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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

#371

Post by chris222 »

etempleton wrote: post #53
wand3r wrote: post #33

> 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…

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.

This comes directly from Steve Jobs legacy. He talked a lot about the value of small teams and how they self regulate but can breakup if they grow too quickly.

https://youtu.be/wTgQ2PBiz-g

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

#372

Post by KerrAvon »

potatolicious wrote: post #361
ClumsyPilot wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If someone is insane, is their next move sane? Are they a good investment?

This remains my chief concern - part of this admittedly is anger that those responsible for the sackings have generally not been sacked, but the rest of it is whether or not anyone in charge truly knows what they did wrong in order to avoid the same situation again. When one authorizes a 40,000-person increase in headcount, what did they think they were paying for? What projects were these people allocated to, and wh…

Your last sentence is actually why I might -- might -- be a bit more forgiving here -- in some cases (most?) the layoffs are being driven by pressure from activist investors. I have firsthand knowledge that at least one of the major companies that did a layoff recently had no internal desire or financial need to do it, but is being heavily pressured to lay off staff as a cost-cutting measure, even though the business is perfectly viable without it.

A lot of the world's ills today seem to be boiling down to sociopathic trust fund billionaires treating literally everything in life as a game to be won.

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

#373

Post by tharkun__ »

giantg2 wrote: post #352
sosull wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can empathise. Telling them that you didn’t want a management-style position was probably the right move given all the reasons you laid out, but it’s also an implicit rejection of everything that the people around you are striving for. They equate management with productivity and respect. You’re thinking of it like the difference between a pilot and an air traffic controller. Jobs with vastly different purposes. Bu…

That all makes sense, but this was for a promotion to senior dev.

I think (would hope?) that you can say this kind of thing is most companies, in the right way if you first ensure that your current level is the level at which "up and out" stops. In many companies that may be at Senior or above (or whatever they call the equivalent.

So if you say you want to stay at "intermediate", that's an "out" you're voting for. If you say it (in the politically correct way) at senior (or whatever is the correct level for it at your company), you can stay.

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

#374

Post by simonh »

hailwren wrote: post #337
gsinclair wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For my use case (education) iPad Pro is a godsend. I don’t see anything wrong with it.

What feature of the pro makes it worth $150 ($650 if you have the larger screen) more than the comparable iPad?

The basic iPads don’t have laminated displays, are smaller, heavier and come with older CPUs and less memory. So the decision for me is between iPad Air and Pro. Frankly which makes the best buy varies. My current iPad is an M1 Pro that’s just over a year old, but my brother bought one last summer and got an Air, and if I’d been buying one then I’d have done the same. Sometimes it comes down to which was refreshed most recently. I just look at the size, weight, screen features, processor, memory, storage tiers and price then see what is the most compelling package. 14 months ago it was a Pro. 6 months later it was an Air.

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

#375

Post by verall »

jarjoura wrote: post #366
potatolicious wrote: post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Also, engineering managers absolutely have endless work to assign to new hires. So given the headcount, they will definitely make use of it." This seems like the crux of the problem. Of course engineering managers always want more headcount - I am one and I would be very happy to get more headcount. My backlog is ten miles long and keeps growing. But I also understand that if I head enough engineers to actually ta…

LOL, this is also very true. I do question how you manage your backlog though, if there are things on it that should never be implemented, maybe you should clean it out? :-p

Could make an internal stakeholder unhappy. Much easier just to let it sit in the backlog forever.

Sometimes I come back to a very detailed bug report I wrote about something I found in another team's system. It has been fun to see it grow to almost 4 years old now. Although I am not happy it gets pushed back every release, I would certainly be less happy if it was just closed as "this will never be worth it".

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

#376

Post by jsnell »

lnsru wrote: post #299
jsnell wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple making their own CPUs would also not have taken down the company. They took small incremental steps; at any point, a failure of their own CPU program would at worst have meant using a commercially available SOC (with probably great terms), or alternatively skipping the SOC refresh for a year. In fact, by your criteria, I doubt that Apple has made a single risky bet this millennium. Even the iPhone failing would…

Look, if you want some new hardware using latest node it’s expensive. You must sign nice expensive contract with foundry and pay pay pay before anything comes out. It’s risky, there is no guarantee, that all produced chips work as expected. And it’s done in secret for years with insane stress for engineers. They can leak or chip can be a failure. There is no way to get any SoC on the marked in desired quantities for…

> Changing processor was risky for them.

Which specific Apple-made SOC do you claim was a company-ending risk? The A4? Surely not, it was just commodity components they integrated. The A6? Clearly not. That's the first SOC where they included their own CPU design, but if it had failed they could just have used the A5 as a backup, given they were already manufacturing it on the same process as the A6 was released on. And so on.

