Red Hat cutting hundreds of jobs, CEO says in letter to employees • Hacker News Board

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

#111

Post by clambirty » Mon, Apr 24, 2023, 5:57 PM UTC

jstarfish wrote: post #95

tough wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

AI is too nascent to be the sole reason for so many layoffs. Emulating HR is about all it can be trusted to do autonomously. Old people (50+) and troublemakers (PIPs) comprised the entirety of my own company's most recent layoff round. They're not even trying to hide it anymore. My hunch is that [America] is laying off domestic engineers so we can outsource more of the positions to India during the next hiring phase.…

Management in the Red Hat's Support organization said recently they were hiring new support engineers out of India to help alleviate burnout. A hiring freeze in all countries except India effectively is outsourcing.

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

#112

Post by ipaddr » Mon, Apr 24, 2023, 5:58 PM UTC

jzb wrote: post #64

twiclo wrote: post #3

I'm sure this is mostly due to the economy but I would be interested to find out how much of this is due to lack of funding after the CentOS Stream thing.

Care to elaborate? I'm not sure what "lack of funding after the CentOS Stream thing" is really supposed to mean.

Losing revenue after Centos died

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

#113

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Apr 24, 2023, 6:01 PM UTC

rpgbr wrote: post #96

edgyquant wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yet it’s more than a 50% drop from the average of the last twelve quarters.

As if high level growth could be perpetual. Capitalism expectations are unachievable by default and yet people use them as an excuse for shit decisions and everybody are supposed to accept this craziness as “rational”.

[deleted]

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

#114

Post by ghaff » Mon, Apr 24, 2023, 6:02 PM UTC

oofta-boofta wrote: post #106

ghaff wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I assume people who are sufficiently self-centered that they've convinced themselves that this is fine because it obviously is if you can get away with it are incredibly selfish and not nearly as clever as they think they are in many other ways as well. Personally if I were aware, I'd report them because I don't want to be either complicit or a liar if it comes out and I'm asked.

I can't wait until you get laid-off/fired unjustly. I had this same attitude until I got laid off even though I was a high-performer (4/5 and 5/5 on all my bi-yearly reviews). Now, I'm in it for me and only me. Fuck these companies, they don't care about you so why should I care? I perform to the expectations of my job description but forget going above and beyond.

I honestly don't understand why someone with your attitude doesn't become a freelancer/consultant. If I hated working for companies that much, pretty much no amount of incremental salary would persuade me to not go my own way.

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

#115

Post by ghaff » Mon, Apr 24, 2023, 6:05 PM UTC

ipaddr wrote: post #112

jzb wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Care to elaborate? I'm not sure what "lack of funding after the CentOS Stream thing" is really supposed to mean.

Losing revenue after Centos died

CentOS was never sold or supported by Red Hat.

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

#116

Post by hnarn » Mon, Apr 24, 2023, 6:07 PM UTC

drumhead wrote: post #53

All they ever do at IBM it seems is cut staff and product lines. Do they actually do anything of value anymore or are they just Redhat now?

> Do they actually do anything of value anymore or are they just Redhat now?

IBM is a behemoth. They bought Red Hat in 2019 for $34B. At that point Red Hat had an annual revenue of ~$3.4B.

How much is $34B for IBM? That year their annual revenue was $77B. They literally spent less than half of their annual revenue that year to buy the company.

Even if we assume that the revenue stemming from Red Hat in IBM has doubled since then, that's still less than 1/10th of IBMs revenue the year they bought Red Hat (it's about $60B today).

So no, IBM is not "just Red Hat".

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

#117

Post by therealdrag0 » Mon, Apr 24, 2023, 6:14 PM UTC

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…

Otoh: I’ve seen new-staff bring more maturity and diverse experience and broader knowledge of patterns and practices than the junior-to-staff, so the value prop may not be as clear cut as it seems.

But of course the principle is true that if you hanging around make sure you get real market adjustment raises. Some companies/managers are better about this than others.

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

#118

Post by susumukodai » Mon, Apr 24, 2023, 6:16 PM UTC

morpheuskafka wrote: post #81

tough wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

1: "government" would likely be a large customer, and putting blame on one of your large customers is not a good business plan.

2: As much as we know the Biden Administration is largely responsible for our rampant inflation, to point out their significant part into our trashed economy only invites retaliation from them and their cronies. This administration is quick to attack anyone who even slightly besmirches or questions them (much like their masters in the CCP).

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

#119

Post by clambirty » Mon, Apr 24, 2023, 6:17 PM UTC

garbagecoder wrote: post #93

whitemary wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unionize.

This is the best answer ITT. Union-busting tech people is easy though since they appeals to them as uniquely intelligent people who gain nothing from the support of others works most of the time.

Yeah there's a general anti-union sentiment in tech, but I think this is slowly changing as companies continue to screw over tech workers, and we as tech workers start to realize that we actually aren't safe from the fall out of incompetent executives.

How many companies this year started layoffs with recruiters, HR, and admin staff and are now turning to laying off software engineers?

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

#120

Post by tapoxi » Mon, Apr 24, 2023, 6:19 PM UTC

rwmj wrote: post #36

orra wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Look, I soured on GNOME when GNOME 3 was released. But it's unfair to call GNOME "flashy and experimental". Modern GNOME looks contemporary to its peers. GNOME 2, in contrast, would look very dated.

At least GNOME 2 was usable.

GNOME these days is pretty great. Quick tap of the super key and then type to launch something. Super left, right, or up arrow to snap to the side or maximize. Ctrl-alt left/right to switch workspaces. Doing that while holding shift will move the current selected window to the next workspace.

Plus GNOME 3 introduced the concept of extensions, which are as powerful as the old Firefox extensions were. You can change literally anything about the shell to suit your needs.