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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?

#291

Post by jefftk »

zeroonetwothree wrote: post #270
JohnFen wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It depends on what part of the industry you're working in. If you're looking at FAANG-style companies, that's absolutely true. But there's much more to the industry than that.

I got my FANG job with a degree from a 50-ish rank school. I think their acceptance rate was 70% so it’s not exactly Ivy League levels of gatekeeping. Some of my coworkers went to even lower ranked schools or altogether don’t have degrees (though I admit it’s uncommon).

When I was at a FANG I had at least three bootcamp grads for close coworkers, and many with degrees from schools you've never heard of.

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

#292

Post by aneeshnl »

marcusverus wrote: post #101
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…

It's hard to imagine such an organization working out over the long term. The incentives are all wonky! The more you contribute, the more you sacrifice by joining a coop. The less you contribute, the more you gain. I for one can't think of a less attractive idea than taking a product idea that I love and turning ownership and creative control over to a group of strangers. And that's probably why these things are so r…

Not sure of the co-operatives in software. I am from state of Kerala, India. We have a number of very successful and long running co-operatives.

1. Milma - Kerala Co-operative Milk Marketing federation. Virtually every household uses and trusts milma. It has been around for 53 years.

2. Indian Coffee House - It is a worker co-operative restaurant chain. Very successful and is around since 1958.

3. ULCCS - India's oldest worker co-operative. Operating from 1925, mainly in construction sector. It also has an IT wing.

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

#293

Post by poorbutdebtfree »

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…

An organization of B and C players with socialist leanings will have a hard time competing in a free market. See any "worker owned co-op" coffee shop.

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

#294

Post by flappyeagle »

poorbutdebtfree wrote: post #293
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…

An organization of B and C players with socialist leanings will have a hard time competing in a free market. See any "worker owned co-op" coffee shop.

This is pretty rude. The people who were laid off were certainly not "B and C players". When large companies cut, it's often entire business units, so no performance or talent considerations are made.

Plenty of worker-owned coffee shops, book stores, grocery stores, etc are famously successful. Be more open-minded, ya scrooge.

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

#295

Post by Gigachad »

asveikau wrote: post #133
robust-cactus wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting fact - valve no longer works this way because it didn't work.

I've always been curious about claims that such an approach inevitably doesn't work. I feel like my intuition tells me it could with the right people and variation on the concept. But it's probably difficult. Even the best managers I've seen usually have blind spots on how the team is running.

Technically there is nothing preventing you from stacking 10 eggs on top of each other, If you balance it just right, they won't move assuming no outside forces.

Realistically, you may as well talk about it as something that can't be done. If anything, it's probably easier to stack eggs than to get more than 4 people to work collaboratively without the current incentives and rules making it all hold together.

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

#296

Post by Gigachad »

nitwit005 wrote: post #267
asveikau wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've always been curious about claims that such an approach inevitably doesn't work. I feel like my intuition tells me it could with the right people and variation on the concept. But it's probably difficult. Even the best managers I've seen usually have blind spots on how the team is running.

Even assuming those "right people" exist, you'd need a hiring process that could pick them out, and they'd need to want to work for you.

And hope they never change. Say something happens in one of their lives and they no longer contribute anything. Getting rid of them would be exactly what the OP post is criticizing.

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

#297

Post by bruce511 »

Spooky23 wrote: post #265
asveikau wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've always been curious about claims that such an approach inevitably doesn't work. I feel like my intuition tells me it could with the right people and variation on the concept. But it's probably difficult. Even the best managers I've seen usually have blind spots on how the team is running.

It works for attorneys and accountants. It’s an approach with ups and downs. The biggest down being it’s harder to scale.

Interestingly though attorneys and accountants charge by the hour to customers. So their individual value to the group is easy to quantify and measure.

And while they may have support staff, they typically "work alone" in the sense that there's one partner per account, so very little oversight or management is needed.

The primary purpose of this "collective" is to create a "brand" of sorts. Ernst and Young has more prestige than say Franklin and Franklin. This draws in higher paying customers.

I feel like there are sufficient differences in this kind of business to a typical software business that the comparison is not especially useful.

Which is not to say that a coop can't work, just that the comparison to accountants and lawyers doesn't work.

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

#298

Post by jimmygrapes »

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…

Just gonna throw this out there... perhaps those who were "let go" were not all let go because they were the best of the bunch? Not that such a thing should stop you, we all love a good rag-tag band of outcasts overcoming the evil empire story, but, you know.

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

#299

Post by aaronax »

justeleblanc wrote: post #171
marcusverus wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's hard to imagine such an organization working out over the long term. The incentives are all wonky! The more you contribute, the more you sacrifice by joining a coop. The less you contribute, the more you gain. I for one can't think of a less attractive idea than taking a product idea that I love and turning ownership and creative control over to a group of strangers. And that's probably why these things are so r…

> It's hard to imagine such an organization working out over the long term. The incentives are all wonky! The more you contribute, the more you sacrifice by joining a coop. The less you contribute, the more you gain. If that were true, there would be no successful co-ops anywhere in any field of work. That's obviously not the case. Just look at this list https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cooperatives#United_St...…

I'm thinking most of those are customer-owned cooperatives, not employee-owned. Big difference.

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

#300

Post by aaronax »

twblalock wrote: post #83
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…

> We all know what products companies/individuals would pay for, because we used to build/buy them. Why wouldn't the traditional approach of starting a company to sell those things work? Co-ops have never been a successful software business model. Not even once that I can think of. That model seems to work ok for open source, but since you are talking about building things people will pay for, I'm not seeing how it w…

Tessitura and NISC are successful.
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