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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

#41

Post by phkahler »

tmaly wrote: post #13
mathattack wrote: post #6

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?

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

Inefficiency, which will spread to customers, who will then need more products and services?

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

#42

Post by gabereiser »

acapybara wrote: post #11
foobarian wrote: post #7

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 is the only true security. "You're on your own, asshole (TM)" has been the bank motto since 2008... Company security and longevity is oh so valued during interviews but only when you're coming into the club, not when you're leaving the club. Companies are like Tony Soprano, only loyal if they find you useful, and expect you to kill for them to get in. Won't hesitate to whack you. Metaphorically speaking.

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

#43

Post by rwmj »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #17
acapybara wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Rates of pay are so high in tech that I wonder if there will come a crisis when many people take early retirement. (Obviously I'm not saying this is a bad thing)

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

#44

Post by htag »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #17
acapybara wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

FIRE is obviously nice. I do think "bank the extra" is significantly more attainable, while providing a lot of extra security.

1. He doesn't have to change his spending habits at all. He just needs to direct the extra income into a saving account, maybe check on it one a month/quarter/year and move it someplace like CDs, Bonds, or ETFs.

2. His goal is to continue to work. Having a healthy savings account can keep you secure while looking for another job.

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

#45

Post by MattPalmer1086 »

iLoveOncall wrote: post #27
mathattack wrote: post #6

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…

> expensive (old) employees This legend needs to stop. It has been demonstrated time and time again that employees that stay the longest are the leaat paid. https://www.forbes.com/sites/cameronkeng/2014/06/22/employee...

You are confusing length of service with age of employee.

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

#46

Post by ohthehugemanate »

CoolGuySteve wrote: post #5

> The layoffs come after IBM reported last week that Red Hat quarterly revenues had increased 8%. However, that was far below recent performances. “Red Hat had been averaging at least a 15% revenue growth, every quarter since IBM purchased it in 2019,” Looks like the enshittification of Red Hat is hitting its stride.

Care to elaborate? Why do you blame enshittification instead of the macroeconomic factors that have caused everyone else's revenue growth to slow, too?

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

#47

Post by toomuchtodo »

htag wrote: post #44
toomuchtodo wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

FIRE is obviously nice. I do think "bank the extra" is significantly more attainable, while providing a lot of extra security. 1. He doesn't have to change his spending habits at all. He just needs to direct the extra income into a saving account, maybe check on it one a month/quarter/year and move it someplace like CDs, Bonds, or ETFs. 2. His goal is to continue to work. Having a healthy savings account can keep you…

I'm not advocating for FI (edit: removed RE) because one wishes to not work (although that is an entirely reasonable goal to target), but so that you can still live a decent life if you want to work but cannot find employment. I have read many trying anecdotes lately (both here and on Reddit) of engineers who are very capable who cannot succeed against the current hiring gauntlets. What good is a desire to contribute and perform meaningful work if you can't make it through the hiring circus? That is what you're derisking against. The labor market can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent. I am advocating for efforts to become radically solvent; not to do nothing, but to be able to do anything and at high level, have agency one does not have by default.

Relevant recent thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35514464

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

#48

Post by ok123456 »

tmaly wrote: post #13
mathattack wrote: post #6

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?

They made them redundant already by rewriting everything in systemd.

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

#49

Post by whitemary »

foobarian wrote: post #7
mathattack wrote: post #6

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.

Unionize.

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

#50

Post by hawk_ »

CoastalCoder wrote: post #21
louniks wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 i…

For the causes of R&D layoffs, I'm curious about the split between (a) increased interest rates, vs. (b) changes to U.S. tax code that disallow 5-year amortization of software-development costs. I'm only hearing people mention (a). So maybe (b) is less relevant than I'm imagining? CORRECTION: I think I stated (b) exactly backwards. IIUC, previously a company could fully expense the cost of software development in the…

Isn't (b) forcing 5 year amortization? Which I believe doesn't affect large long running steady businesses. It's mostly about cashflow.
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