(July 2022)
Tech companies keep falling for the forever fallacy
31–40 of 250 posts
Re: Tech companies keep falling for the forever fallacy
#32Re: Tech companies keep falling for the forever fallacy
#33> "Just the law of large numbers says that eventually you reach all of the people who are likely to be your customers and you stop growing"
is that what the law of large numbers means
Re: Tech companies keep falling for the forever fallacy
#34I don't know, seems like a weak article. It just names the obvious examples of companies ("tech"!) that over-hired and all that. Others still celebrated the increased demand but also planned ahead, and not everyone has laid off. Guess they don't talk about those.
The companies that celebrated the increased demand but planned ahead did not fall for the forever fallacy. They took advantage of the increased demand but didn't overhire to nearly the same extent. Apple did a much better job at this than Google and Meta.
Re: Tech companies keep falling for the forever fallacy
#35The real problem that author doesn’t call out is that at the end of the day, the people in charge don’t get hurt from these irresponsible boom and bust hiring practices. These companies knew the growth wouldn’t last, nothing lasts forever. They all maintain control while the little people suffer. The dream is to become insulated from the economic storms like they are.
Agreed. Another way to justify this behavior is that "pessimists don't get promoted" So you're either a growth CEO or a restructuring CEO. Wall Street has no interest in administrator CEOs.
Re: Tech companies keep falling for the forever fallacy
#36I feel like the author here is not thinking through the opposite. What happens to the CEO if they plan for the market to stagnate and then it doesn't? Then they look like fools as their competitors take market share and then they get replaced. The incentives just aren't designed to plan for decline.
I think you’re right. It’s irresponsible/dangerous for a business not to try to grow as fast as it can, especially in as cutthroat a market as tech can be. Just how the system works, for better or worse.
However the “poor CEO gets fired with only a $10MM golden parachute” angle doesn’t play as well with the average reader
Re: Tech companies keep falling for the forever fallacy
#37The real problem that author doesn’t call out is that at the end of the day, the people in charge don’t get hurt from these irresponsible boom and bust hiring practices. These companies knew the growth wouldn’t last, nothing lasts forever. They all maintain control while the little people suffer. The dream is to become insulated from the economic storms like they are.
“Hurting” the elite has always been up to the public. Teacher strikes and unionization efforts have been winning; the financiers know nothing about self sufficiency. They know they rely literally on someone else to grow the food, kill the steaks. The white collar public have a credibility problem; they want to be served and not serve themselves. There is zero reason for most tech workers to login tomorrow; the vast m…
> Teacher strikes and unionization efforts have been winning
Citations needed
Re: Tech companies keep falling for the forever fallacy
#38The real problem that author doesn’t call out is that at the end of the day, the people in charge don’t get hurt from these irresponsible boom and bust hiring practices. These companies knew the growth wouldn’t last, nothing lasts forever. They all maintain control while the little people suffer. The dream is to become insulated from the economic storms like they are.
You are presupposing that boom and bust hiring is bad, and worse than a more steady state approach. If one assumes perfection is impossible, it seems you suggest erring on the side of perpetually under-hiring as opposed to ever over-hiring. Why is that better?
Re: Tech companies keep falling for the forever fallacy
#39How do you achieve infinite growth on a planet with a finite population and resources? It should be obvious to most, yet the supposed "smartest guys in the room" are the first to stumble through it.
> How do you achieve infinite growth on a planet with a finite population and resources? Efficiency gains. How many "resources" are consumed by a piece of software relative to the "growth" that resulted from it? I can now have a machine generate 100 mediocre pieces of art for $20, two years ago each one would have cost $100 and taken a week for an actual artist to produce.
Don't you reach a point of diminishing returns even with that?
Re: Tech companies keep falling for the forever fallacy
#40The real problem that author doesn’t call out is that at the end of the day, the people in charge don’t get hurt from these irresponsible boom and bust hiring practices. These companies knew the growth wouldn’t last, nothing lasts forever. They all maintain control while the little people suffer. The dream is to become insulated from the economic storms like they are.
You are presupposing that boom and bust hiring is bad, and worse than a more steady state approach. If one assumes perfection is impossible, it seems you suggest erring on the side of perpetually under-hiring as opposed to ever over-hiring. Why is that better?
A boom/bust cycle is over-hiring to the point that you need to lay people off. You can over-hire or under-hire in moderation.