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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

#261

Post by OOPMan »

janalsncm wrote: post #260

Sam Harris talks about how when we get superintelligent AI, our relationship to it will be like ants relationship to humans. Well, we already have a kind of “slow AI” in corporations. Profit-seeking paperclip maximizers. They don’t hate us, they don’t love us. They keep us around as long as we’re useful and then dispose of us after that point. The fact that corporations are made of meat doesn’t change the ultimate re…

When is a big If.

Much like the simulation hypothesis, "super intelligent AI" is more religion than reality at this point.

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

#262

Post by jetrink »

sequoia wrote: post #255

The one thing this is missing is referring to employees with a cutesy company nickname while laying them off. "We'll be parting ways with some talented Floofmates* which is very difficult." It always strikes me that a layoff email is not the right time/place to lean on cutesy "we're a family here! We have fun" company culture schtick. *or googleers, metamates, plaids, whatever Incidentally is there a name for these c…

Here's a fun list of these from Mike Pope from 2012:

https://mikepope.com/blog/AddComment.aspx?blogid=2354

He adds,

> Then there is the question of what we might call a nickname like this. A name based on a place is a toponym. A name for people from a city or region is a demonym. I solicited some ideas for this, too. We threw around corporanym and employeeonym. Someone suggested "idionym, which should mean roughly 'your own name'."

> The most interesting suggestion was from Colleague Clay, who knows his way around a number of languages. He suggested ergazomenonym ("from modern Greek εργαζόμενου= employee"). I like it tons, although I'd need some coaching, perhaps, in how to pronounce it properly.

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

#263

Post by Yoric »

pjc50 wrote: post #170
Yoric wrote: post #107

Earlier 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?

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…

Thanks!

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

#264

Post by dboreham »

wmeredith wrote: post #210
theandrewbailey wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I had to look up that place, too.

I wonder if my company's CEO did.

Likely. Anyone familiar with Rick Steves work would know, and probably has visited.

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

#265

Post by chewz »

wmeredith wrote: post #209
chewz wrote: post #159

You might be a proud and valuable person in your personal life. But for a company, you are just an asset - low yielding asset with high depreciation. So it is rational decision for an enterprise to let you go and free some liquidity that could be deployed elsewhere. Even buying Treasury bill yields more then an employee and is more liquid option. Liquidity is important when times get tough and recession is coming.. J…

Google's average salary is $124k/ year and its revenue per employee is $1.365 million. Show me a t-bill with that 1100% annual return.

But Google is irreparable and sinking fast. The goal is to return as much as possible to shareholders during 5 years window Google still has so shareholders can better allocate capital themselves. Every 124k/year is appreciated.

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

#266

Post by t-writescode »

brookst wrote: post #232
binarymax wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even harsher is that on the same day Microsoft laid off their staff, they announced a 10B investment in OpenAI.

Couple days apart, and they announced an investment, but the $10B figure is rumors. Could be right, could be wrong. But so what? There’s no gotcha here; it’s not like Microsoft or Google or Amazon claimed they were cash poor and could t afford to pay people. They are changing the areas they spend money in. Would it be better if they were only cutting back and not also investing in new areas?

The comment thread you're responding to is reflecting on how painful it is to be laid off when:

  * showing profits
  * showing multi-billion in investments in new companies
  * when the money saved is tiny compared to the increased year-over-year profits
on a topic that's a short story in the form of a letter written by someone pretending to be a CEO and telling the story's real truth about a layoff: that they don't feel like paying the reader anymore.

"But so what?"

Their response is _exactly_ on topic. There is a real sting on these human lives where a company has decided they don't have value relative some new tech purchase. This is contrary to particular ethics frameworks many of us are familiar with around human value.

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

#267

Post by gavinmckenzie »

sybercecurity wrote: post #256
gavinmckenzie wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is very true. Though it’s really tough for most employees (especially the 20-somethings) to resist the internal tribal messaging from their employers and instead see their employment relationship as just transactional.

I wonder if this is due to lack of job experience at that young age? Prior to that, young adults were in school, which fostered a community view beyond just paying for classes/degree. I know I learned about how large corps view labor when I worked summers at a big box retailer. I viewed that as purely transactional as well: I stock shelves, you give me money. Plus Gen-X often watched our parents get laid off when we…

Ha, yes our Gen-X “slacker” generation (LOL) started out with a potentially different worldview.

I think you’ve described the challenge 20-somethings face when it comes to resisting the tribal messaging from their employer pretty well — coming out of school many people want to continue that sense of belonging. People develop close friendships, and romantic relationships, and they connect that to their work experience. Employer messaging around being part of a family and striving to a higher purpose is meant to foster loyalty and better productivity.

The flip-side is when layoffs happen the employees who have bought into these team/family ideals feel betrayed, and I’ve seen people struggle with coming to terms how their employer could let valuable people go after being told how special and important they were.

And to be clear, lots of these people are special and important; but that’s obviously not a protection against big businesses looking after their own selfish interests first.

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

#268

Post by overrun11 »

John23832 wrote: post #133
wildrhythms wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People tend to overestimate their "skill/contribution" even in poor luck or even rigged scenarios. I don't personally understand this one, although I don't doubt its veracity. I am an engineer with years of experience in the industry, but I don't think my contribution is high or important; I could be fired at any moment and would anyone notice? Maybe in the short term yes, but mostly no. I am easily replaceable, my…

Because the threat of firing and the driving down of your self worth as a worker is core to (American style) capitalism. Your fear for your job or the prospect of having to find another one makes you take suboptimal economic positions, the arbitrage of which keeps the gears of capital spinning. We couldn’t have the workers collectively realizing their worth now, could we? The inmates would be running the asylum.

> We couldn’t have the workers collectively realizing their worth now, could we?

What is stopping them? If this were really true wouldn't we see at least a few examples of large worker collectives succeeding by now?

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

#270

Post by lovich »

chmod600 wrote: post #252
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…

"need investor money?" There exist large private companies; how do they behave differently? I could imagine it going either way, depending on the owners, employees, and all kinds of other factors.

Private doesn’t necessarily mean they have no investors, just that it’s not publicly traded securities used as the investment vehicle
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