Why do you think Apple didn't recognize whatever risks you think were there, and mitigate for them? Are they really so badly managed that they'd just risk a trillion dollar company on a roll of the dice rather than have the appropriate contingencies?

Why doesn't every single chip maker run exactly those same risks? Heck, why doesn't every user of commodity CPUs run those risks? The things you claim that could happen to Apple's SOCs could also happen to Qualcomm. Why isn't every user of Qualcomm's chips up the shit creek if a Qualcomm CPU fails validation?

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

#377

Post by Jochim »

LarryMullins wrote: post #75
mbesto wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> One wonders why Apple gets high praise for "hiring cautiously". Have you not read this forum for the past week? It's been riddled with techies ragging on tech CEO's for "blaming the economy" and not blaming themselves for over-hiring.

The part I don't quite get (except insofar as it's an understandable emotional reaction) is why people are mad at companies hiring more people than they should have and then eventually laying them off a few years later. Would it have been better for those people if they were never hired in the first place, never had a few years of getting paid for extraneous work? Is the trauma of getting laid off really so great tha…

You're saying this as if there aren't any costs involved in taking a job and being laid off is free from any kind of negative effect. People aren't upset out of loyalty the company, they're upset because they have rent to pay.

Some fairly straightforward examples of why dumping tens of thousands of people into financial precarity isn't a positive or neutral action:

* Rent is still due at the end of the month. Hopefully you don't have too long left on your lease if you find a job in another city.

* Many companies seem to be doing it simply because they can, rather than out of any kind of financial necessity.

* Recent hires likely haven't recouped their relocation costs.

* Finding a new job is more complicated when the market has been flooded with literally hundreds of thousands of people in the same situation.

* People lose part of their social circle, especially bad for people who gave up their existing one when relocating.

* Many applicants, especially graduates, have had accepted job offers withdrawn, putting them in a financially precarious position where they've turned down other offers and now need to scramble to find a way to pay their rent.

The fact is that most people only ever have a few months at most to find a new source of income. Losing your job in an environment where finding a new one is more challenging than normal is going to be hugely stressful for most. To be honest, I find it really odd that you're totally unaware why someone losing their job might affect them negatively.

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

#378

Post by stephencanon »

Gh0stRAT wrote: post #195
glomgril wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

True, but misleading. Amazon gives big cash bonuses to new hires in years 1 and 2 in order to compensate for the back-weighted vesting schedule.

As big as 20% of their RSU grant + the bonus they would get at another company would be? If not, not misleading at all.

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

#379

Post by chaostheory »

dmitriid wrote: post #256
chaostheory wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> yes you are restricted by the laws of physics and human biology Yeah, you didn’t cite any laws that restrict this future. You’re wrong. Let’s also not be disingenuous. those “fantasy interfaces” are working prototypes and not just movie CGI. There are also real world products like NReal. You’re not familiar enough with the subject despite being confidently wrong > VR is a) distinctly different from AR, b) requires…

> Yeah, you didn’t cite any laws that restrict this future. You’re wrong. I'm not wrong. I just don't call wishful thinking "the future", "reality" etc. > Let’s also not be disingenuous. those “fantasy interfaces” are working prototypes and not just movie CGI Prototypes are not "actual usable interfaces that are used by real humans for any extended periods of time". Note how his own company uses none of these interfa…

You are completely wrong. you have yet to cite a law of physics or some biological fact that will prevent this from being a reality. Ie you’re making really terrible assumptions based on lack of knowledge.

> A pair of galsses with 46 degree field of view that you need to connect with a cable to the actual device where all the processing and control happens.

Yes, and it’s shipped and will continue to be improved through iteration.

> Ah yes. The new Apple headset that you know literally nothing about will one hundred percent will have this... Even though it's rumoured not to be VR device

We know more about the Apple device through patent filings and leaks. It is a VR device with pass through that will likely cost $3000. Their AR prototype costs too much to ship.

> Oh? We've solved the question of batteries? Of compact CPUs and GPUs capable of processing this? Etc. And all this is coming in near future?

All of the issues that you’ve cited can be fixed and improved gradually; these devices are already real and shipped. Yes, these improvements are coming in the near future. As for batteries, that’s been solved 1-2 years ago. Your complaints are very similar to the pundits dumping on the first release of the iPhone. It’s not that hard to see the overall trend of better, faster, cheaper for tech product evolution. It’s not the first time it’s happened, nor will it be the last

I don’t understand why you keep doubling down on a subject that you know nothing about.

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

#380

Post by danbmil99 »

renewiltord wrote: post #157
krab wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hiring many people and firing them shortly after isn't very productive use of human minds. Those people were doing probably something more valuable instead.

And now they can. It is good that people are being laid off. They can now go do the valuable thing. Perhaps Google's true target should have been 50% layoffs so that they can release people to go work on their valuable stuff instead of working at Google.

> Perhaps Google's true target should have been 50%

Just wait for Elon to buy them

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