71–80 of 144 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
People didn't even stop shopping on Amazon knowing full well how drivers and warehouse employees were treated so...
The driver thing could be regional. I have always lived in a less dense area and the drivers always were happy and helpful. Didn't look at all like what I'd expect from the news.
I was told at some point by someone that a layoff can’t be done based on performance, because that would mean it’s a firing instead. An amazon manager told me they were careful to avoid mentioning perf as a factor in their latest layoffs. Is that accurate and if so how does this jive with that at all?
In the US though employment is "at will" meaning you can be fired for any reason or no reason at all. There are various exceptions to this but the burden of proof is generally on the employee to show that they were wrongfully terminated (eg if they were fired because of their race, sex, sexual orientation, etc).
The founders are done with each other and long gone. It's just a financial entity maximizing profit. It's amazing to watch the full circle of Google's brilliant birth to slow plateau.
It’s incredibly shitty to telegraph to other employers that all the people you’re about to layoff are damaged goods. Completely unnecessary.
why? if they didn't perform why sugar coat it?
It’s incredibly shitty to telegraph to other employers that all the people you’re about to layoff are damaged goods. Completely unnecessary.
When you are the size of Google I’m not sure how to tell managers across the company to assess poor performers and _not_ have it leak to the press. It’s not like this is a company press release.
Relative would imply they have good skills, but don't meet Google's extreme requirements.
We can only hope that can happen fast enough
It’s incredibly shitty to telegraph to other employers that all the people you’re about to layoff are damaged goods. Completely unnecessary.
With the exception of companies going under or closing divisions or departments what kind of companies shave off “high performers”? Sure some high performers could erroneously slip trough but the intent is predominantly to lay off poor performers (sometimes high earners or older employees, but not usually)
It’s incredibly shitty to telegraph to other employers that all the people you’re about to layoff are damaged goods. Completely unnecessary.
But now that I thought about a little more, I think I understood one more layer to this. Google is telling the other employers: 'You can pay them less you otherwise would have.'
I have to admit that this entire employer vs employee cycle has left me speechless over and over again ( 'we are in this together', 'commute is good for you', 'we will be even better together', 'RTO now!', 'RTO later since some of you ungrateful bastards are not willing to budge', 'Recession would bring those people in line'.. ). It is absolutely stunning and we are actually expecting our CEO to deliver speech in Dec on the economy as a whole, so I am sure we are all somewhat anxious.
It’s been eye opening to see Google, FAANG, et al to gradually be transformed from the “rebel” to basically the core of corporate America - with the corresponding structures and incentives they once said to have despised. Early on, they set out to keep the “startup” culture internally - to drive ongoing innovation. But it turns out that this requires a tremendous amount of both trust and capital to waste to do at sca…
There are a lot of companies outside the US that keep their original culture way into their maturity at global scale. Hetzner, for example - started as an upstart hosting provider that prioritized engineering. It became a global entity with DCs in Europe and the US, possibly the biggest datacenter operator and cloud provider in Europe. Their engineering is still top notch. So much that even as a $50/month paying customer, your technical support related ticket gets attended by an engineer every time. Impressive feat considering how they have ~200,000 companies as their customers - in addition to the individuals that use their services. Especially their network quality was praised a lot when they first came out. Their network is still top quality. Their inital culture as it was known has not changed.
What destroys American companies are the American laws that force the board to thrash the company, the employees and the users for the sake of shareholder profit. If you don't sell your soul to the devil and suck every cent as profit for the shareholders every quarter, the shareholders have a right to sue, depose you and put there someone who will.
There is no way in hell US companies can protect their original culture and keep theier missions intact as long as such rapacious laws enable the worst profiteers in the American society to burn down everything for short term profit.
BigTech is ripe for disruption to be challenged by NewTech. We can only hope that can happen fast enough