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Zoom lays off 15% of employees

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Re: Zoom lays off 15% of employees

#501

Post by tenpies »

madamelic wrote: post #86

This sucks but something like COVID should normalize the idea in the minds of workers that all workers are disposable regardless of education or skill. If you don't own 51% of the company, you are disposable. Zoom had a use for you during COVID, now they don't: bye-bye. You were used, they got what they needed and now it is time to go. That's how workers are treated and people should understand that. You are not Geor…

> If you don't own 51% of the company, you are disposable.

If you own 51% of the company, not only are you disposable, but unlike any employee on earth, you can actually lose money by working.

You can also work and make $0 for your efforts, and that's not the worst outcome.

And there are no worker's rights or Marxist organizations ready to organize a riot for you. There are no shareholder unions either, just increasingly absent regulators, comically incompetent courts, and lengthy legal processes.

Re: Zoom lays off 15% of employees

#502

Post by viceroyalbean »

b112 wrote: post #484
creato wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the case of zoom, they had an explosion in users and demand due to their product being a good solution to some of the problems imposed by the pandemic. What is your suggestion? Companies hire when they have a lot of demand, the fire when they don’t. Just like basically any other organism’s response to its situation.

I wonder. Where were all these detractors, when all the hiring was happening, at record salaries, over the last 2 years? Did they heap praise on this same CEO, when he hired, provided jobs, record salaries, and more? Even now, after these layoffs, this same CEO resides over a company worth immensely more, with more employees than 2+ years ago, and at excellent salaries. So where were the praises before the layoffs? B…

That's assuming that hiring a person is the exact inverse of firing someone, which is often not the case. Firing someone has more negative effect than hiring's positive effect when e.g people move, leave previous jobs (possibly), have children, buy houses.

Re: Zoom lays off 15% of employees

#503

Post by benatkin »

2devnull wrote: post #377
haswell wrote: post #8

> As the CEO and founder of Zoom, I am accountable for these mistakes and the actions we take today– and I want to show accountability not just in words but in my own actions. To that end, I am reducing my salary for the coming fiscal year by 98% and foregoing my FY23 corporate bonus. Members of my executive leadership team will reduce their base salaries by 20% for the coming fiscal year while also forfeiting their…

I really want to agree. On an emotional level, I do agree. It’s important that the entire organization feel they rise or fall together, as a team, and this should impact leadership more heavily than the rank and file. But on the other, as you note, it’s just a symbolic thing. As such, a large part of me feels, do we really benefit as a society for those increasing even more the extent to which virtue signaling is ins…

This is appropriate use of the term "virtue signaling" that would go well in a textbook for a university course that deals with the concept.

Re: Zoom lays off 15% of employees

#504

Post by Aperocky »

paxys wrote: post #417
nunez wrote: post #364

> To that end, I am reducing my salary for the coming fiscal year by 98% and foregoing my FY23 corporate bonus. Members of my executive leadership team will reduce their base salaries by 20% for the coming fiscal year while also forfeiting their FY23 corporate bonuses. Eric is probably already wealthy and can withstand a 98% cut to his base, but I definitely respect him more for doing that than the nothing other exec…

I have greater respect for him for reducing executive pay by 20% and cutting their annual bonuses to 0.

lol he could forfeit 100% of either and it wouldn't significantly affect his bottom line, whereas stock price changes would (owns 22% of zoom).

I don't think I would fault him even if he didn't take any pay cut. Founders and professional CEO are different beasts.

Re: Zoom lays off 15% of employees

#505

Post by fijiaarone »

SQueeeeeL wrote: post #277
nazka wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow ok.. Your comment should be on the first node all the way up. That’s really different from what I was imagining!

I feel like this is a weird comment. There has basically never been a CEO taking meaningful accountability for a company failing. Taking a reasonable chunk of one's wealth and giving it to fired employees is actually remarkable, even if it's not as large as it could be

They killed Ken Lay after destroying his company.

