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Ask HN: Where are laid off employees gathering?

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Re: Ask HN: Where are laid off employees gathering?

#41

Post by nanomonkey »

throwawaaarrgh wrote: post #14

It just occurred to me that so many people were laid off, we could start the world's largest software co-op (and arguably one of the largest tech orgs, period). We could build software products that every industry needs, that every worker owns a part of and can vote on org-wide decisions. Literally everyone you need was laid off... Tech people, business people, marketing, sales, etc. We just need a forum and some vol…

Loomio [https://www.loomio.com/] would be a great forum, cooperative decision making tool for running such a group. The next step would be building out any tools that are not covered by loomio and the likes.

Re: Ask HN: Where are laid off employees gathering?

#42

Post by nanomonkey »

janalsncm wrote: post #20
throwawaaarrgh wrote: post #14

It just occurred to me that so many people were laid off, we could start the world's largest software co-op (and arguably one of the largest tech orgs, period). We could build software products that every industry needs, that every worker owns a part of and can vote on org-wide decisions. Literally everyone you need was laid off... Tech people, business people, marketing, sales, etc. We just need a forum and some vol…

What products would companies/individuals pay for?

Creating an open market for compute, labor and goods that would compete with AWS, Amazon and the gig economy would be a good place to start. These groups skim a large portion of companies/individual's profit.

Re: Ask HN: Where are laid off employees gathering?

#43

Post by harshalizee »

throwawaaarrgh wrote: post #14

It just occurred to me that so many people were laid off, we could start the world's largest software co-op (and arguably one of the largest tech orgs, period). We could build software products that every industry needs, that every worker owns a part of and can vote on org-wide decisions. Literally everyone you need was laid off... Tech people, business people, marketing, sales, etc. We just need a forum and some vol…

I always thought having a "guild" like Hollywood does or something similar would be a great boon to empower tech workers.

Of course, it wouldn't be 1:1 mapping, but a collective tech union-like open institution would go far in leveraging against hostile employers.

CEOs get golden parachutes on signing. It's time tech workers start demanding what their exit package looks like in case of layoffs/reductions against their will. I know a lot of this is wishful thinking, but in the face of an increasingly bleak economic landscape, we may need something like this sooner than later.

Re: Ask HN: Where are laid off employees gathering?

#44

Post by sahila »

asim wrote: post #32
throwawaaarrgh wrote: post #14

It just occurred to me that so many people were laid off, we could start the world's largest software co-op (and arguably one of the largest tech orgs, period). We could build software products that every industry needs, that every worker owns a part of and can vote on org-wide decisions. Literally everyone you need was laid off... Tech people, business people, marketing, sales, etc. We just need a forum and some vol…

I always surmised that this was the only way to compete with Google and others. Even if you had 10k engineers, heck 1000 engineers who did it, it would be a formidable force. But actually doing it. That's the hard part.

The number of engineers isn’t the limiting factor competing against google, it’s the innovation/talent. While most engineers even at google aren’t working on hard problems, there’s a few who’re solving distributed computing/gfs/page rank/etc and those individuals are definitely not being laid off. The others use their tools to solve business problems.

Re: Ask HN: Where are laid off employees gathering?

#45

Post by flashgordon »

The problem is same as with any group of people coming together especially at scale. That of aligning incentives. 100k people or even 1k can create a pretty formidable force. But Who decides influences which problems to solve and when? Who holds said unit accountable and how? How do you split the rewards? This ends up devolving into yet another big company no? A good example is even in yc startup school you meet so many awesome cofounders and still it is so hard to just align on a problem to solve!

Re: Ask HN: Where are laid off employees gathering?

#48

Post by xwdv »

throwawaaarrgh wrote: post #14

It just occurred to me that so many people were laid off, we could start the world's largest software co-op (and arguably one of the largest tech orgs, period). We could build software products that every industry needs, that every worker owns a part of and can vote on org-wide decisions. Literally everyone you need was laid off... Tech people, business people, marketing, sales, etc. We just need a forum and some vol…

This is a pipe dream. The only thing laid off workers care about is making money, not wasting time working for free.

Re: Ask HN: Where are laid off employees gathering?

#49

Post by DiggyJohnson »

galleywest200 wrote: post #30
PaulHoule wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Past that, why do you want to hang out with other people who are doing poorly when you could be hanging out with people who are doing better?

Being laid off does not equate to doing poorly. Some people just get cut because some people who wear suits to work seem to not care.

I think you're interpreting "doing poorly" wrong.

I read GP as saying that people who are laid off are currently going through a stressful time in their life: "doing poorly".

Re: Ask HN: Where are laid off employees gathering?

#50

Post by inadequatespace »

nanomonkey wrote: post #41
throwawaaarrgh wrote: post #14

It just occurred to me that so many people were laid off, we could start the world's largest software co-op (and arguably one of the largest tech orgs, period). We could build software products that every industry needs, that every worker owns a part of and can vote on org-wide decisions. Literally everyone you need was laid off... Tech people, business people, marketing, sales, etc. We just need a forum and some vol…

Loomio [ https://www.loomio.com/ ] would be a great forum, cooperative decision making tool for running such a group. The next step would be building out any tools that are not covered by loomio and the likes.

Do you have experience with this tool?
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