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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

#101

Post by detourdog »

tayo42 wrote: post #73
Freedom2 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

CEOs are definitely something we should reconsider in this day and age. There's something about the kind of fiefdom that they command that I don't really know the term for it - immoral? Unnatural?

You've made me curiously now if there are any like democratic companies.

Ben & Jerry’s has a very unique origin story. Very Vermont and Bernie Sanders was the governor during part of the wild growth.

When they IPOed the first stock offering were made available exclusively for vermont residents.

I think there is a lot more freedom in the corporate world but very little original thought.

Re: Tech companies keep falling for the forever fallacy

#102

Post by mschuster91 »

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 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.

It's one thing for small companies (such as Peloton) - for them, "overhiring" or "overbuilding" can indeed be fatal.

But companies like Google, Microsoft, Facebook? They all were wildly profitable - there was no need to reduce headcount other than making beancounters and stock markets happy. They could have simply cut goose-chase projects and rerouted the staff towards stuff making money without letting a single person go.

Re: Tech companies keep falling for the forever fallacy

#103

Post by scott_w »

rcme wrote: post #40
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?

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.

Honestly, I think this is a wicked problem, in that it's impossible for us to know in advance what the right decision would have been. Was it foreseeable that the economy would be volatile post-pandemic? Yes. Was it guaranteed that it would mean layoffs? No.

In addition, what about the boom itself? What if you're cautious but, during that boom period, you get outcompeted in key areas as a result? This might put you in a worse situation during the bust phase than if you'd over-hired.

Hindsight is 20/20, so I prefer to avoid being judgemental over these types of decisions, while still holding people accountable to doing the right thing, even in tough times.

Re: Tech companies keep falling for the forever fallacy

#104

Post by bilvar »

Tade0 wrote: post #62
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?

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.

Cry me a river, the same people who demand a long-term commitment from their employer will jump ship in an instant for 10k more after 6 months of employment. Companies are full of them.

Re: Tech companies keep falling for the forever fallacy

#105

Post by knallfrosch »

Everyone laughs at an empty factory and a warehouse full of products that won't sell.

However the damage from two factories that didn't get built and an empty warehouse that can't deliver more product can be even larger, even though it's usually hidden to outsiders.

Re: Tech companies keep falling for the forever fallacy

#106

Post by dools »

tombert wrote: post #86
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.

Yeah; the thing that kind of triggered me on this was the Google CEO saying in December or January that he "takes full responsibility" for all these layoffs. "Full responsibiliyt"? Really? How are you doing that exactly? By still getting your full paycheck and bonus while you fired twelve thousand humans because you didn't consider that the economy after years of a pandemic might be volatile?

That's what private companies are supposed to do though. They exist to make a profit. The type of people working for Google will be the first to get hired when the economy picks up again, if you really care about the impacts of boom and bust don't worry about what the private sector is doing, think about advocating for a federal Job Guarantee which helps those who need it most:

http://www.jobguarantee.org/

Re: Tech companies keep falling for the forever fallacy

#107

Post by rat9988 »

batmenace wrote: post #96
gamerDude wrote: post #28

I 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.

Your comment supposes that it has to be extreme -- rapid growth or stagnation. Why do you think a responsible CEO / management team cannot plan for a 'moderate growth' pathway that sees steadier levels of hiring and firing more akin to what the rest of the industry shows? I wonder if for tech companies part of the answer is also that moving people around is an 'easy' way to play with numbers. You go to the market / t…

Your comment supposes that it has to be extreme -- rapid growth or stagnation. Why do you think a responsible CEO / management team cannot plan for a 'moderate growth' pathway that sees steadier levels of hiring and firing more akin to what the rest of the industry shows?

They don't have a crystal ball. They study each possible conjecture, and then try to minimize risk maximize reward. Moderate growth might lead you to be eaten by a rapid growth. It's not a duality rapid growth or stagnation we are talking about. It's the risk of being eaten and left for dead in a competitive space.

Re: Tech companies keep falling for the forever fallacy

#108

Post by newswasboring »

bilvar wrote: post #104
Tade0 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Cry me a river, the same people who demand a long-term commitment from their employer will jump ship in an instant for 10k more after 6 months of employment. Companies are full of them.

When a person moves to another company, the company doesn't have to move to another state and restart its social life from scratch. The person with more power, needs to take more responsibility. Holy batman, sometimes I feel like people don't even have a heart anymore.

Re: Tech companies keep falling for the forever fallacy

#109

Post by dukeyukey »

stkdump wrote: post #44
brigadier132 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

If efficiency gains were the secret go (infinite) growth, then companies would be able to grow their business without growing their workforce, building more factories, warehouses, etc.

They are the "secret". But efficiency gains (from methods, skills, technology) are usually harder to get and implement than scaling gains. Building a new factory is a known factor; investing in a new ecosystem of manufacturing machines, less so, especially if you have to retrain your workforce. But companies absolutely grow their business without using more resources.

Ininite growth isn't possible, but I genuinely believe near-infinite growth is.

Re: Tech companies keep falling for the forever fallacy

#110

Post by tombert »

DrScientist wrote: post #98
tombert wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah; the thing that kind of triggered me on this was the Google CEO saying in December or January that he "takes full responsibility" for all these layoffs. "Full responsibiliyt"? Really? How are you doing that exactly? By still getting your full paycheck and bonus while you fired twelve thousand humans because you didn't consider that the economy after years of a pandemic might be volatile?

By saying that he is directing internal heat ( and external heat - like yours ) to himself, rather than HR, or middle managers etc in Google. I suspect that's the reason for saying that. If you feel the need to blame somebody - blame me ( not other people or external conditions or shareholders ). Ultimately it is his fault - even if it was forced on him be shareholders - he'd have the option of resigning ( following…

I don't dispute most of what you said, but I take a bit of issue with:

> In terms of the effect on him - you are assuming he isn't somehow human, and somehow these decisions aren't personally very hard to take.

Humans are perfectly capable of doing horrible things and justifying it to themselves; me claiming that his words of "taking full responsibility" is a corporate platitude doesn't imply that I don't think he's human. I'm sure at some level he probably feels emotions the same way I do, but I also think he's somewhat removed from the consequences of his decisions.

We all do it to some extent (don't think too hard about the labor behind your phone or computer). Doesn't mean it's not crappy.

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