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Red Hat cutting hundreds of jobs, CEO says in letter to employees

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Re: Red Hat cutting hundreds of jobs, CEO says in letter to employees

#11

Welcome to life under IBM. They’re in the business of a financially engineered shrinkage. This is what happens when innovation and growth stops. What you see from IBM: - Cut expensive (old) employees. - Market everything as the New thing. (Watson) - Audit your customers. Settle by forcing them to buy the New thing even if they don’t need it. - Current and former execs go on book tours. - Buy back shares. This is all…

> - Cut expensive (old) employees. Anyone have tips to avoid this? I keep getting promotions and raises and it's all very nice but makes me worried about being closer to the top of the list when the next round of cuts needs to happen... Just this year I got an unsolicited bump because I was "below market avg TCO." You can't just say "no thanks" to that.

Make as much as you can and bank the extra.

The only real security you have is your own assets and financial discipline.

Re: Red Hat cutting hundreds of jobs, CEO says in letter to employees

#12

Welcome to life under IBM. They’re in the business of a financially engineered shrinkage. This is what happens when innovation and growth stops. What you see from IBM: - Cut expensive (old) employees. - Market everything as the New thing. (Watson) - Audit your customers. Settle by forcing them to buy the New thing even if they don’t need it. - Current and former execs go on book tours. - Buy back shares. This is all…

> - Cut expensive (old) employees. Anyone have tips to avoid this? I keep getting promotions and raises and it's all very nice but makes me worried about being closer to the top of the list when the next round of cuts needs to happen... Just this year I got an unsolicited bump because I was "below market avg TCO." You can't just say "no thanks" to that.

Frankly, companies who cut you for being older are not companies that are worth putting your faith into because they don’t respect your historical, institutional knowledge. Also if you’re getting unsolicited bumps from your employer you should be more concerned you’re underselling vs overselling yourself

Re: Red Hat cutting hundreds of jobs, CEO says in letter to employees

#13

Welcome to life under IBM. They’re in the business of a financially engineered shrinkage. This is what happens when innovation and growth stops. What you see from IBM: - Cut expensive (old) employees. - Market everything as the New thing. (Watson) - Audit your customers. Settle by forcing them to buy the New thing even if they don’t need it. - Current and former execs go on book tours. - Buy back shares. This is all…

What will happen to the Red Hat Enterprise Linux product if they cut all the knowledgeable grey beards?

Re: Red Hat cutting hundreds of jobs, CEO says in letter to employees

#15

Welcome to life under IBM. They’re in the business of a financially engineered shrinkage. This is what happens when innovation and growth stops. What you see from IBM: - Cut expensive (old) employees. - Market everything as the New thing. (Watson) - Audit your customers. Settle by forcing them to buy the New thing even if they don’t need it. - Current and former execs go on book tours. - Buy back shares. This is all…

> - Cut expensive (old) employees. Anyone have tips to avoid this? I keep getting promotions and raises and it's all very nice but makes me worried about being closer to the top of the list when the next round of cuts needs to happen... Just this year I got an unsolicited bump because I was "below market avg TCO." You can't just say "no thanks" to that.

Work multiple jobs that you do the bare minimum at.

Always be interviewing, Q1->Q3 is the best time.

Re: Red Hat cutting hundreds of jobs, CEO says in letter to employees

#16

Welcome to life under IBM. They’re in the business of a financially engineered shrinkage. This is what happens when innovation and growth stops. What you see from IBM: - Cut expensive (old) employees. - Market everything as the New thing. (Watson) - Audit your customers. Settle by forcing them to buy the New thing even if they don’t need it. - Current and former execs go on book tours. - Buy back shares. This is all…

From what we were told this morning, this is a purely Red Hat decision not influenced by IBM, primarily intended to reduce our spending and save cash in light of the increased cost of money caused by rising interest rates.

Roles affected will be "general and administrative" (apparently this is a GAAP - Generally Accepted Accounting Practices - term), and folks directly involved in developing or selling products (my interpretation: software engineers and sales) are safe.

Source: am Red Hatter, opinions/interpretations are my own.

Re: Red Hat cutting hundreds of jobs, CEO says in letter to employees

#17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> - Cut expensive (old) employees. Anyone have tips to avoid this? I keep getting promotions and raises and it's all very nice but makes me worried about being closer to the top of the list when the next round of cuts needs to happen... Just this year I got an unsolicited bump because I was "below market avg TCO." You can't just say "no thanks" to that.

Make as much as you can and bank the extra. The only real security you have is your own assets and financial discipline.

This! FIRE as fast as you can so you’re not at the whim of this class of people (management class, broadly speaking). There is no security, no one is coming to save you except you. I speak from experience.

Re: Red Hat cutting hundreds of jobs, CEO says in letter to employees

#18

Welcome to life under IBM. They’re in the business of a financially engineered shrinkage. This is what happens when innovation and growth stops. What you see from IBM: - Cut expensive (old) employees. - Market everything as the New thing. (Watson) - Audit your customers. Settle by forcing them to buy the New thing even if they don’t need it. - Current and former execs go on book tours. - Buy back shares. This is all…

> Audit your customers.

I know Oracle has a reputation for this, but I didn't realize IBM does as well.

Re: Red Hat cutting hundreds of jobs, CEO says in letter to employees

#19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> - Cut expensive (old) employees. Anyone have tips to avoid this? I keep getting promotions and raises and it's all very nice but makes me worried about being closer to the top of the list when the next round of cuts needs to happen... Just this year I got an unsolicited bump because I was "below market avg TCO." You can't just say "no thanks" to that.

Frankly, companies who cut you for being older are not companies that are worth putting your faith into because they don’t respect your historical, institutional knowledge. Also if you’re getting unsolicited bumps from your employer you should be more concerned you’re underselling vs overselling yourself

The only software-developing organization I know of that truly values institutional knowledge is the U.S. Dept. of Defense.

Civil-service rules make it very difficult to fire most employees anyway, but that dovetails nicely with an appreciation for institutional knowledge.

Re: Red Hat cutting hundreds of jobs, CEO says in letter to employees

#20

Welcome to life under IBM. They’re in the business of a financially engineered shrinkage. This is what happens when innovation and growth stops. What you see from IBM: - Cut expensive (old) employees. - Market everything as the New thing. (Watson) - Audit your customers. Settle by forcing them to buy the New thing even if they don’t need it. - Current and former execs go on book tours. - Buy back shares. This is all…

Welcome to life under Meta, Google, Disney, Microsoft, Amazon, Salesforce, SAP, should i go on?

They're pretty much last to the layoff race, and with smaller numbers

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