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Ask HN: What is the current driver of tech layoffs?

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Re: Ask HN: What is the current driver of tech layoffs?

#101

Post by allturtles »

Apreche wrote: post #13

The same thing that always drives layoffs. You are a company. The system we have demands growth. Even very stable and reliable profits are seen as failure. There must be growth. The people who run a company can not press a magic button to increase revenues. They can't just pull a successful new project out of nowhere. Anything like that is going to be a risk, and will probably fail. It will also take time. The one th…

This doesn't seem to me to explain why the layoffs are happening now. AFAIK Google has never done a true layoff until last January in the entire history of the company. Now it seems to be already routine.

As someone who grew up in the 80s-90s, my historical sense of layoffs is that they were a response to economic hard times, whether industry-wide or company-specific. Companies laid off when profits fell or disappeared, which then drove a need to search for ways to cut costs.

But the major tech companies are all seeing continuously growing revenues and profits within the context of very healthy general economic numbers, yet they are all laying people off.

Re: Ask HN: What is the current driver of tech layoffs?

#102

Post by allturtles »

forward1 wrote: post #15

The past ten years of tech have been subsidized with low interest rates, i.e. free money. That is now gone and companies must tighten belts. There really is no greater mystery here.

AFAICT from recent quarterly reports, the big tech companies are still seeing double-digit YoY growth in profits and revenues. So from whence comes the pressure to tighten belts?

Re: Ask HN: What is the current driver of tech layoffs?

#103

Post by dalyons »

vrosas wrote: post #91
leetharris wrote: post #19

This is going to be a controversial opinion. The quality of your average tech worker has completely nosedived in the last 10-15 years. All these huge companies wanted more products, more marketshare, more money, etc. They needed more people to pull this off. They started lowering hiring standards across the board because there just weren't enough people in tech. Simultaneously, a huge portion of the world saw tech sa…

I was just today reminiscing about how smart and capable everyone seemed at the startup I interned at in 2013, and comparing them to the quality of engineers I’ve worked with in the startup scene more recently. The difference is stark. I can’t pin down one reason but I agree with you. Too many bootcamps. Too much resume-driven development. Too many engineering managers whose only programming language is JQL.

Another factor here is that for many reasons startup equity (and thus startup comp in general) is much less valuable statistically than it was 10-15 years ago. Everyone knows that it a shit deal now, so many of the best engineers, those who can, are in big tech now. Leaving startups with lower quality talent pool, or those who just need a first job.

I say that with sadness and fond memories of ~2013 startup culture.

Re: Ask HN: What is the current driver of tech layoffs?

#104

Post by sciencesama »

analogwzrd wrote: post #52
megaserg wrote: post #18

Gergely Orosz's theory[1]: > An IRS tax code change in Section 174. This change eliminates the ability for businesses to deduct R&D as an expense. > Hear of lots of layoffs directly because of this, as a start. [1] https://twitter.com/GergelyOrosz/status/1735030983173230944?...

What does the average company spend on R&D percentage-wise? My old company was a contract engineering company, so they always tried to staff everyone possible on projects being paid for by customers. R&D was used to develop internal tech and build expertise on new technologies so it was only maybe 10-25% of most engineer's timesheets. Do other tech companies spend that much more on R&D?

in general they can balloon the r&d and can have a huge tax write off !!

Re: Ask HN: What is the current driver of tech layoffs?

#105

Post by kromem »

A multitude of factors.

One thing to keep in mind though is that even if AI can't do your job, if it can translate conversations with humans who can buy have a different primary language, and companies have moved to work from home, that's a recipe for jobs going to qualified people elsewhere.

So on top of a pendulum swing backwards from overhiring we're seeing accessibility and virtual commuting open the door for many more candidates for a smaller pool of jobs which compounds the effects.

Re: Ask HN: What is the current driver of tech layoffs?

#106

Post by kromem »

leetharris wrote: post #19

This is going to be a controversial opinion. The quality of your average tech worker has completely nosedived in the last 10-15 years. All these huge companies wanted more products, more marketshare, more money, etc. They needed more people to pull this off. They started lowering hiring standards across the board because there just weren't enough people in tech. Simultaneously, a huge portion of the world saw tech sa…

Also, the move to virtual commuting plus better translation automation means a much larger potential candidate pool to compete against than before.

Re: Ask HN: What is the current driver of tech layoffs?

#107

Post by Shatnerz »

Mouse47 wrote: post #84
forward1 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.” ― George Carlin

That only applies to the median, not the average. Every time I see this quote I can't help but think that. Funny tho

In a normal distribution, like lets say a large population, the mean, median, and mode are all equal. I don't see a problem with the quote.

Re: Ask HN: What is the current driver of tech layoffs?

#108

Post by akg_67 »

leetharris wrote: post #19

This is going to be a controversial opinion. The quality of your average tech worker has completely nosedived in the last 10-15 years. All these huge companies wanted more products, more marketshare, more money, etc. They needed more people to pull this off. They started lowering hiring standards across the board because there just weren't enough people in tech. Simultaneously, a huge portion of the world saw tech sa…

How do you define "quality" of tech worker? What is the profile of people being let go? Are they recent hire or people with quick certification, bootcamp, etc? A quick review of people on LinkedIn with Open to Work badges seems to paint a different picture than any claim of people being let go are of lower quality.

> It turns out that compared to the dedicated nerds of the previous generation, most new people just don't care that much about tech

Now having experienced almost three generations coming to adulthood, I hard disagree with any such notion of newer generation not being dedicated and smarter. I have lot more respect for the newer generation: what they have been served with and how they are handling it. The changes in last 10 or 20 years have far exceeded any changes I experienced in my first 0-40 years of life. And, imo newer generation has been adapting much better to such changes than the previous generations including my own. This adaption might come across not being "dedicated nerds" to previous generation but with the rapid change taking place, ability to adapt quickly trumps being "dedicated nerd."

Re: Ask HN: What is the current driver of tech layoffs?

#109

Post by ilrwbwrkhv »

leetharris wrote: post #19

This is going to be a controversial opinion. The quality of your average tech worker has completely nosedived in the last 10-15 years. All these huge companies wanted more products, more marketshare, more money, etc. They needed more people to pull this off. They started lowering hiring standards across the board because there just weren't enough people in tech. Simultaneously, a huge portion of the world saw tech sa…

100% this. One of the reasons I left a salaried position and struck out on my own was that I saw the talent density around me drop like crazy.

Re: Ask HN: What is the current driver of tech layoffs?

#110

Post by theturtletalks »

allturtles wrote: post #101
Apreche wrote: post #13

The same thing that always drives layoffs. You are a company. The system we have demands growth. Even very stable and reliable profits are seen as failure. There must be growth. The people who run a company can not press a magic button to increase revenues. They can't just pull a successful new project out of nowhere. Anything like that is going to be a risk, and will probably fail. It will also take time. The one th…

This doesn't seem to me to explain why the layoffs are happening now. AFAIK Google has never done a true layoff until last January in the entire history of the company. Now it seems to be already routine. As someone who grew up in the 80s-90s, my historical sense of layoffs is that they were a response to economic hard times, whether industry-wide or company-specific. Companies laid off when profits fell or disappear…

The simple answer would be AI. That’s been the major change in the past year. I find it odd that everyone thinks Uber’s end game is automated cars, but no one seems to be talking about how tech companies end game is automated coders. LLMs are not even close, but what’s to say internally, they don’t have something that works. Or they have enough data to show they need fewer workers since they can leverage AI now.
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