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Tech companies keep falling for the forever fallacy

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Re: Tech companies keep falling for the forever fallacy

#61

Post by reaperman »

aeternum wrote: post #57
rcme wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

>You can over-hire or under-hire in moderation. It's unclear whether that would be better. In control theory, underdamped systems are generally preferred as it allows you to reach the desired value rapidly even though you often overshoot. Overdamped systems (IE hire in moderation) can be very slow to respond and often spend the majority of their time in the un-desired regime. It's quite possible that tech over-hiring…

He's advocating that the powers-that-be should consider targeting a slightly underdamped hiring system. Where they over-hire, and as they're overshooting the goal then reduce the rate of hiring, allowing the normal low rate of attrition to bring the PV back down to the SP.

e.g. a one-half critically-damped system. something following a standard first-order ODE like:

  \frac{dh}{dt} = K_p (h^\* - h) - K_i \int (h^\* - h) dt - f(h)
where h is the instantaneous number of employees, h* is the desired number of employees, f(h) is your attrition rate as a function of current number of employees, and Kp and Ki are "rate of hiring" coefficients which will be your proportional and integral terms of a PID controller to control your rate of hiring. The point is, the "rate of layoffs" here is zero and doesn't appear as a term.

Is this a proper model for a human organization? Who the fuck knows but it's the model you're advocating for and I'm just re-explaining what the other guy you replied to was suggesting in the first place, but this time using your framing. Yes, he also mentioned they should consider a slightly over damped system but he 100% did advocate for considering an underdamped system.

Re: Tech companies keep falling for the forever fallacy

#62

Post by Tade0 »

underratedbug wrote: post #38
LapsangGuzzler wrote: post #13

The 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?

People often have to uproot their lives to get into a new role. It's only ultimately worth it if it's a long-term commitment on both sides.

Also later in life having to suddenly switch jobs is neither easy nor desirable.

Re: Tech companies keep falling for the forever fallacy

#63

Post by Kinrany »

LapsangGuzzler wrote: post #51
underratedbug wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

> Why is that better? Because it doesn't create unnecessary suffering for the unfortunate people who find themselves out of a job because some executive over-allocated for a particular role or department. Fundamentally, we want people to still participate in the capitalist system and not reject it because they're constantly treated like cattle.

If a boom-bust cycle creates an economic surplus, then people suffering is an issue of negative externalities and unfair distribution of resources. The solution is to pay people who got laid off, not under-hire.

Re: Tech companies keep falling for the forever fallacy

#64

Post by slopbop »

ftxbro wrote: post #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

This stuck out to me too, glad someone else noticed it. Just in case people aren't aware, the law of large numbers is a phenomenon related to repeated random experiments, saying that the incidence rate of any particular event will tend towards the probability of that event. Referencing it in this context is a total non-sequitor.

Re: Tech companies keep falling for the forever fallacy

#65

Post by TylerE »

Kinrany wrote: post #63
LapsangGuzzler wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why is that better? Because it doesn't create unnecessary suffering for the unfortunate people who find themselves out of a job because some executive over-allocated for a particular role or department. Fundamentally, we want people to still participate in the capitalist system and not reject it because they're constantly treated like cattle.

If a boom-bust cycle creates an economic surplus, then people suffering is an issue of negative externalities and unfair distribution of resources. The solution is to pay people who got laid off, not under-hire.

How about just not firing them and telling them to go volunteer part time and spend the rest learning new skills?

Re: Tech companies keep falling for the forever fallacy

#66

Post by renewiltord »

not2b wrote: post #34
juunpp wrote: post #5

I 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.

Interesting, so it appears that you advocate expanding contractors and then firing them over full-time employment like with Apple.. I think it's likely we'll move to that environment naturally.

Re: Tech companies keep falling for the forever fallacy

#67

Post by oxfordmale »

LapsangGuzzler wrote: post #13

The 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.

The problem is worse. Those in power actually benefit from such booms in form of performance bonuses.

They may have a bad year or two as the markets crash. However, a crash gives new opportunities for growth, and associated performance bonuses.

Re: Tech companies keep falling for the forever fallacy

#68

Post by [deleted] »

aeternum wrote: post #57
rcme wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

>You can over-hire or under-hire in moderation. It's unclear whether that would be better. In control theory, underdamped systems are generally preferred as it allows you to reach the desired value rapidly even though you often overshoot. Overdamped systems (IE hire in moderation) can be very slow to respond and often spend the majority of their time in the un-desired regime. It's quite possible that tech over-hiring…

[deleted]

Re: Tech companies keep falling for the forever fallacy

#70

Post by irjustin »

I disagree w/ the premise of the article. It's oddly assuming that leaders of these huge tech companies have no knowledge that the pandemic would end. Effectively calling them dumb.

It's just wording. I think reworded in the spirit of the article is "Leaders should _do_ better" and be more steady/stable with their project and hiring practices.

But it's simply good capitalism. You should grow and shrink with the times all while building a massive store of cash. The problem is, good capitalism makes people get used/burned and ignores... well people.

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