611–620 of 1001 posts
The world runs on certain types of software. I doesn't run on social media, or video streaming, or "AI/ML", or search. So it doesn't actually run on FAANG companies. It is no surprise they are shedding workers when the free money runs out. But if you are willing to work on "boring software" that provides actual economic value - logistics, HR/Payroll, or really anything people actually pay to use because it boosts the…
> I got this wrong, and I take responsibility for that. As always with these things, I wonder what taking responsibility actually means in practice. Businesses usually try to find ways to correct for major failures in decision making. In the case of Zuck, given his ownership, does anything actually happen or change? I'm sure his net worth has been reduced by changes to Meta's share price, but he was a multi-billionai…
Increasing value of company stock
Facebook ("Meta") made $46.7 Billion in Profit in 2021. They have $42 Billion in cash. If the average engineer is paid $150k then these 11k people would cost the company 150,000 x 11,000 = 1,650,000,000 ($1.6 Billion/year) Mark Zuckerberg could _easily_ afford to keep these people employed and focus their efforts towards improving the safety of the platform e.g: stopping Human Trafficking, Drug Dealing and Child Abus…
I'm not really sure what the point of the layoffs here are. Are they realizing that they had no idea how to effectively put 11.000 people to work? What are they trying to achieve?
* this is a cost cutting measure and not primarily driven by the need to cull "low performing" employees.
* point of the company is not to guarantee employment or even keep the lights on; its to maximize the stock price (at least according to the prevailing worldview, which I disagree with). Investors use the stock price as a proxy for their belief in a company's future. If the stock price is high, company invests and expands, if its low, it contracts until the investors/markets believe it can generate value.
* layoffs scare the employees that remain into working harder. The sad truth is that unless you're really exceptional, this doesn't really matter. But they will likely see a productivity boost for a little while. Again, this is pretty short term.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I remember the dot-com (and Y2K) bust, when all the people who got into tech for the money (and not the love of it) suddenly decided to switch career. I hope the same happens now.
So you're implying only people who are passionate about tech should be allowed to work in tech? This does not hold water for almost any profession. Tech pays extremely well, and if you can do the work, who cares how you feel about it?
What is the composition of roles that are getting fired? I naturally tend to think about programmers but Meta (and the other big tech companies that have had big firings) have roles all over the place Are they mostly getting rid of programmers?
The world runs on certain types of software. I doesn't run on social media, or video streaming, or "AI/ML", or search. So it doesn't actually run on FAANG companies. It is no surprise they are shedding workers when the free money runs out. But if you are willing to work on "boring software" that provides actual economic value - logistics, HR/Payroll, or really anything people actually pay to use because it boosts the…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Obviously, if this continues at this rate. We'll be able to judge in 3-6 months the full impact. Anyone who tells you otherwise is living in Lalaland. The main thing is figuring out what's the full impact. If it's 10%+ of tech workers, the golden days are over for the vast majority of tech workers.
Were you around the dot com crash? It was much worse than what is going on, layoffs happened left and right. But the future would have never been better for tech jobs. So no, incorrect to say anything for sure.
For instance, Amazon in Seattle benefited as thousands of engineers found themselves out of work in 2000 and 2001.
In addition, AWS was largely inspired by the fact that Sun Microsystems refused to cut their pricing. Amazon was using a lot of Oracle databases and Sun hardware, and when Sun wouldn't negotiate their prices down, Bezos began to figure out A Better Way.
Bezos was particularly irked because there was a flood of practically new Sun hardware available (due to the crash) but Sun wouldn't negotiate on price, despite the market being awash in high quality used hardware.
Basically Bezos didn't want to spend $80,000 on a new Sun server, but he also didn't want to run hardware that was used.
I'm old and this is the third time around for these sorts of layoffs in tech. (Was around for dot-com bust of 2000-ish and financial meltdown post-2008.) One thing you want to keep in mind is that decent severance packages are usually only a thing for the FIRST round of layoffs. There will be more, and the payouts will be a LOT worse. Just, FYI.
I'm close to deciding to go back to University to get some additional education that's likely to improve my work in the future. I can afford it without any salary. Based on your experience, do you think this is the right moment to do so? I'm employed at the moment.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
>Will this over flood the market and bring expectations and salaries down? Well I predict two things: One, the days of $200-500k TC being common and widespread are going to end. If you're in this bracket, or about to break into it, yeah be worried, it's probably going to evaporate. Two, the CV value of Meta, Snap, Stripe, etc. is also going to end. I don't think they will command the same premium in the jobs market f…
It was obvious that those days were going to end eventually, it was never going to be sustainable. A few people I knew were deciding between job offers at beginning of this year and I straight up said take the most comp, this shit isn’t gonna last forever…
> I got this wrong, and I take responsibility for that. As always with these things, I wonder what taking responsibility actually means in practice. Businesses usually try to find ways to correct for major failures in decision making. In the case of Zuck, given his ownership, does anything actually happen or change? I'm sure his net worth has been reduced by changes to Meta's share price, but he was a multi-billionai…