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Apple: The only big tech giant going against the job cuts tide

blog.pragmaticengineer.com

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Re: Apple: The only big tech giant going against the job cuts tide

#31

Post by tempnow987 »

scarface74 wrote: post #11
olliej wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google, Facebook, Microsoft, … are also sitting absolutely giant piles of money as well.

Google has the focus of a crack addled flea and has products that aren’t profitable and people working on them - including probably 4 new messaging apps simultaneously. Facebook predicted that it would lose billions in potential revenue because of Apple making tracking optional. Microsoft is basically just cutting employees that are on products that it doesn’t care about anymore. You can say what you will about Apple…

Google was doing Fuchsia. SUPER cool... but what is the business case there?

They are also ham strung by just not listening to customers it feels like - so I think that impacts traction. You get an 80% solution with simple glaring edges. Thousands ask - please fix this edge, but whoever is driving the product is onto something else it feels like sometime.

Apple's main product lines all seem to make money, have positive margin. Their R&D is speculative as well, but at least too me seem to have a clearer path to product. I would love an apple interface in my car vs whatever the OEM ships in most cases. Even Tesla, with most advanced interface just can't keep it current / smooth / familiar etc the way apple does (music / playlist / etc integrations alone).

Re: Apple: The only big tech giant going against the job cuts tide

#33

Post by Apocryphon »

MontagFTB wrote: post #25

Adobe is swimming against the layoff tide as well. Granted it’s comparing apples to… adobes, but my point is it’s not all doom and gloom in the valley.

They’re both age-old companies as far as Silicon Valley goes, have an artistic streak, and based in the South Bay. They’ve got some similarities.

Re: Apple: The only big tech giant going against the job cuts tide

#34

Post by DSingularity »

swixmix wrote: post #28
2muchcoffeeman wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did the pandemic really increase business so much that they had to hire that many people?

The government incentives were based on employees.

Oh wow. I didn’t even know they went for PPP programs. Crazy.

Re: Apple: The only big tech giant going against the job cuts tide

#36

Post by karlkatzke »

tempnow987 wrote: post #31
scarface74 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google has the focus of a crack addled flea and has products that aren’t profitable and people working on them - including probably 4 new messaging apps simultaneously. Facebook predicted that it would lose billions in potential revenue because of Apple making tracking optional. Microsoft is basically just cutting employees that are on products that it doesn’t care about anymore. You can say what you will about Apple…

Google was doing Fuchsia. SUPER cool... but what is the business case there? They are also ham strung by just not listening to customers it feels like - so I think that impacts traction. You get an 80% solution with simple glaring edges. Thousands ask - please fix this edge, but whoever is driving the product is onto something else it feels like sometime. Apple's main product lines all seem to make money, have positi…

A bunch of Google’s lack of focus is their internal management culture and nothing will change (and google/alphabet will not be worth being a customer of or being investing in) until the culture problem is fixed.

Google only promotes engineers when they are part of a program launch. No credit is ever given for feature launch or program maintenance. If you are not a part of a program launch within a few years at google/alphabet you are managed out.

This doesn’t create a company that I’d find it worth investing my limited engineering hours in long term. A GCE sales person called me last week and I couldn’t help but laughing when I told them that I’d just agreed to five year terms on an AWS private pricing agreement the previous week. Google’s recent actions made me unsure GCE would still be a product in five years.

Re: Apple: The only big tech giant going against the job cuts tide

#37

Post by gpt5 »

trynewideas wrote: post #15

https://techpp.com/2023/01/25/tech-layoffs-apple-2023/ > Amazon, for instance, hired about 780,000 people during the pandemic. Meta, too, had more than doubled its staff in this period, going from about 40,000 to 87,000. Even Microsoft had hired about 77,000 people just before the pandemic. > Apple, in comparison, is believed to have hired under 20,000 people during the period of the pandemic. Can't layoff people you…

The Amazon new hire numbers represent all workers (and almost entirely - warehouse/logistics).

The Amazon layoffs numbers represent corporate roles.

Someone is comparing Apples and Oranges

Re: Apple: The only big tech giant going against the job cuts tide

#38

Post by NeverFade »

webwielder2 wrote: post #10

Apple is a generally more well run, mature, patient, and scrupulous company than most others.

You make them sound like saints. They are not, and they have a history of being less scrupulous than some of these other companies. Here's just a small example of what they're capable of when their obsession for secrecy and control makes them flex their corporate muscle: http://www.cnn.com/2011/TECH/mobile/09/07/iphone.5.probe/ind...

And we didn't even talk about their sweatshops in China which has always had persistent labor-abuse issues[0], the Chinese government boosting iPhone production with child slave labor, and all the many other scandals they've been involved with.

I really have no idea how anyone would get the notion that they are any better than the rest of the pack. Perhaps their upbeat pristine presentations, live from Cupertino. They should broadcast one from their sweatshops in Shenzhen. Some of the highschool kids they pressed into 11 hour shifts to assemble their iPhones could sing the praise of Tim Cook: https://www.cnbc.com/2017/11/21/apple-iphone-x-reportedly-as...

[0] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/11/business/dealbook/foxconn...

EDIT: clarified some comments and added better sources.

Re: Apple: The only big tech giant going against the job cuts tide

#39

Post by camillomiller »

tonmoy wrote: post #17

I don’t think Apple went on a hiring spree like the rest of the tech giants during the pandemic, but there is still time for even Apple to start cutting jobs.

Well, Tim Cook started by halving his compensation. I didn't hear anything like that from his fellow CEOs who all "took full responsibility" for the choice of going for mass firing instead.

Re: Apple: The only big tech giant going against the job cuts tide

#40

Post by exodust »

The recent push by Apple to promote privacy controls has attracted and renewed trust in the brand. That's my theory as a partial explanation of recent success.

They correctly identified privacy controls as something people actually want for real, even just knowing it's there is a nice feeling. Knowing my front door is reinforced with 7 optional locks, is much better than a fly-screen door with a privacy policy attached.

Meanwhile, MS and Google and Facebook remove options and rely on the opposite of privacy: over-sharing by default. Telemetry by default. Ads, suggestions, ads pretending to be suggestions, bloatware.

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