Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

wraltechwire.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 164 posts

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

#81

Post by morpheuskafka »

tough wrote: post #52
CoastalCoder wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Now that you put it that way, maybe (b) is the ugly truth, and (a) is just the prettier (everyone else is doing it) scape goat. I see interest rates being the number 1 excuse for layoffs, but there has to be something else on why Software is getting screwed so much in this down cycle. I used to think AI/LLMs, but who knows. Im not seeing as many layoffs internationally but that might be biased, one would thought clim…

But why would companies want to say (a) and not (b)? Seems like “you lost your job because the government raised taxes” would be a pretty popular explanation and PR strategy to get the change reversed.

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

#82

Post by iLoveOncall »

athammer wrote: post #35
iLoveOncall wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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...

This article doesn’t seem to account for stock compensation which can greatly incentivize staying at a company for a long time

I randomly picked the very first article I could find because I was on my phone, but it remains true no matter what. In the very best case scenario your company's stock explodes over the (typically) 4 years of your vest, but after that it will be adjusted down, so you will be earning less than new joiners again.

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

#83

Post by justrealist »

CoolGuySteve wrote: post #57
ohthehugemanate wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Because 8% growth in a single quarter is fucking fantastic.

- that's a Y/Y number

- 8% growth is not good when inflation is 8%

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

#84

Post by tomrod »

MattPalmer1086 wrote: post #45
iLoveOncall wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

To be fair, these aren't unrelated since they track together over time.

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

#85

Post by javanissen »

phkahler wrote: post #39
jrockway wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Live frugally and fully fund your 401k.

Make it a Roth 401k so when unusual things like housing collapse you can pull your principal back out to make a purchase without penalty. Assuming the stock market didn't crash simultaneously.

That is the rule with a Roth IRA - pull out up to your contribution value without penalty. Early withdrawals from a Roth 401(k) are different: if your account is 80% contributions and 20% earnings, any early withdrawal you make will be prorated to be 80% contributions and 20% earnings. The earnings chunk will be added to your gross income and subject to a 10% penalty (in this case, 2% of the overall withdrawal).

Given that most people here are high-ish earners, I’d say a traditional 401(k) is still the most appropriate choice because of the tax arbitrage. If you need to tap it, a 401(k) loan is an imperfect but probably decent enough choice.

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

#86

Post by Tyrek »

hawk_ wrote: post #50
CoastalCoder wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This change will have a real impact to cashflow, in the sense that you are paying more (in taxes) in the first year than you would under the previous model.

And cashflow is incredibly important, Free Cash Flow metrics etc. are all fairly critical within the investing world.

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

#87

Post by noelsusman »

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.

My plan is to save enough money to at least quasi-retire in my 50s.

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

#88

Post by scarface74 »

namelessoracle wrote: post #66
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.

Whats weird is that I've heard the opposite too. That being an old employee is a suckers game for taking the 2 to 4 percent each year. For instance the staff level who was with the company from junior and climbed the ranks is probably making alot less than the staff who came in as a staff, because climbing the ranks means you get percentage based increases or reset to the floor for the rank, and the staff who came in…

“Salary Compression and Inversion”

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

#89

Post by away271828 »

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…

FIRE has so much MMM and other baggage associated with it, I prefer to avoid the term. What is true is that, as you get late career, it's probably simultaneously more difficult to land a new job, starting something brand new may be less appealing, and you may be in a position to not work full-time as an employee even if the move isn't quite on your own terms.

Personally, I've been in the position for about 5 years now where I could have ended up mostly retiring if that's what was in the cards. And it's a very liberating feeling even if you don't have to or choose not to exercise it. Makes it far more of a non-event (for you personally) when layoffs come knocking.

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

#90

Post by charlie0 »

mjr00 wrote: post #60
htag wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

This. "Bank extra and make sure you have savings" is way more reasonable than the "aim to retire by 35" FIRE cult. Out of a sample size of 4, 75% of the people I know who have done "FIRE" regret it. (The one who doesn't comes from a wealthy family who bought him a house right after university, so the sacrifices he made are a lot less.) Among the 3, the common theme was realizing they wasted the best years of their li…

This. My plan is being financially independent enough to take several months of breaks in between jobs and having the time to look for environments I really enjoy working in.
Post reply on HN