Are there small tech giants?
Palantir, not a big tech giant, but a tech giant for sure.
Apple: The only big tech giant going against the job cuts tide
341–350 of 405 posts
Re: Apple: The only big tech giant going against the job cuts tide
#342https://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?
Unemployment is at record lows, and people keep graduating from school every year.
Re: Apple: The only big tech giant going against the job cuts tide
#343I have developed strong opinions about tech companies over the years yet these discussions look more and more like sports fans arguing over whose team is better.
People try to find reasons to justify why their team is the goat and why the rest are simply worse.
Re: Apple: The only big tech giant going against the job cuts tide
#344Earlier 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…
This is saying you don’t understand why employees try to keep the owner of a company happy. Because they own it.
Re: Apple: The only big tech giant going against the job cuts tide
#345I have developed strong opinions about tech companies over the years yet these discussions look more and more like sports fans arguing over whose team is better. People try to find reasons to justify why their team is the goat and why the rest are simply worse.
Our brains have a way of "sports teamifying" just about everything. Worded properly, you could probably kick off a firestorm argument on HN with 1k+ comments about apples vs oranges.
Re: Apple: The only big tech giant going against the job cuts tide
#346I 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.
It is ridiculous to say that you’re not a real company if you don’t make physical things.
I can’t imagine you seriously believe that.
Re: Apple: The only big tech giant going against the job cuts tide
#347Earlier quoted context omitted.
Punishes? Apple is the most highly valued company of all.
They’re also an outlier and a lot of what they do would be judged more harshly by analysts and activist shareholders if they weren’t so profitable. The question should be how we get more companies like Apple.
I wouldn’t want to invest my money, my retirement funds in companies that don’t strive to be highly profitable. Do you?
Re: Apple: The only big tech giant going against the job cuts tide
#348I 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.
By that logic Amazon is a vastly superior company because they make more products than Apple. Amazon makes its own hardware and products: Alexa, Kindle, Ring, etc. They have ground and air fleets. Amazon holds majority marketshare with online web services...
I don't think this 'real' sentiment is best used to describe Amazon.
Re: Apple: The only big tech giant going against the job cuts tide
#349Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
I would grant that Amazon's Graviton is an actual thing, but that's pretty new. I would put the Fire and Echo devices in the same bin as their branded USB cables, i.e. "we put our logo on some stuff out of Shenzen."
I get that AWS services are a real thing made possible by other real things, but it's also essentially a branded software layer on top of a lot of open source stuff. Over-simplification, sure, but there are enough third-party services that ape enough of the AWS API that I think of it more like a Dell than an Apple.
Re: Apple: The only big tech giant going against the job cuts tide
#350This 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.
Their business is under severe attack / pressure. From a customer, regulatory, and competition perspective. So they can’t juts coast along or juts optimize what they’ve got.
With the latest direction (metaverse), they’re hoping to pave a new future, even if it leverages their current power to bootstrap.