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Apple avoids job cuts because it didn’t overhire like Google and Amazon

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Re: Apple avoids job cuts because it didn’t overhire like Google and Amazon

#271

Post by giantg2 »

JohnFen wrote: post #264
BurningFrog wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And if you do become competent, you're soon promoted to another job you're not competent for.

This is why I turn down promotions. A promotion (especially to a management position) means another step toward the sort of work I don't enjoy and don't want to do.

You have to be careful how you do it. I was punished for turning it down.

I was told that all I needed to do was work one extra hour per day (in addition to normal support, elevation, etc). Why would I take a position with higher expectations for a 7% raise and a 13% increase in hours - a rate cut? Plus, if I'm a high performer in my current role I should be getting bigger bonuses.

I have a skip level where the department head asked what my career goals were. And my answer was to stay in my role. After all, I worked as a tech lead for a year and a senior dev the year after, with no talk of advancement until what I previously mentioned (which would be a rate cut).

My manager got me from my desk the next work day and you could tell he was pissed. He asked me why I would say that sort of stuff and said that was "stupid". I generally tell the truth and am pretty honest - I guess I'm stupid that way.

I heard through a friend thst they wanted to get rid of me for those comments and I managed to switch teams in time. My career has been in a downward spiral since.

Re: Apple avoids job cuts because it didn’t overhire like Google and Amazon

#272

Post by kypro »

twblalock wrote: post #263
kypro wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't speak to Meta, but Saleforce and Amazon probably needed to hire during the pandemic to keep on with demand. Amazon saw a massive spike in their ecommerce business due to lockdowns so they had to hire to ensure they had the labour to deal with all the extra orders and deliveries. And even with this extra hiring I remember my deliveries being delayed often in 2020. Saleforce is a weird software company because…

I definitely blame the Fed. It's pretty hard to be in charge of a public company and say no to the shareholders who want you to take advantage of the sudden bubble in demand. Companies would have been punished for not growing, and now they are being punished if they don't shrink. Who created that perverse system of incentives? The Fed, by making a number of mistakes in the past decade that kept the economy overbooste…

Where this logic irritates me the most is in the housing market.

Similarly to those who blame companies for over hiring to meet pandemic demand, I've seen some people suggest the average home buyer was being reckless for buying a home during the pandemic, because "they brought the bubble!"

I guess it's strange to me how the Fed can pump every asset class to the moon, force companies to over hire to meet demand, and cause a huge inflationary problem for consumers – all while promising not to raise interest rates – then rug pull everyone but get no blame for any of it.

Instead I find I'm invited to blame the average business or home owner for being "reckless" for hiring to meet demand for buying a home for their family, while praising the Fed for "doing what's necessary"? Give me a break.

Re: Apple avoids job cuts because it didn’t overhire like Google and Amazon

#273

Post by lapcat »

naravara wrote: post #266
bell-cot wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>...more on short-term gains instead of long-term quality... Considering that Tim has been CEO for 11 1/2 years now, and things are still going incredibly well for Apple...it seems pretty hard to argue that he is too focused on the short term. (FWIW, I mostly agree about their software quality.)

I people tend to have a bit of rose tinted glasses on about Apple's software quality of yore. There have always been big stability issues with new features and apps. And they've simply never been good at the UX for anything that involves a network connection or has to sync across multiple systems (besides Safari). The big difference is that more and more computing requires syncing and networking, which is their tradi…

> There have always been big stability issues with new features and apps.

But they got fixed. At times there were 2 full years between major Mac OS X releases. 2 years of bug fix updates. And that was when Apple only had 1 major operating system! Now with the relentless yearly schedule, there's never time to fix bugs before they start working on the next big thing and adding brand new bugs. The problems just keep piling up year after year. The software is now underwater in technical debt.

Part of OS stability is simply not shipping new major versions too often. The new major versions are always buggier than the previous major version with many minor patches. Not to mention, Apple now pushes everyone to install the latest OS immediately. In the old days, you had to go out to the store and buy a new Mac OS X version on disc, so everyone wasn't upgrading to 10.N.0 on day one. Slower adoption means that fewer consumers have to suffer the early growing pains of new software.

Re: Apple avoids job cuts because it didn’t overhire like Google and Amazon

#274

Post by scarface74 »

glomgril wrote: post #179
danudey wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ideally it takes a full year for them to realize that you're not competent, at which point you hit your 1 year cliff and can snag 25% of your options or RSUs before you get PIP'ed out.

If you're at Amazon you'll walk away with 5% after one year, and only 20% after two years.

