Apple: The only big tech giant going against the job cuts tide • Hacker News Board

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

#281

Post by rco8786 » Fri, Jan 27, 2023, 2:07 PM UTC

latexr wrote: post #236

fullsend wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> No scandals, no twitter addiction, no sexual assault cases. No bullshit. It’s unfortunate (and it says a lot about our current situation) that that behaviour is worthy of note. > Jobs left one last blessing for Apple shareholders in his decision to elevate Cook. I don’t understand the obsession with shareholders. It’s all about money money money, good products and respect for the customer be dammed. Cook was a fant…

> current

Don't make this mistake. Integrity and humility have always always always been rare traits in high profile, high power leaders.

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

#282

Post by scarface74 » Fri, Jan 27, 2023, 2:08 PM UTC

kennywinker wrote: post #79

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 Maybe I've been lucky, but every time I've been looking for a job I've had AT LEAST two options. People move cities, sell houses, buy houses, give up apartments, plan their finances, and plan their career around their job all the time. Investing a year learning the ropes at a company, finding ways to fit into the structures, etc. only…

> People move cities, sell houses, buy houses, give up apartments, plan their finances, and plan their career around their job all the time

Then those people are naive. I never plan my life around an employer. I plan my life around my employability. I wouldn’t move somewhere that there weren’t other jobs in the area. Well now I wouldn’t work at any company that wasn’t fully remote

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

#283

Post by ethanbond » Fri, Jan 27, 2023, 2:08 PM UTC

danieljacksonno wrote: post #215

ethanbond wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Right, and they are absolutely an exception.

The general expectation for any company is to milk the daylights out of every quarter they can. Either put your money back into growth or hand it back to investors - cash reserves bad even though they obviously allow you to weather things (like we’re discussing here).

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

#284

Post by rco8786 » Fri, Jan 27, 2023, 2:10 PM UTC

2muchcoffeeman wrote: post #117

tyre wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends on the company but yes. Stripe, as an example, drastically slowed down hiring when the pandemic hit expecting an economic slowdown. It then turned out that so much commerce moved to online—rather than stopped—so they ramped up hiring to meet demand. The bet that companies like Shopify and Stripe [1] made was that COVID created a “new normal”; much of the economic activity that went online would stay there. Th…

I’m not sure I believe that. It honestly sounds like an excuse to fire people. Or leadership has no clue. The biggest thing I got from the pandemic is flexible work arrangements. But I and everyone I knew all wanted to get back out there. Just not back out on public transport to work. We were doing things online because there was no other option. But once the borders opened and restrictions eased, everyone did what t…

> It honestly sounds like an excuse to fire people. Or leadership has no clue.

Neither of these are true. The truth lies somewhere in the grey area between these two things.

> Who in their right mind would think they would continue to stay home and do everything online?

Hindsight is a helluva drug. Covid has made several lasting, possibly permanent, marks on society and our habits. Nobody could say what those were going to be.

The world is a lot nicer when you (correctly) assume that everyone is doing their best with the tools and the information they have to work with.

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

#285

Post by boringg » Fri, Jan 27, 2023, 2:10 PM UTC

2muchcoffeeman wrote: post #117

tyre wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends on the company but yes. Stripe, as an example, drastically slowed down hiring when the pandemic hit expecting an economic slowdown. It then turned out that so much commerce moved to online—rather than stopped—so they ramped up hiring to meet demand. The bet that companies like Shopify and Stripe [1] made was that COVID created a “new normal”; much of the economic activity that went online would stay there. Th…

I’m not sure I believe that. It honestly sounds like an excuse to fire people. Or leadership has no clue. The biggest thing I got from the pandemic is flexible work arrangements. But I and everyone I knew all wanted to get back out there. Just not back out on public transport to work. We were doing things online because there was no other option. But once the borders opened and restrictions eased, everyone did what t…

I think you need to broaden your thinking horizons here. The thought in the midst of the pandemic was that it brought ecommerce/payments to the masses who would otherwise follow their old routines. Thus the large hire. I believe the theory was that once everyone starts on this new routine of convenience it would be difficult to return to old patterns.

Your comment reads as someone who likes to look back on the past with all the knowledge of today as if it was so incredibly obvious.

That said there will be some significant knock on effects from pandemic that will be favorable for those companies however not as large as originally thought.

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

#286

Post by scarface74 » Fri, Jan 27, 2023, 2:10 PM UTC

IMTDb wrote: post #187

kennywinker wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Everyone who got laid off wouldn't have had at a job at all if they weren't hired Maybe I've been lucky, but every time I've been looking for a job I've had AT LEAST two options. People move cities, sell houses, buy houses, give up apartments, plan their finances, and plan their career around their job all the time. Investing a year learning the ropes at a company, finding ways to fit into the structures, etc. only…

> Maybe I've been lucky, but every time I've been looking for a job I've had AT LEAST two options. You got many offers precisely because a lot of companies were (over)hiring. And the fact that you had many options on the table allowed you to get a better compensation (either because you negotiated, or because everyone else did so the industry standard increased). You benefitted from these hiring binges. When that was…

> You got many offers precisely because a lot of companies were (over)hiring

I got multiple offers when I was looking for a job in 1999, 2008, 2012, 2014, 2016, and 2018

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

#287

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Jan 27, 2023, 2:12 PM UTC

ghaff wrote: post #270

simonh wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re being very absolutist, people don't have be doing “everything” online for the shift in habits to have a significant effect. Yes on the whole most people do go out and travel again, but on average much less frequently than they used to because they retained the desire but not the same habits. They find they can scratch the itch with fewer outings. All it takes is for people to go out 20% less than they used to,…

You're absolutely correct that relatively small differences at the margin can have fairly large knock-on effects. That said, I'm pretty sure the overall picture is that things didn't change as much post-pandemic as many predicted. Travel is pretty much back to normal. Dining out is somewhat back to normal--though you need to factor in inflation effects as well. If I drive into the nearest major city, traffic sure see…

[deleted]

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

#288

Post by chrischen » Fri, Jan 27, 2023, 2:12 PM UTC

chrischen wrote: post #29

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…

Where did all these people come from?

Bootcamps

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

#289

Post by ifyoubuildit » Fri, Jan 27, 2023, 2:13 PM UTC

cmrdporcupine wrote: post #249

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.

This is nonsense because the people that were laid off at Google (as one example) were not selected by their tenure or having been hired during pandemic or during the remote phase, nor was it based on performance reviews. People who had been there 12, 13, 16 years; people who had been just promoted. People who were senior management. People who were engineers. People who were on mat leave... Management there effectiv…

Not to minimize how much it must suck to get laid off when you haven't prepared for it, but when you say:

> And people who (IMHO naively/foolishly) gave their lives to the company suffered.

they didn't "give their lives" for nothing, right? Didn't they trade it for an incredibly desirable compensation package?

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

#290

Post by scarface74 » Fri, Jan 27, 2023, 2:17 PM UTC

pjmlp wrote: post #140

Gigachad wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

A/UX, Taligent, Dylan, Pippin, Java Bridge, Quickdraw 3D, Copland,... We don't know more due to the secrecy. EDIT: A few more I just remembered, MacRuby, OpenCL, WebObjects, Quicktime

QuickTime wasn’t a failure. It was the basis of their entire media playback API for over two decades. WebObjects came in with the acquisition of NeXT and from what I gather is still the basis of the backend of iTunes and the App Store. Most of the rest were pre 1997.