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Macroeconomic changes have made it impossible for me to want to pay you
161–170 of 414 posts
Re: Macroeconomic changes have made it impossible for me to want to pay you
#162I 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…
Because the people who decide exec salaries are execs in other businesses, so they generally have 1) An inflated view of the impact of execs compared to other employees. This is a well studied psychological phenomena. People tend to overestimate their "skill/contribution" even in poor luck or even rigged scenarios. (There was a study which gave some subjects a head start in monopoly, i.e. more money, the subjects ten…
This is a dishonest super one-dimensional analysis, borderline conspiracy theory, I'm disappointed to see it be the most upvoted.
Re: Macroeconomic changes have made it impossible for me to want to pay you
#163Earlier quoted context omitted.
I may very well be misunderstanding some of this. However, until now, it has been my understanding that the way any large company works is by using their stock value as collateral against short term investments from banks, which then serve as operational funds. Am I wrong?
In the case of all of the companies in question here, yes you are wrong. They have significant amounts of free cash flow and cash on hand.
My bad. Thanks for correcting me.
It looks like I cannot delete or amend my post, which is a shame.
Re: Macroeconomic changes have made it impossible for me to want to pay you
#164What a funny write! Despite it being funny, if it wasn't for the outright satire, it would be virtually indistinguishable from the recent tech layoff messages: Gitpod - https://www.gitpod.io/blog/building-for-the-long-run Microsoft (this is maybe the classiest) - https://blogs.microsoft.com/blog/2023/01/18/subject-focusing... Zuck/Meta - https://about.fb.com/news/2022/11/mark-zuckerberg-layoff-mes... Stripe - https:/…
Maybe I've lost my heart but it's hard for me to find fault with the way Nadella communicated MSFT's layoffs. They're a business, they need to reallocate capital and headcount, he doesn't shed any crocodile tears, but they are providing above market severance benefits, end of transmission. If I have to be laid off I want it to go something like this.
> They're a business, they need to reallocate capital and headcount
Consider this: no, they don't.
Re: Macroeconomic changes have made it impossible for me to want to pay you
#165Earlier 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.
According to other comments, while the above above holds true for some companies, this is not the case of FAANG. Unfortunately, it is apparently too late for me to edit or delete my comment, so it shall remain posted on HN for all eternity.
Re: Macroeconomic changes have made it impossible for me to want to pay you
#166Earlier quoted context omitted.
Maybe I've lost my heart but it's hard for me to find fault with the way Nadella communicated MSFT's layoffs. They're a business, they need to reallocate capital and headcount, he doesn't shed any crocodile tears, but they are providing above market severance benefits, end of transmission. If I have to be laid off I want it to go something like this.
The word layoff does not appear in that post. It's word salad for 2 paragraphs. It's bad writing, it's an even worse communique from a CEO. Start with the point. The point is that X percent of the workforce is to be let go. And that it has been already in the works for some time because some people have been let go that day. "some notifications happening today" = we already have a list and we'll go through it as fast…
> Start with the point. The point is that X percent of the workforce is to be let go
If he did, he'd be criticized for being heartless. There's really no winning here, I can't blame them for phrasing things the way they do.
Re: Macroeconomic changes have made it impossible for me to want to pay you
#167Throughout modern human history, power centers have belonged to finance, business, and law. Uppity technology specialists are attempting to upend the system and take a seat at the table. They have to be shown their place occasionally to remind them who is in charge.
> Uppity technology specialists are attempting to upend the system and take a seat at the table.
We are? Seems to me like the folks down at the Starbucks are the ones doing the hard work. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starbucks_unions
Re: Macroeconomic changes have made it impossible for me to want to pay you
#168Why can’t the extremely profitable companies manage their headcount through attrition? Losing 6% of your staff via a hiring freeze would work too wouldn’t it?
Re: Macroeconomic changes have made it impossible for me to want to pay you
#169Earlier quoted context omitted.
The economy, consumer confidence and investor mood changed. The way you make investors richer changes depending on inflation.
Do people on HN not read history books? This has happened countless times before. Or was it assumed that those in the tech industry were a "protected" class of people for whom the rules do not apply? Hell one of the best things about capitalism: everyone is equal before the dollar and everyone is expendable.
Everyone that is disadvantaged by not holding any of the power is expendable. And expend those in power will do in order to do the bidding of their investors and keep their compensation + bonuses well padded out.
You never see CEO’s take pay cuts, lose compensation, or executive teams get, “right sized.”
It’s always the workers who get the shaft first.
Given that a lot of this is driven by a hedge fund, isn’t this how IBM was gutted back in the day?
Re: Macroeconomic changes have made it impossible for me to want to pay you
#170Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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.
I may very well be misunderstanding some of this. However, until now, it has been my understanding that the way any large company works is by using their stock value as collateral against short term investments from banks, which then serve as operational funds. Am I wrong?
You might have seen that in the crypto space, but no normal bank is going to work like that: the only point at which collateral becomes relevant is if the debtor can't pay the loan back, i.e. they're bankrupt, in which case the equity is worthless. Corporate loans will be either unsecured (companies have lots of unsecured short term debt: every single invoice sitting unpaid in accounts payable is a debt!) or secured on something physical in the way that car loans and mortgages are.
You occasionally get debt-to-equity swaps in near-bankruptcy situations.
There was a certain amount of "borrow against funds held in Ireland to avoid US repatriation taxes" done by Apple, but that wasn't using stock as security, that was using cash of a different subsidiary.