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Macroeconomic changes have made it impossible for me to want to pay you

mcsweeneys.net

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Re: Macroeconomic changes have made it impossible for me to want to pay you

#81

Post by pas »

ikiris wrote: post #75
Aeolun wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would the company care if the investors sell? They’ll happily buy again when things are looking up. Only when things are going so terrible that the board is trying to get you replaced is when it becomes important. If the board aims to replace you because of a bad quarter in a bad economy… find a different company to be CEO of I guess.

Because a huge part of their compensation both to themselves and their employees is floated stock.

That doesn't explain it. It might be a factor, but it's not a big factor. FAANG jobs pay extremely well and then there's the stock on top.

Is the vast majority working at these companies (with years of vesting, no?) so shortsighted? Especially the higher ups?

Is it a requirement at these companies that you have to be 10000% in debt and living paycheck-to-paycheck to be a SVP/VP/director/whatever so you have to be hyper-focused on that stock comp?

It's just ridiculous. (And note, I'm not saying it's not a factor, it might be, but it's just not the full picture.)

Re: Macroeconomic changes have made it impossible for me to want to pay you

#82

Post by pjc50 »

Yoric wrote: post #43
SturgeonsLaw wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's do a little root cause analysis. Why do companies like Google, Microsoft and Amazon, with massive income streams combined with substantial cash holdings, need investor money? Maybe Toyota's "Five Why's" can shed some light on it. We need to fire thousands of people. Why? Because it will make us more attractive for investors. Why? So they put their money in our company. Why? Because that will buoy our stock pric…

True but oversimplified a little. Because that will buoy our stock price, which is important. Why? Because our stock price is also our operational funds. How comes? Because our actual funds are invested somewhere else. Why? Because it makes shareholder richer. Oh.

> our stock price is also our operational funds.

.. no it isn't? This is conflating "equity" with "free cash". Have a look at one of the balance sheets.

Re: Macroeconomic changes have made it impossible for me to want to pay you

#83

Post by mattmanser »

gorgoiler wrote: post #7

I grind away at our codebase day in day out causing me immense personal anxiety and burnout risk and all for what? Well! The honest answer is because software engineering is an incredibly satisfying intellectual pursuit. So satisfying that outside of work in my spare time I literally do it for free , giving away my work to strangers as free / open source software. Why draw a salary then? Or stock? Well obviously I ha…

No-one is going to tell you the truth, but it's because the US so successfully turned workers against unions, that's why.

Re: Macroeconomic changes have made it impossible for me to want to pay you

#85

Post by melagonster »

tkfu wrote: post #72
mshake2 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Is it necessary to fire them? That's the relevant question we should ask ourselves. That's not the relevant question. The relevant questions are: were the layoffs illegal, and if they weren't, then why is it any of your business? If you don't want to live in that world, start your own startup, hire people, and never fire them. Nobody is stopping you.

This is one of those worldviews that seems to be common among US-Americans, but sounds totally bizarre from an outside perspective. You say "If you don't want to live in that world, start your own startup, hire people, and never fire them.", but why should that be my course of action instead of working collectively to make sure that companies' decisions are driven by all stakeholders--owners (shareholders), employees…

I am not American. I never read one of two words before. yes, guess I think this in my whole life...

Re: Macroeconomic changes have made it impossible for me to want to pay you

#86

Post by christophilus »

Aeolun wrote: post #20
username_my1 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

wrong view / comparios ... in a 5% interest rate environment, companies fight for investors money .. if you don't do the cuts and find a way to be efficient investors will put their money somewhere else that's more profitable. this reasoning is pure and simple and correct, you start from the top, not from the fact "they can afford it" because their job is not to spend the money they have their job is to increase valu…

> their job is to increase value for investors Is their job to increase it in the short or the long term? These “I know we’ve been doing great for 3 years, but the past 3 months haven’t been so hot, so we’re going to cut jobs.” Messages seem incredibly shortsighted.

Public companies have an incentive to focus on the short term (quarterly reports). This really makes a difference in management behavior. Bill Clinton and Warren Buffett have both talked about this, and presented regulatory approaches to fixing it, but here we are.

Re: Macroeconomic changes have made it impossible for me to want to pay you

#87

Post by zmxz »

anothernewdude wrote: post #27
zmxz wrote: post #13

[flagged]

A business that can't think of what they should have a massive percentage of their staff do, is a business that has fucking useless bosses.

And what is your solution? Keep paying people until company goes under? I'm not saying boss is competent, but these posts where worker whines at boss and offers no solution is just stupid. Keep paying dead weight employees, make other useful employees work to make up for the incompetent ones' incompetence and create more problems?

There's never a solution in these whiny posts except "omg i found the bad guy and it's this evil boss" - well find the solution too then, how do we move from keeping everyone employed and company afloat.

But no, that part we won't read about. We'll close our eyes to Hanlon's razor and attribute to malice what should be attributed to stupidity and incompetence.

Re: Macroeconomic changes have made it impossible for me to want to pay you

#88

Post by vooffle »

bootsmann wrote: post #80
SturgeonsLaw wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's do a little root cause analysis. Why do companies like Google, Microsoft and Amazon, with massive income streams combined with substantial cash holdings, need investor money? Maybe Toyota's "Five Why's" can shed some light on it. We need to fire thousands of people. Why? Because it will make us more attractive for investors. Why? So they put their money in our company. Why? Because that will buoy our stock pric…

And they didn't think about making shareholders richer the years before when they hired all these people or how do you explain that process?

The economy, consumer confidence and investor mood changed. The way you make investors richer changes depending on inflation.

Re: Macroeconomic changes have made it impossible for me to want to pay you

#89

Post by ReptileMan »

I kinda like the layoffs of late. We are incredibly spoiled - anyone in IT born past 1985 barely knows what making less money than the previous year is. It will trim the fat, push away people that are in the industry because of the money.

I think it will be ok.

Re: Macroeconomic changes have made it impossible for me to want to pay you

#90

Post by noisy_boy »

SturgeonsLaw wrote: post #34
username_my1 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

wrong view / comparios ... in a 5% interest rate environment, companies fight for investors money .. if you don't do the cuts and find a way to be efficient investors will put their money somewhere else that's more profitable. this reasoning is pure and simple and correct, you start from the top, not from the fact "they can afford it" because their job is not to spend the money they have their job is to increase valu…

Let's do a little root cause analysis. Why do companies like Google, Microsoft and Amazon, with massive income streams combined with substantial cash holdings, need investor money? Maybe Toyota's "Five Why's" can shed some light on it. We need to fire thousands of people. Why? Because it will make us more attractive for investors. Why? So they put their money in our company. Why? Because that will buoy our stock pric…

Thats four whys.
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