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All of these "company X has avoided layoffs" articles are pretty foolish, are all the big layoffs done? Are we even sure there won't be second rounds by summer? Apple could layoff 4% in a week and these same analysts will try to explain why there was no other way
Highly unlikely: https://9to5mac.com/2023/02/02/apple-layoffs-tim-cook/
this won't age well
Although the article is paywalled so I don't know, maybe the author has a quote from Apple with some statement minimally confirming this.
> Apple, meanwhile, was more cautious. Its headcount increased just 20% from 2020 to 2022 At Apples size this is still pretty huge. At least, I thought it was until I saw that Amazon, Meta and Salesforce basically DOUBLED in 2 years. If this data is correct isnt that insane? How can you effectively double orgs of this size over a 2 year period? Its not like a startup with 50 people or something. I guess I was out of…
Apple was smart to move slower. They are probably one of the best run companies in the world.
Apple's underlying economics haven't changed, so they have not had any reason to over-hire in the first place. Amazon, Google, Meta, Shopify and others are all e-commerce based. There was a clear trend that e-commerce had shifted up due to the pandemic, and looked to be permanent. That bet was wrong, so they all had layoffs. Other companies were willing to hire lots of developers because the ROI on devs was good comp…
Amazon, Google, and Meta all seem to make riskier bets, too. Both strategies make sense—make big, risky investments, or grind out more profits in existing, highly lucrative markets.
What are those risky bets I wonder?
Meanwhile Apple rolled out a completely custom CPU and transitioned all its hardware to it.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Most layoffs are happening in growth businesses that aren’t even profitable on paper. Apple, make things, things people want and quite often need. they are a solid business that are unlikely to suffer much in a short term tightening of people’s finances interest rate rises.
> Most layoffs are happening in growth businesses that aren’t even profitable on paper. Google? Facebook? Microsoft? All very profitable, all doing layoffs.
A few days ago we were criticizing Nintendo because it was making too much money per employee and didn't hire enough. Also, we criticize Google for laying people off and Amazon for everything else (overhiring?). One wonders why Apple gets high praise for "hiring cautiously".
Apple's underlying economics haven't changed, so they have not had any reason to over-hire in the first place. Amazon, Google, Meta, Shopify and others are all e-commerce based. There was a clear trend that e-commerce had shifted up due to the pandemic, and looked to be permanent. That bet was wrong, so they all had layoffs. Other companies were willing to hire lots of developers because the ROI on devs was good comp…
It was certainly a possibility, but staggers my mind that companies of this size all decided it was a sureity.
If I were to be uncharitable, this is the effect of senior staff at these companies having been completely detached from the pandemic experience of the majority of the population. Lots of people still had to go to work F2F, lots of people spent it cooped up in 30m2 apartments with flatmates they hate.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
An AR headset that's supposed to do what, exactly?
To help bring the next paradigm in computing interfaces. I don’t understand why people have forgotten all of the sci-fi movies that have been showing what’s possible
Earlier quoted context omitted.
There are three ways to make more per employee. You can get better at making money. You can have fewer people. You can pay your people less. So as a metric it's very context-dependant.
You can also do all 3 at the same time. They're not mutually exclusive. If priority #1 is shareholder value, then doing all 3 of those makes sense. If priority #1 is something other than money, then maximizing profit can lead to a negative impact on the true mission. So I do agree it's context-dependant, but perhaps a slightly different context than you had in mind?
For example paying people less might impact your ability to improve your money stream. Similarly having fewer people may lead to some missed opportunities.
this won't age well
Some PR & HR folks at Apple right now might be slapping themselves in the face over this disrupting their plans. Slow news day Fridays, companies often wait until the end of the day to release bad news. So they maybe wait a week. Although the article is paywalled so I don't know, maybe the author has a quote from Apple with some statement minimally confirming this.