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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

#331

Post by bthater »

deltarholamda wrote: post #300
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…

Apple is a real company. Amazon, Twitter, even Microsoft to some extent are not. Apple makes things. The software side works with it, but it's a hardware company. They aren't entirely dependent on conjuring up value out of thin air, they have supply chains and manufacturing and whatnot. Even Amazon, which deals with physical objects, doesn't really make anything.

Maybe I am missing a point, but both Amazon and Microsoft have devices that they manufacture and distribute. While they may not be profitable at the price they are sold they provide value to customers that isn't conjured from air. Additionally they also sell access to data services, while the data may not by physical, the data centers are physical objects that are designed and built by both AWS and Microsoft.

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

#332

Post by scarface74 »

unsui wrote: post #328
scarface74 wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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

Looks like there are thousands (perhaps millions) of people who are just naive then, who just were thinking strategically, serves them right, etc.... I'm not disagreeing with you, but your tone lacks empathy. Fuck them, I got mine, those idiots deserve what they got for not being smart enough. These are real people who lost real jobs, not just some cells in an excel sheet.

There are not “millions” of people being laid off. Unemployment is still at a historic low. It’s mostly the tech sector. I’ve been through this type of economy at least three times - 2000, 2008, and for a brief second 2020.

Even back in 1996 when “having mine” meant making $33K a year as a hybrid computer operator/programmer, I saved aggressively. Again, I was 22 years old and had enough sense to be paranoid about depending on one specific job.

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

#333

Post by pjmlp »

GeekyBear wrote: post #263
pjmlp wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Compare to something like Microsoft's Kin Phone. Microsoft paid half a billion dollars to buy Andy Rubin's company, Danger. They decided to rewrite the platform from Java to Dot Net, which took so long the product was no longer competitive when they finished. Then they spent a fortune to advertise a product that was canceled after two weeks. Then Microsoft decided to take another huge pile of cash and set that on fir…

Well to compare Apples to Apples we would need to know how much money Apple has spent with many of those efforts, which before Jobs came back almost driven the company to bankruptcy.

For younger generations Apple might feel unstoppable, meanwhile I remember the discussions to migrate away from surviving Macs on our IT department, and my graduation thesis was porting a particle simulation engine from NeXTSTEP into Windows, as those boxes were to be sent away.

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

#334

Post by pjmlp »

danaris wrote: post #302
pjmlp wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Age doesn't change facts.

But it does change what makes sense to talk about in terms of "Apple" as it exists today. Otherwise you might as well talk about why IBM is an undefeatable behemoth that dominates the industry...oh, wait, what's that? That hasn't been true for over 30 years now? I thought age didn't change facts?

You mean the company that is usually the champion on patents per year, owns a large portion of Linux, GNOME and GCC development, is the 2nd major Java vendor, and has had quite a good fiscal year, including growth in mainframe and micro sales?

A behemoth indeed, only HN isn't paying attention where it matters.

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

#335

Post by pjmlp »

scarface74 wrote: post #290
pjmlp wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Doesn't matter when it happened.

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

#336

Post by juve1996 »

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.

To say that Meta is not established by this point in time is absurd. They're plenty established and have been the leader in their industry.

The age of the company isn't relevant imo.

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

#337

Post by pulisse »

senttoschool wrote: post #84
kaashif wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I read their comment as implying that Apple should distribute that cash pile to investors through buybacks or dividends. I don't know what about their comment implies they want layoffs.

I'm implying that Apple's cash pile belongs to investors and shareholders. Part of that money is used to pay employees. However, that cash pile is not a charity for employing workers that is no longer needed at the company.

You think Tim Cook is retaining unnecessary workers out of charity? On what grounds?

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

#338

Post by plaidfuji »

deltarholamda wrote: post #300
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…

Apple is a real company. Amazon, Twitter, even Microsoft to some extent are not. Apple makes things. The software side works with it, but it's a hardware company. They aren't entirely dependent on conjuring up value out of thin air, they have supply chains and manufacturing and whatnot. Even Amazon, which deals with physical objects, doesn't really make anything.

I get what you’re saying, but I think what you’re describing as the “realness” of a company is just the sustainability of its competitive advantage. Which is a good metric to understand their long term financial position and susceptibility to market changes and layoffs. Others are pointing out that yes MS and Amazon make physical things, but we all know those aren’t their core business - that’s beside the point.

Tech companies are largely “interface” providers - they simplify the interface between a human and some other thing. Twitter simplifies the interface between one human and all other humans on Twitter. Microsoft enhances the interface between one human and other humans within a company. Amazon simplifies the interface between humans and retail goods, and AWS simplifies the interface between humans and scalable compute and storage.

Apple simplifies the interface between humans and personal compute, which is the entry point to all of the above (although the relationship with Microsoft is obviously more complex than that). So Apple is just further up the tech value chain, where transient effects are softened and delayed, and where competitive advantage is less easily displaced. Twitter is really only protected by network effects. Microsoft is protected by lots of UI/UX implementation moat and strong vendor lock in. Amazon is protected by others’ ability to scale physical logistics, AWS by backend and interface development and also lock-in. Apple is protected by all of the above plus hardware engineering, and the hardware is an especially difficult one to catch up with or copy.

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

#339

Post by jvanderbot »

deltarholamda wrote: post #300
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…

Apple is a real company. Amazon, Twitter, even Microsoft to some extent are not. Apple makes things. The software side works with it, but it's a hardware company. They aren't entirely dependent on conjuring up value out of thin air, they have supply chains and manufacturing and whatnot. Even Amazon, which deals with physical objects, doesn't really make anything.

I believe you are undervaluing the demand for cloud, e.g. AWS and azure. Companies that "make things" use these services extensively. AWS and Azure are the quintessential shovels during the gold rush.

But even by your flawed definition of "making things" Amazon counts, because of Kuiper, Fire Devices, and Echo alone.

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

#340

Post by surajrmal »

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…

Your phrasing makes it sound like Fuchsia was canceled. It is still being developed.
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