Oracle slashes 30k jobs • Hacker News Board

Re: Oracle slashes 30k jobs

#181

Post by Zigurd » Tue, Mar 31, 2026, 3:54 PM UTC

shepherdjerred wrote: post #75

renewiltord wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the ideal things that companies can do is not hire people. A company that never hires someone will never let anyone go and consequently is the only ethical company. The worst thing that a company could do is pay someone to do a job for a while. In fact, one thing we could do is make sure that all jobs should be perpetual. If someone hires you, they can't stop paying you until they die or declare bankruptcy. Th…

It’s not unethical to lay someone off

It's a failure of hiring, planning, and management. It's an off the books opportunity cost. It's an off the books cost of hiring a replacement. And if over hiring was done willfully, then yes it's straight up unethical.

Re: Oracle slashes 30k jobs

#182

Post by lazide » Tue, Mar 31, 2026, 3:54 PM UTC

post-it wrote: post #173

kyledrake wrote: post #157

The bulk of the comments in here are focused on comparing Larry Ellison to a lawn mower, so I'll try a new tack and say that I'm genuinely confused at what the value prop of Oracle is. Given the history of their business model being licensing of important databases that are hard to switch off of, I've actually made a point to avoid using Oracle as much as possible (even so far as to leave MySQL when they acquired it,…

Every company I've worked for has avoided Oracle software of any kind. My hunch is that big consulting firms like CGI might use it, and therefore the customers of those firms use it? But I haven't worked at any of those.

It’s a common ‘large enterprise’ dependency often due to some internal CRN/Accounting/Compliance software, so I suspect you are right.

Re: Oracle slashes 30k jobs

#183

Post by newsoftheday » Tue, Mar 31, 2026, 3:54 PM UTC

kyledrake wrote: post #157

The bulk of the comments in here are focused on comparing Larry Ellison to a lawn mower, so I'll try a new tack and say that I'm genuinely confused at what the value prop of Oracle is. Given the history of their business model being licensing of important databases that are hard to switch off of, I've actually made a point to avoid using Oracle as much as possible (even so far as to leave MySQL when they acquired it,…

[flagged]

Re: Oracle slashes 30k jobs

#184

Post by Quarrelsome » Tue, Mar 31, 2026, 3:54 PM UTC

HelloMcFly wrote: post #174

Quarrelsome wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the practicalities of the issue don't stop it from being impolite.

There is no perfect or right way to do this. Every approach will have criticism (and not every approach is equal), and different people will appreciate different things about the trade-offs. Is it polite to let people stew for hours, or days, as virtual meetings spread across the company to convey the news in person? It is polite to schedule those meetings all at once with the implications clear - how is that any dif…

You're just making excuses for them. The approach they chose was rude and cowardly. Even within this cowardice, further cowardice shows, with the email being sent from no specific individual but simply an amorphous "Oracle Leadership".

Oracle as a company are cowardly and rude and the practicalities are simply an excuse. There's clearly one "better way" which is to put a name at the end of the email, for perhaps Larry himself to take responsibility as he should.

If anything the practicalities show how arbitrary the decision was. Checking the Oracle subreddit we got people with "exceeds expectations" as their average still getting culled. It would appear how they decided upon the cuts reflects on how they have performed them. With all the sophistication of a child in a candy shop trying to buy more candy than their piggy bank can afford and then just dropping the excess on the floor, walking away and trying to forget that it ever happened.

Re: Oracle slashes 30k jobs

#185

Post by bsimpson » Tue, Mar 31, 2026, 3:54 PM UTC

ivell wrote: post #152

bux93 wrote: post #124

"Any unvested restricted stock units, however, were forfeited immediately." wow.

This is the unfair part. Quite often salary is reduced with the excuse of having stock options. So this is more like a cut in earned salary along with getting fired.

Since moving to NYC, I'm surprisingly close to cashflow neutral. The cost of living is crazy expensive here.

I'm for sure timing my exit based on the vesting schedule.

Re: Oracle slashes 30k jobs

#186

Post by imglorp » Tue, Mar 31, 2026, 3:54 PM UTC

kyledrake wrote: post #157

The bulk of the comments in here are focused on comparing Larry Ellison to a lawn mower, so I'll try a new tack and say that I'm genuinely confused at what the value prop of Oracle is. Given the history of their business model being licensing of important databases that are hard to switch off of, I've actually made a point to avoid using Oracle as much as possible (even so far as to leave MySQL when they acquired it,…

This feels correct. Their business model is squeezing anyone who can't migrate off their properties and suing the rest.

Why would go $58B in debt to support a new feature that no one will want after alienating everyone above?

Re: Oracle slashes 30k jobs

#187

Post by passive » Tue, Mar 31, 2026, 3:55 PM UTC

bhouston wrote: post #169

passive wrote: post #140

So Ellison's big investors wouldn't back his ridiculous (-Disney) Warner Bros bid without him juicing the performance of Oracle in this way? (thanks for the reply correcting the company)

Disney is also a target? Or are you confusing Warner Bros Discovery with Disney?

Yup, completely confusing Warner Bros and Disney. Thanks for catching that!

Re: Oracle slashes 30k jobs

#188

Post by diehunde » Tue, Mar 31, 2026, 3:55 PM UTC

Could this be the start of the AI bubble bursting? There are so many rumors going around about data centers not being built, GPUs waiting to be installed, debt, and much more. Crazy times.

Re: Oracle slashes 30k jobs

#189

Post by newsoftheday » Tue, Mar 31, 2026, 3:55 PM UTC

jeffbee wrote: post #170

kyledrake wrote: post #157

The bulk of the comments in here are focused on comparing Larry Ellison to a lawn mower, so I'll try a new tack and say that I'm genuinely confused at what the value prop of Oracle is. Given the history of their business model being licensing of important databases that are hard to switch off of, I've actually made a point to avoid using Oracle as much as possible (even so far as to leave MySQL when they acquired it,…

Oracle has made a large bet on being a cloud, but nobody wants their terrible cloud, which is reflected in their dollar-store prices. They staffed up and built facilities that they can't sell so I am not surprised they are now swinging the axe.

I posted a response from Gemini where I asked Gemini, "Do you have citations proving or disproving whether Oracle Cloud is still attracting cloud customers away from Azure, AWS and GCP?" and it seems it disagrees with your "nobody wants their terrible cloud" view.

Re: Oracle slashes 30k jobs

#190

Post by vasco » Tue, Mar 31, 2026, 3:56 PM UTC

kyledrake wrote: post #157

The bulk of the comments in here are focused on comparing Larry Ellison to a lawn mower, so I'll try a new tack and say that I'm genuinely confused at what the value prop of Oracle is. Given the history of their business model being licensing of important databases that are hard to switch off of, I've actually made a point to avoid using Oracle as much as possible (even so far as to leave MySQL when they acquired it,…

Government contracts. You get good at bidding, there's money to be made there. And those bidding processes are way more than just the tech. That's their main value prop I think. Having the bureaucratic machine to bid and win contracts.