Re: Zoom lays off 15% of employees

#506

Post by martin82 »

haswell wrote: post #8

> As the CEO and founder of Zoom, I am accountable for these mistakes and the actions we take today– and I want to show accountability not just in words but in my own actions. To that end, I am reducing my salary for the coming fiscal year by 98% and foregoing my FY23 corporate bonus. Members of my executive leadership team will reduce their base salaries by 20% for the coming fiscal year while also forfeiting their…

Now, CEOs are incentivised to make absolutely ridiculous amounts of money one year so that they can then pretend to be "accountable" the next year

No big corp CEO will ever be accountable for anything.

Re: Zoom lays off 15% of employees

#507

Post by noirbot »

BurningFrog wrote: post #401
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"90+ percent of all internet arguments are over semantics." I honestly wish HN would adopt a "no semantics arguments" rule. These debates over what one person thinks a word means vs what another person thinks they mean are just uninteresting and really never lead anywhere, especially when all sides pretty much agree on the underlying issue. A couple days ago I made a comment, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3465…

I sometimes wonder if Americans are uniquely prone to focusing on words rather than the underlying concepts that the words, somewhat imperfectly, attempt to describe. Once you learn a second language, you have to confront this reality. But many Americans only ever use English, and it's maybe easier to never have to think about this then?

But isn't this discussion literally about the idiomatic concepts involved? The whole argument of semantics is a "literally vs. figuratively" discussion. Workers were "used" in the way I use a tool to do a job, but potentially not "used" in a colloquial English way that someone tricks someone into doing something for them.

If anything, this is because Americans on HN think too much about the concepts underlying words and don't just take everything literally as defined.

Re: Zoom lays off 15% of employees

#508

Post by fijiaarone »

stainforth wrote: post #491
ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #385

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> When you’re making CEO salary, no amount of salary reduction will have a day to day impact, but this seems strongly symbolic at least. If I remember correctly, Steve Jobs had a $1 salary. And a Learjet. A lot of these folks don't make most of their money from salary. If his main income is from stocks, then he may actually be doing fairly well.

The learjet flights were "unrealized flights"

Because of his Gulfstream?

Re: Zoom lays off 15% of employees

#509

Post by joegahona »

speby wrote: post #390
vsareto wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is probably the best you can hope for in terms of fairness right now. You'll never see executives put themselves financially in the same situation as the lowest level people they are letting go. This is actually a pretty big step, but the move will need some benefit to the company for it to become more common-place. They might roll these bonuses into subsequent bonuses, but that may actually end up being a motiv…

Seriously? What 'fairness' exactly is it people want when companies do layoffs? "Hey, we are laying off 3,000 people. Because of that, I am firing myself and the company will no longer have a CEO and will have to find someone else, starting immediately. In addition, I plan to donate all of my life's savings and file for unemployment like everyone else and, if needed, live in my van down by the river. I hope this make…

This warrants maximum punishment and humiliation:

1. Yuan should immediately terminate himself as CEO, and his salary/bonus should be divvied up among those who were [IMPACTED]. In fact, all 1,300 people should be named co-CEOs and together they shall lead the company to prosperity and avoid such a boneheaded misstep in the future.

2. He should have to give his life savings to those 1,300 people. His family should live in squalor going forward, effective immediately.

3. He should be imprisoned for fraud, for no fewer than 25 years —- or ideally sent to a North Korean prison camp, if such arrangements with DPRK can be secured.

That’s what true accountability looks like.

Re: Zoom lays off 15% of employees

#510

Post by noirbot »

time_to_smile wrote: post #336
BurningFrog wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You were used, they got what they needed and now it is time to go. Both sides got what they needed. The company got work done, and the employee got paid. Calling either side "used" makes no sense to me. Employment is always a temporary relationship that can be ended by either side at will.

Just because it can be terminated at will doesn't mean people wake up every morning going to work thinking "hmm... wonder if I'll be let go today, or hey maybe I'll quit!" Similarly most non-marriage romantic relationship can be trivially ended "at will", but people get plenty upset when those end early than one party had anticipated. More important though is the inherent asymmetry: it hurts employees much more to be…

I mean, I definitely end a fair number of days thinking "I may quit" at various points in my career. I'm happy for the ability to do that.

I'm not arguing that layoffs don't suck for those involved, but if offered a contract where I couldn't be laid off or quit for N years, I probably wouldn't take it. Layoffs already have some legal protection in most places that require severance and other things that quitting or firing for cause don't.

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