Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's likely still true at Apple, but you gotta start somewhere.
Anyone know what internal mobility is like at Apple? At Meta it's pretty easy to move teams once you hit the 1 year mark.
Apple is the same.
Apple avoids job cuts because it didn’t overhire like Google and Amazon
391–400 of 439 posts
Re: Apple avoids job cuts because it didn’t overhire like Google and Amazon
#392Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's not "don't trust out performance evaluations". The point of perf evals is rarely to fire people, it's primary use is to manage expectations of promotion. > This is assuming that layoffs affect the correct group of people Layoffs often don't target the right group of people when it comes to perf. There's error in human judgement abound. But it's 100% accurate when it comes to which business units are bringing in…
You have a laughable over estimation of executives ability to value risk/reward ratios. I’m half expecting you start quoting atlas shrugged here.
You should consider reading more carefully before being so dismissive.
You’ve mistaken my statement about executive incentives for one about their competence.
Re: Apple avoids job cuts because it didn’t overhire like Google and Amazon
#393> 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…
I joined Amazon in 2017, and even back then it was doubling every 1-2 years. Which still seemed absolutely nuts to me.
It did later mean the cult-like indoctrination of the leadership principles made sense. When you’re growing at that rate (even not considering the attrition that happens along side it) you can easily end up in a place where _most_ of the employees have been with the company for 12mo or less. If you’ve any hope of maintaining a consistent culture over time you need to get in embedded into people quick. Because the new hires are looking at people who’ve only been there 9 months as though they’re the OGs of the company.
Re: Apple avoids job cuts because it didn’t overhire like Google and Amazon
#394Earlier quoted context omitted.
“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?
> “Apple is doomed any day now”. That’s been the narrative for over 40 years. And they almost went out of business at least twice, once they survived because MS bailed them out. Apple pre-iPod was a source of amusing commercials. Pre iPhone they were the catalyst for change in the music industry, but they were still a consumer goods company with one product that had pretty wide, but still overall limited appeal. Appl…
No one picks azure unless they are a windows shop.
Re: Apple avoids job cuts because it didn’t overhire like Google and Amazon
#395Earlier 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.
I haven't necessarily turned down promotions, but I've been at my job for over 2.5 years and have no desire to make the jump from "developer" to "senior developer" like most do, because while I'm sure you get a nice pay bump, I know firsthand it just means you're in way more meetings (of which I already think I'm in too many of) and writing less code. I don't even know what the extra pay would be, but it's probably n…
You don't become a true senior developer until you find a way to get out of those meetings.
Re: Apple avoids job cuts because it didn’t overhire like Google and Amazon
#396I can only speak to my experience in the engineering org at Meta and past experience at Apple. One key difference between Apple and Meta is that each individual (on the ground) team at Apple is responsible for its own hiring. Whereas at Meta, they have a general company-wide engineering pool that is mainly driven by recruiters to fill. A manager at Apple will get a batch of resumes and start hiring with a recruiter a…
> Also, engineering managers absolutely have endless work to assign to new hires
Assuming there isn't a sharp dropoff of the ROI on the work juuuuust past the point where the current team can tackle it, that means that the work in the backlog is valuable and worth paying for. By chopping people they are saying actually, this work doesn't need to be done. Whether that work needs to be done or is valuable has not magically changed. That means the company was wrong all along about whether the work in the backlog was worth doing, and had all along had too many people on the team -- despite painfully fighting for headcount to get that work done, and despite careful calculus about which teams to spend budget on, all those managers were basically categorically wrong all along. How can we reconcile all that?
Re: Apple avoids job cuts because it didn’t overhire like Google and Amazon
#397Earlier quoted context omitted.
Cash flow solves everything, or profit solves everything are perhaps better phrases, since apparently people forgot that the purpose of a company is to make profit, not just revenue.
You can have run a company for zero profit and it can still be a benefit to society, so no the "purpose of a company is to make profit" is not necessarily true. "If we want to know what a business is, we have to start with its purpose. And the purpose must lie outside the business itself. In fact, it must lie in society, since a business enterprise is an organ of society. There is only one valid definition of busines…
> You can have run a company for zero profit and it can still be a benefit to society, so no the "purpose of a company is to make profit" is not necessarily true.
On one hand, fair. Technically correct.
On the other hand basically all laymen use the word "company" to mean for-profit corporation, and pretty much everyone who wants to talk about corporations that are designed not to make a profit use the term "non-profit".
I think you've ignored the context in which the comment was made.
Re: Apple avoids job cuts because it didn’t overhire like Google and Amazon
#398Or maybe the current tech layoffs are a fad not driven by necessity, and Apple tends to set trends, not mindlessly follow them?
apple just fires continuously rather than letting dead weight stay at the company until a layoff gives management a way to finally let them go.
Re: Apple avoids job cuts because it didn’t overhire like Google and Amazon
#399Earlier quoted context omitted.
Speaking of software quality, anyone notice in Apple Music how the categories all start with Apple? Apple Dance music, Apple Country, Apple Pop... like are they trying to make it intentionally difficult for me to use my eyes to find music? I know that I'm using Apple Music... why does every category need to remind me of that while simultaneously impeding my ability to locate things alphabetically? Of course, when I u…
Soon in supermarkets near you: the Apple Apple. Beautiful, healthy, tasty; no buttons!
I hear they even named one varietal of apple the "Macintosh"... someone must be a fan I guess.
(/s)
Re: Apple avoids job cuts because it didn’t overhire like Google and Amazon
#400Hiring at Apple was limited because they don’t pay competitively and they only get the “true believer” types that are willing to work more hours at a discount. Source: a low level manager at Apple.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/news/2016/04/27/body-app... they fire people or grind them to dust.