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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

#211

Post by fullsend »

simplyluke wrote: post #162
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…

Cook has made several decisions in the past handful of years that seem to show an ability to resist the group think that exists among the large tech companies leadership.

No scandals, no twitter addiction, no sexual assault cases. No bullshit. All this guy does is wake up at 4, work till 10, and sleep. Cuts his own pay voluntarily. Didn’t double his headcount while revenues fell like so many. Tim Cook is such a beast. Jobs left one last blessing for Apple shareholders in his decision to elevate Cook.

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

#212

Post by sokoloff »

Yoric wrote: post #205
kennywinker wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it called a "bet" when you stand to win big, but if you lose it's the people you hired who've lost, and you don't lose basically anything?

Textbook capitalism is a society in which (among other things) companies belong to investors. In other words, when a company bets, it is typically with other people's money. In that case, it's other people's jobs, which extends a bit this textbook case, but not by much. edit Rewritten to take into account sokoloff's remarks, thanks!

Capitalism defines nothing about whether the money invested in a company is yours or other people’s. In practice, it often is, but “in practice” is not nearly the same as “by definition”.

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

#213

Post by prox »

rileymat2 wrote: post #210
prox wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tech also depended a lot on the zero interest backed money from investors. Now that interest is up, money costs money, so the situation as changed as well.

I hear this a lot lately, and intuitively it is true of startups and businesses that are pre revenue, but I have trouble seeing how it applies to companies with billions in profit.

Because it effects the whole economy (afaik) so from housing to banking to any industry. Interest is a compound factor in a complex modern economy. Even big companies have to factor in the effect of interest, even if they haven’t borrowed anything.

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

#214

Post by sokoloff »

lelanthran wrote: post #167
anchpop wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who lost? Everyone who got laid off wouldn't have had at a job at all if they weren't hired, and they probably got severance packages for more than the average American makes in a year.

> Everyone who got laid off wouldn't have had at a job at all if they weren't hired, Incorrect. Many of those people already had a job when the moved to Amazon/Microsoft/wherever. Since no one makes a horizontal movement, all the roles they vacated when moving where lower roles. And this argument goes recursively when the old company fills those roles. This means that most people who did not have a job prior to the h…

People take lateral moves quite frequently.

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

#215

Post by danieljacksonno »

ethanbond wrote: post #62
microtherion wrote: post #58

I don't recall whether this was ever stated explicitly, but I always had the impression that this is one of the elements of Apple's strategy that is still driven by the tribal memory of the late 1990s turmoil. Both Steve Jobs and Tim Cook were there at the time, and especially the former (who also had witnessed a 1980s bust) was determined to never be in this position again. So as a consequence: * Apple is hoarding c…

So essentially the basics of building any resilient system. Sad that our market economy punishes this approach in the general case.

Punishes? Apple is the most highly valued company of all.

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

#216

Post by sokoloff »

rileymat2 wrote: post #210
prox wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tech also depended a lot on the zero interest backed money from investors. Now that interest is up, money costs money, so the situation as changed as well.

I hear this a lot lately, and intuitively it is true of startups and businesses that are pre revenue, but I have trouble seeing how it applies to companies with billions in profit.

Google makes billions in profits by selling ads. Many of the buyers of those ads are affected by interest rates. Therefore, Google is affected by those interest rates.

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

#217

Post by jb1991 »

Gigachad wrote: post #70
webwielder2 wrote: post #10

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

Apple is the only one that doesn’t seem to start up hundreds of obviously useless projects. Google will hire thousands to work on an obviously doomed streaming service, to build a new OS, and so many other obviously bad ideas and then just fire them all later. Vanishingly few Apple products seem to be discontinued. Usually after a long life like the iPod.

useless *public projects

Fixed it for you!

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

#218

Post by tasuki »

BbzzbB wrote: post #138
asdff wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why does apple hoard cash instead of buy back their stock? 5 years ago they had 90 billion cash in hand. If they put that into their stock then, It would be up at least 260% by now even with the losses last year, then if they need cash they could just take a loan against the stock.

Apple's buyback program probably has no equal, it's a sight to behold which demonstrates the power of sustained share repurchases. Sure, there are the Teledyne stories, but to do it at this scale is something else. https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/AAPL/apple/shares-...

Agreed, but that chart is misleading: the number at the bottom should be 0, not 14.

The reduction in outstanding shares is from 26.5 to 16, which is still impressive, but perhaps less than the chart might make you believe at first sight.

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

#220

Post by hnfong »

amatecha wrote: post #142
lanza wrote: post #75

This is such a weird topic. The comparison is between companies that didn't exist 20 years ago like Meta and the 50 year old industry veteran Apple. Of course Apple didn't hire as fast, they were established. That's like saying a 20 year old college student grew more over the past decade than a 40 year old engineer. Yea, that's how life works.

What does the age of the corporations have to do with how responsibly they staff their business(es)? Also, I'd suggest that the assertion that corporations somehow all move towards responsibly managing staffing numbers warrants some supporting documentation. The article we're talking about already indicates a pretty significant example that directly contradicts what you're suggesting: Microsoft -- actually an older b…

With age comes experience, although the variety of experiences may differ.

The "near death" variety that Apple experienced during the 90s led to a conservative fiscal culture (among the top level executives at least) compared with the rest of the tech industry.

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