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Apple: The only big tech giant going against the job cuts tide

blog.pragmaticengineer.com

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Re: Apple: The only big tech giant going against the job cuts tide

#101

Post by asdff »

azinman2 wrote: post #73
camillomiller wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, Tim Cook started by halving his compensation. I didn't hear anything like that from his fellow CEOs who all "took full responsibility" for the choice of going for mass firing instead.

It's always insane to hear about CEOs saying that they take full responsibility, but never resign, donate their money to keep employees around, or anything of the like.

The CEO is ultimately following the direction of the board though, right? That kind of makes it the board's responsibility. The CEO is just the public whipping boy who goes on TV and is stuck making keynotes.

Re: Apple: The only big tech giant going against the job cuts tide

#102

Post by warkdarrior »

azinman2 wrote: post #76
tempnow987 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google was doing Fuchsia. SUPER cool... but what is the business case there? They are also ham strung by just not listening to customers it feels like - so I think that impacts traction. You get an 80% solution with simple glaring edges. Thousands ask - please fix this edge, but whoever is driving the product is onto something else it feels like sometime. Apple's main product lines all seem to make money, have positi…

My understanding with Fuchsia was to do better than Linux/Android in terms of security, scalability, and adaptability across devices. Why wouldn't they want to own a great OS full-stack? It's part of their bread & butter.

> My understanding with Fuchsia was to do better than Linux/Android in terms of security, scalability, and adaptability across devices.

That's the theory and the marketing copy. Since Fuchsia has only been tried on a few closed-world embedded devices (Nest hub, Nest camera), it is really too soon to declare it more secure, more scalable, or more adaptable. [By "closed-world" I mean the devices run only a limited set of apps, with functionality known ahead of time and from known developers.]

Re: Apple: The only big tech giant going against the job cuts tide

#103

Post by asdff »

ojbyrne wrote: post #13
petesergeant wrote: post #3

* for now

Today: https://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prUS50146623

Not surprising honestly. New iphones start at like $800 before tax now and only incrementally improve on the previous couple of models. Inflation is also high for housing along with a lot of other consumer goods, and my gas company just doubled the rate for January. I bet this is already priced in.

Re: Apple: The only big tech giant going against the job cuts tide

#104

Post by lotsofpulp »

testfrequency wrote: post #88

Working at Apple is the equivalent of working for Target in the US. Good brand image, everything appears great on surface, employees all appear homogeneous - however..the internal feuds, dislike for leadership, and cost cutting measures make it completely miserable to work at. I’m still of the belief Apple probably should do layoffs, but won’t. Pandemic has not been kind to their profits either, but Tim will take the…

> Pandemic has not been kind to their profits either

https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/AAPL/apple/net-inc...

2022 $99,803

2021 $94,680

2020 $57,411

2019 $55,256

2018 $59,531

Re: Apple: The only big tech giant going against the job cuts tide

#105

Post by M4v3R »

crummy wrote: post #99
Gigachad wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple is the only one that doesn’t seem to start up hundreds of obviously useless projects. Google will hire thousands to work on an obviously doomed streaming service, to build a new OS, and so many other obviously bad ideas and then just fire them all later. Vanishingly few Apple products seem to be discontinued. Usually after a long life like the iPod.

Don't they have an Apple Car? Like a literal car they were working on making? I guess that's the exception though. https://arstechnica.com/cars/2020/12/apple-is-allegedly-work...

They do tons of R&D work and sometimes they’re working silently for many years before they release an actual product. This was the case with iPhone for example.

Re: Apple: The only big tech giant going against the job cuts tide

#106

Post by Centigonal »

Gigachad wrote: post #70
webwielder2 wrote: post #10

Apple is a generally more well run, mature, patient, and scrupulous company than most others.

Apple is the only one that doesn’t seem to start up hundreds of obviously useless projects. Google will hire thousands to work on an obviously doomed streaming service, to build a new OS, and so many other obviously bad ideas and then just fire them all later. Vanishingly few Apple products seem to be discontinued. Usually after a long life like the iPod.

You wouldn't know about Apple's failed projects. Like other big tech companies, Apple has teams working on R&D and new products. Unlike the other big tech companies, the bar for publicly releasing a new product is extremely high at Apple, and unreleased products are kept secret.

Re: Apple: The only big tech giant going against the job cuts tide

#107

Post by lmm »

sircastor wrote: post #63
daevout wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't think of a company more blatantly engaged in anti-competitive practices than Apple, but I'm glad to see all that unfairly amassed wealth benefitting even the lowest rungs of its corporate hierarchy through the unusual benefit of not being terminated at the drop of a hat. Bravo!

> I can't think of a company more blatantly engaged in anti-competitive practices than Apple In a world where Amazon, Meta, Google, Wal-Mart, Time-Warner, Comcast, etc exist, you think Apple is the most anti-competitive?

Yes. I don't think any of the others would dare to run a platform as locked down as Apple, and if they tried then I don't think anyone would show up.

Re: Apple: The only big tech giant going against the job cuts tide

#108

Post by dpkirchner »

asdff wrote: post #89
microtherion wrote: post #58

I don't recall whether this was ever stated explicitly, but I always had the impression that this is one of the elements of Apple's strategy that is still driven by the tribal memory of the late 1990s turmoil. Both Steve Jobs and Tim Cook were there at the time, and especially the former (who also had witnessed a 1980s bust) was determined to never be in this position again. So as a consequence: * Apple is hoarding c…

Why does apple hoard cash instead of buy back their stock? 5 years ago they had 90 billion cash in hand. If they put that into their stock then, It would be up at least 260% by now even with the losses last year, then if they need cash they could just take a loan against the stock.

Looks like they spent a lot more than that on buybacks in the past decade:

> Since 2012, Apple has been buying back its own shares at an extraordinary rate -- Apple is known for spending more on share repurchases than similar tech giants like Meta or Alphabet. Apple's total share repurchases have totaled $274.5 billion, with just $20.4 billion in the December quarter.

> Apple spent $85.5 billion to repurchase shares in 2021, and issued $14.5 billion in dividends.

https://appleinsider.com/articles/22/04/28/apple-extends-sha...

Re: Apple: The only big tech giant going against the job cuts tide

#109

Post by culi »

arthurcolle wrote: post #83
sircastor wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I can't think of a company more blatantly engaged in anti-competitive practices than Apple In a world where Amazon, Meta, Google, Wal-Mart, Time-Warner, Comcast, etc exist, you think Apple is the most anti-competitive?

Yes, I am not OP but obviously they are more anti-competitive if ONLY for their killing off support for progressive web apps over the last 3 or 17 releases of iOS/Safari

I'm a big fan of PWAs, but this really seems like small fries compared to something like Walmart which has an internal planned economy many times larger than the Soviet Union ever achieved.

If you sell your product in Walmart they basically own everything about it. They deem how you make your product, the supply chain, the prices you charge, everything

And they use this incredibly granular level of control to run out any possible competition

Re: Apple: The only big tech giant going against the job cuts tide

#110

Post by azinman2 »

KerrAvon wrote: post #86
azinman2 wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My understanding with Fuchsia was to do better than Linux/Android in terms of security, scalability, and adaptability across devices. Why wouldn't they want to own a great OS full-stack? It's part of their bread & butter.

Sure, but they’re not treating it that way. They simply don’t seem to care about it much.

Thing is that it’s up to culture to change that. In Japan it wouldn’t go this way, for example.
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