to be very difficult for a while.

The company they went to turned out to be so much worse though while I made out very well by staying. This pattern has repeated several times in my career.

Re: Meet Silicon Valley’s rattled layoff ‘survivors’

#27

Post by b1gnasty » Sun, Oct 02, 2022, 4:00 PM UTC

Layoffs aren't what are "rattling" folks in this industry, at least not the tech folks outside of FAANG. If you've worked in startup land, you've experienced layoffs. Probably multiple rounds. You anticipate them, and they aren't scary because the market for your skills is so competitive.

Our "Job Security" comes from the overall state of the hiring market, not finding a job at the most stable company and putting in 30 before retiring.

If folks are rattled, its because of the state of the job market, something I'm actually curious about. Reporting on this would have actual value, as I'm still getting recruiter emails from many of the recent companies that have publicly said they are freezing/slowing down hiring and from many, many startups.

This article just reads like schadenfreude for the majority of tech workers who have never experienced the job security of being at a giant engine growth that never stalled once for 10-15 years.

Re: Meet Silicon Valley’s rattled layoff ‘survivors’

#28

Post by lmeyerov » Sun, Oct 02, 2022, 4:00 PM UTC

MikeTheRocker wrote: post #13

AzzieElbab wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, we should all be very very worried when companies with 1m profit per employee start laying people off. Excesses of SV aren’t really relevant from my point of view

Agreed. Tech workers at large companies often earn income commensurate with the economic value they produce. When each employee nets the company 7 figures on average, it's hard to make a case that they shouldn't earn some meaningful fraction of that IMO.

The economic value isn't measured in revenue but the stock price, which you get paid your bigger bucks in. Their stock dropped 86% over the last year, so market value per engineer is not the same. Compensation was made with that in mind. I doubt existing salary compensation will go down -- the best will leave, or even ask for stock refreshers in stock side to stay -- so now it is dog eat dog.

You are right wrt revenue focus though. Recent Series A/B unicorns will have 100+ employees, but at 20-100X valuation multiple on not that much revenue, so valuation coming down to levels of 5 years ago (which were still frothy!) hurts more bc little revenue to fall back on should a down/bridge round not work out. We are still a year out from many of these being forced, but many smart people at these shops are already (secretly) on the job market.

Re: Meet Silicon Valley’s rattled layoff ‘survivors’

#29

Post by AtlasBarfed » Sun, Oct 02, 2022, 4:01 PM UTC

djohnston wrote: post #5

Overtonwindow wrote: post #4

Quoted post unavailable.

Why is getting better benefits and perks deemed worthy of derision rather than an admission that most employees in the world are treated like garbage? They aren't being completely exploited by their companies so they deserve to be taken down a peg to the sorry state you're in?

The current generation has been comprehensively screwed by the baby boomer generation, to perverse degrees. There should be rabid riots in the street over it, there sure as hell are ones in other parts of the world.

But I don't shed tears for silicon valley workers that didn't ferret away money in the boom. These are not the people that got screwed by the modern American wealth distribution. You're allegedly the smartest people in the world, and you can't read the history of your industry going back even 20 years to the dot Bomb?

Re: Meet Silicon Valley’s rattled layoff ‘survivors’

#30

Post by bitexploder » Sun, Oct 02, 2022, 4:01 PM UTC

NeverFade wrote: post #20

bitexploder wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Young, bright, engineers fresh out of college sliding into a big tech firm making 300k-500k / year and being told they are the most important resource in the universe. If you started this train 3-5 years ago you probably just assumed the gravy train would never stop. I really hope they squirreled away some of those $$ and then moved to a low cost of living area during the pandemic. I have some sympathy, but it made t…

Fresh-out-of-college engineers weren't making $300k, let alone $500k. I'm not sure where you got these numbers. Even at the highest paying BigN, fresh grads don't typically get over $200k. > It was very hard to recruit when all the best and above average talent just got sucked up into the giant companies that build advertising machines in SV. The talent crunch has been getting worse for the past couple of decades. Do…

I am just working from my anecdotal experience hiring engineers into high end infosec consulting and what we were told about other offers. Even now, with companies pushing for in office again and the stock component of BigN salaries crashing down to earth it has changed things in our recruiting pipeline noticeably.