This is misleading. You get a prorated sign up bonus for the first two years that makes up for the back heavy vesting schedule. With all of the tech sectors stock price dropping, this has been a preferable outcome over the last two years.

Re: Apple avoids job cuts because it didn’t overhire like Google and Amazon

#275

Post by scarface74 »

inetknght wrote: post #87
etempleton wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Growing too fast is damaging to both culture and productivity. You have a bunch of people starting that are still learning. Depending on the job and the person it can take a full year to be fully competent in a job. Apple was smart to move slower. They are probably one of the best run companies in the world.

> [Apple is] probably one of the best run companies in the world. I would argue that perhaps Apple's business side of things is arguably well-run. I personally disagree; I think that since Tim Cook has taken over, Apple's business focus is more on short-term gains instead of long-term quality. But I would also strongly argue that their software side of things has been trending downward ( especially in terms of qualit…

You mean “short term” of a decade? Apple created two hugely profitable segments since Cook - wearables, services.

The Macs are better than ever.

What else should he be doing?

Re: Apple avoids job cuts because it didn’t overhire like Google and Amazon

#276

Post by [deleted] »

mclouts91 wrote: post #39
tablespoon wrote: post #19

Or maybe the current tech layoffs are a fad not driven by necessity, and Apple tends to set trends, not mindlessly follow them?

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.

[deleted]

Re: Apple avoids job cuts because it didn’t overhire like Google and Amazon

#277

Post by scarface74 »

flangola7 wrote: post #217
bell-cot wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>...more on short-term gains instead of long-term quality... Considering that Tim has been CEO for 11 1/2 years now, and things are still going incredibly well for Apple...it seems pretty hard to argue that he is too focused on the short term. (FWIW, I mostly agree about their software quality.)

And what's the last revolutionary consumer technology that has come out of Apple? The original successful Macs, the iPod, the iPhone, iTunes, those were all under Jobs.

When the iPhone was introduced , there were already 1 billion phones being sold each year. Sj said he wanted Apple to sell 10 million to capture 1% of the market.

There can’t really be anything bigger than the phone market that has 90%+ world wide penetration.

Re: Apple avoids job cuts because it didn’t overhire like Google and Amazon

#278

Post by gnicholas »

giantg2 wrote: post #271
JohnFen wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why I turn down promotions. A promotion (especially to a management position) means another step toward the sort of work I don't enjoy and don't want to do.

You have to be careful how you do it. I was punished for turning it down. I was told that all I needed to do was work one extra hour per day (in addition to normal support, elevation, etc). Why would I take a position with higher expectations for a 7% raise and a 13% increase in hours - a rate cut? Plus, if I'm a high performer in my current role I should be getting bigger bonuses. I have a skip level where the depar…

What would you do if this came up again? Would you still demur, but perhaps give a different reason (family needs right now, etc.)?

Re: Apple avoids job cuts because it didn’t overhire like Google and Amazon

#279

Post by scarface74 »

simonh wrote: post #169
inetknght wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> [Apple is] probably one of the best run companies in the world. I would argue that perhaps Apple's business side of things is arguably well-run. I personally disagree; I think that since Tim Cook has taken over, Apple's business focus is more on short-term gains instead of long-term quality. But I would also strongly argue that their software side of things has been trending downward ( especially in terms of qualit…

I don't know, people have been lamenting the poor quality of Apple software and how much better it was in the old days since I got my first Mac in 2007, at least that's when I became aware of the complaints. If it was really on a substantial continual down trend from then, by now nothing would work at all. Apple continues to invest massively in software, that means a ton of new code, which means a ton of new bugs. Yo…

People have been lamenting about MacOS software quality since I got my first Mac in 1992.

Re: Apple avoids job cuts because it didn’t overhire like Google and Amazon

#280

Post by scarface74 »

inetknght wrote: post #229
brookst wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Usually people decrying short-termism mean focuses on quarters rather than years. Are you saying Cook’s 10+ years that took the company from $100B/year to $400B/year are the short term, and it is at the expense of the next 90 years?

> Are you saying Cook’s 10+ years that took the company from $100B/year to $400B/year are the short term Yes, however it's clearly successful. > Are you saying Cook’s 10+ years that took the company is at the expense of the next 90 years? Apple is slowly pulling away consumer ownership of their devices and is turning into an advertisement company. I honestly believe that is at the expense of the next 90 years. And th…

“Apple is doomed any day now”. That’s been the narrative for over 40 years.

So which customers aren’t satisfied? The people on HN that want to run Linux on the Apple Watch?

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