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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

#151

This will impact RH in the long term. Red Hat have always been on the low end around salary / TC, their draw has been seeing them as the good guys who care for their people, its a nice culture setup. This is the first set of layoffs they have ever carried out in their 30 year existence. They will likely need to start paying more when things can't pick up, as they can't play the good guy card as much anymore.

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

#152
post #116

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 double…

So what else do they do?

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

#153
post #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?

The product will degrade and customer service will worsen, but all RH's institutional/government customers will stick with them anyway because they have policies mandating the use of RH. This will cause RH to be more profitable, and their execs to get bigger bonuses.

It is possible (but certainly not guaranteed) that eventually, after years, some competitor to RH will arise and get enough of these customers to switch to make a real dent in RH's profitability, but by then the execs will be long-gone and cruising on their yachts.

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

#154
“Many businesses have been coping with the emerging attitudes of workers – particularly young workers – about the work-life balance. As the economy rapidly expanded after the pandemic and a labor shortage emerged, companies accommodated the new attitudes in order to attract workers,” Walden told WRAL. “Now that he labor shortage has narrowed – indeed, as many firms have released workers – companies no longer need to be as accommodating.

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

#155

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.

And for those who don't want to do more intensive things, even just following the "pay yourself first" principle goes a long way. For every dollar that comes in, take 10% and stick it somewhere that's hard for you to get your hands on it. Then forget that it exists. In less than a year, you'll have a year's worth of pay stacked up that way. Then keep doing it, forever.

In less than a year, you will have less than 10% of a year's worth of pay stacked up that way

FTFY

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

#156

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 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.

I don't get this sentiment. The number of large companies that deny their middle managers promotions while parachuting in outside executives is not that many.

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

#157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And for those who don't want to do more intensive things, even just following the "pay yourself first" principle goes a long way. For every dollar that comes in, take 10% and stick it somewhere that's hard for you to get your hands on it. Then forget that it exists. In less than a year, you'll have a year's worth of pay stacked up that way. Then keep doing it, forever.

In less than a year, you will have less than 10% of a year's worth of pay stacked up that way FTFY

How was my math wrong?

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

#158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

- that's a Y/Y number - 8% growth is not good when inflation is 8%

Heaven forbid they have even one flat growth year.

Also possible they are projecting forward with something beyond the first derivative.

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

#159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Sure, there's also the point that while the junior to staff has connections, they might have also earned enemies too which will seek to impede stuff they want done. Where as the new staff has a fresh slate with everyone.

Generally speaking though, people i've seen promoted to Staff are more effective at the role than people who come in at the role, because Staff seems heavily weighted towards being able to influence at most companies. And being a known quantity counts for a lot. (also to become a staff someone higher in the food chain had to have already vouched for you and be willing to grant you some degree of patronage)

Also the value prop for what you are saying of "new pattern or practice" only applies if the staff gets to do green field dev, its rare a brand new staff without political capital can force a pivot on an already in development product that has patterns already set. In short its rare it gets to manifest, and when it does get to manifest it can take a year or 2 to manifest, and people who are willing to jump into staff roles probably have their next spot picked up for their next salary hike already picked out ;)

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

#160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why?

Hicks has what would otherwise be an impressive ability to say absolutely nothing, even when responding to direct questions. He describes the RH purpose as "a north star", which is about as useful as the real cowboy in City Slickers saying "one thing"; its circus tent level preaching of empty platitudes. He believes going from intern to CEO was something other than luck, which is about the most dangerous position I c…

Jim Whitehurst was such a good CEO. I honestly had hoped he would take over as IBM CEO, but no, that would have been to good a move for IBM. So they pushed him out.
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