Live data from Hacker News

Cisco workforce reductions

blogs.cisco.com

121–130 of 351 posts

Re: Cisco workforce reductions

#121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

we were acquired and part of our org moved into cisco HQ. the entire floor were Indian other than our org, and over time our org was filled out with incoming transfers and new hires. i'll never forget some irony in that one of the engineering leaders brought us together for a mini townhall once and praised our "diversity" but by then the percentage of people in the room were basically the same as you described, inclu…

Diversity is the term to disguise cheaper labor. Call it women, ethnic minorities, trans, neuro divergent, on wheelchair, or those having criminal records. It's a brilliant slogan, not just because virtue signalling, but because it spawns cross cultural factions, all selfishly united to defend it. At no further brainwashing cost to you. You dare to attack it? You are out. Pack your stuff, and your shame. Consolation?…

I can think of at least one fairly large “cultural faction” in the US that doesn’t like DEI

Re: Cisco workforce reductions

#122
post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

we were acquired and part of our org moved into cisco HQ. the entire floor were Indian other than our org, and over time our org was filled out with incoming transfers and new hires. i'll never forget some irony in that one of the engineering leaders brought us together for a mini townhall once and praised our "diversity" but by then the percentage of people in the room were basically the same as you described, inclu…

[flagged]

Polydactyly can be treated surgically! /s

Jokes aside, if in 15 years you have worked with only few good Indian engineers, you probably have not yet worked at places with high talent density. I could understand if you had said you have (a) worked with many low quality engineers from India, or (b) worked with far more low quality engineers from India than high quality ones. But if, in absolute numbers, you haven't come across many good engineers from India, I can only infer than you probably haven't worked with very good engineers across the board.

Re: Cisco workforce reductions

#123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

we were acquired and part of our org moved into cisco HQ. the entire floor were Indian other than our org, and over time our org was filled out with incoming transfers and new hires. i'll never forget some irony in that one of the engineering leaders brought us together for a mini townhall once and praised our "diversity" but by then the percentage of people in the room were basically the same as you described, inclu…

Diversity is the term to disguise cheaper labor. Call it women, ethnic minorities, trans, neuro divergent, on wheelchair, or those having criminal records. It's a brilliant slogan, not just because virtue signalling, but because it spawns cross cultural factions, all selfishly united to defend it. At no further brainwashing cost to you. You dare to attack it? You are out. Pack your stuff, and your shame. Consolation?…

The way you can phrase it: you may jsut get people that are happy to do a good job for the pay they get. In many areas your typical white/cis/hetero/neurotypical male is not present, because you cannot get the maximum reward for their well-trained ego. I think diversity/pay is pretty munch confounded for plausible reasons.

Re: Cisco workforce reductions

#124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you look at how efficient your local government is?

Yeah - the answer is that the cost to deliver a service from my local government is a lot cheaper than it is when it's coming from the private sector. People meme on 'lol government efficiency', but actually sit down and calculate your marginal cost for the services you pay for that are funded by taxation. It's not even close - the cost to operate these services per person is crazy low. In fact, you don't even have t…

The flip side is that sometimes things go poorly and the (lack of financial) incentives are such that costs might not get reined in for a long while.

Re: Cisco workforce reductions

#125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

lately I've been stuck by the similarities between the conversations workers are having now (we are toiling to increase someone else's capital, and need to reverse the imbalance of power) and the conversations people had in the 1920s and 30s. With the benefit of hindsight we know that marxism didnt help, but I can see why the siren song was so attractive back then. Time to reread Eric Hobsbawm.

And to think, if they could just take less , and be satisfied being billionaires, not tens of billionaires, this could all be avoided... people don't ask for much. Give them a little, you'll be fine. But that won't please The Market.

Chuck Robbins is not a billionaire. Yes, he's still extremely wealthy, but I really feel it's important to understand that that labor-capital relations are not primarily defined by people being greedy and wanting Bad Wealth when they could be satisfied with Good Wealth.

Re: Cisco workforce reductions

#126

The other thing is that the laid off employees will lose all their unvested RSUs. These shares were granted as compensation for past performance but they can now be conveniently clawed back by the company just because they decide to lay you off. Stock can be a large part of someone's compensation in a tech company. Companies shouldn't be allowed to benefit this way if they decide to lay off employees.

Alas this happens in all FAANG layoffs too, some lucky people get to received one more vest but nothing close to all unvested RSUs

How is that legal? I thought the entire point of delayed vesting was to disincentivize jumping ship. If they're the ones throwing you overboard clawing back RSUs seems like a roundabout form of wage theft.

Re: Cisco workforce reductions

#127

> We have important, impactful, and consequential work ahead writing so bad claude could do better

I do wonder if we're going to start seeing people intentionally writing poorly so it's clear their memo is not just "Claude, please write an email saying that..."

Re: Cisco workforce reductions

#128
post #37

This is why corporations need to be owned and operated by the employees.

For the last 15 years I’ve been telling anyone who would listen about my idea for a John Lewis (British retail chain) model IT consultancy- employee owned, everyone is motivated, high quality, etc.

Except last month I met someone who worked there and got TUPE (involuntary contractual transfer of employment) to Wipro (Indian outsourcerer) a few years ago.

So even though this corporation is owned by the employees, and is one of the best examples of this in the UK, it seems you also need some kind of management structure that is also immune to the usual senior leadership trolls to avoid it turning out to be shitty.

Re: Cisco workforce reductions

#129
post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

we were acquired and part of our org moved into cisco HQ. the entire floor were Indian other than our org, and over time our org was filled out with incoming transfers and new hires. i'll never forget some irony in that one of the engineering leaders brought us together for a mini townhall once and praised our "diversity" but by then the percentage of people in the room were basically the same as you described, inclu…

[flagged]

Or maybe you just aren't that good of an engineer (or whatever profession you are into) and find the easiest group to blame on your failures. I found that people who often are quick to judge and group of people in one bucket based on their color/ethnicity/gender/... are often not that bright people and like to focus on directing it on others. Somewhat like MAGA.

Re: Cisco workforce reductions

#130
post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

we were acquired and part of our org moved into cisco HQ. the entire floor were Indian other than our org, and over time our org was filled out with incoming transfers and new hires. i'll never forget some irony in that one of the engineering leaders brought us together for a mini townhall once and praised our "diversity" but by then the percentage of people in the room were basically the same as you described, inclu…

[flagged]

Gotta love the covert racism here.
Post reply on HN