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ASML staffing changes could result in a net reduction of around 1700 positions

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Re: ASML staffing changes could result in a net reduction of around 1700 positions

#161

Post by NoboruWataya »

gpvos wrote: post #125
swiftcoder wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> would you want to work where they just fired 1700 people Firing 1700 managers is somewhat different than firing 1700 ICs. Whether managers will want to work there is an open question, but quite a lot of ICs will see the trimmed management layer as a good sign that they'll be free to get shit done

IC = individual contributor. Wikipedia translating management speak: > Individual contributor, a business role for an employee without management responsibilities

Thank you, I was lost reading the comments. Funny that all the comments shitting on managers are speaking their language.

Re: ASML staffing changes could result in a net reduction of around 1700 positions

#162

Post by aitchnyu »

nialv7 wrote: post #77

It's insane to me how the manager culture is. Somehow going from an engineer to a manager is a "promotion"? No, they are equals. Just different people doing different kinds of jobs. There should be two tracks and people should be able to choose. If engineers feel they have to become managers to grow their careers, all you are getting will just be unhappy engineers and bad managers.

In your (great) fantasy, are managers allowed to keep secrets from their reports?

Re: ASML staffing changes could result in a net reduction of around 1700 positions

#163

Post by burnt-resistor »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #54
burnt-resistor wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Magically, spending money on datacenters and gear makes working code fantastically appear from the aether and so engineers can be paid the same as janitors. That's what the suits believe now.

They can believe whatever they want but the reality will hit them soon enough.

The problem is that decision-makers/owners are often too far away from the essential operations of the value chain and instead seek confirmation based on vibes and copying what others are doing.

Re: ASML staffing changes could result in a net reduction of around 1700 positions

#164

Post by thrance »

noosphr wrote: post #7

> ASML also announced a new share buyback programme of up to €12 billion, to be executed by 31 December 2028. Oh boy. This fills me with dread. I've never seen a company that starts doing buybacks not become a financialized hollow shell within a decade. Being an irreplaceable monopoly on the commanding heights of the digital economy makes this even worse.

Buybacks should be illegal again. They're like drugs for companies, they can't help but do them and divest capital that would help them thrive and put it into their shareholders' pockets.

Re: ASML staffing changes could result in a net reduction of around 1700 positions

#165

Post by cmiles8 »

I’m generally supportive of the tech industry’s move to rid itself of too many mangers.

Most managers are no longer technical, and just create bloated middle layers that slow everyone else down.

The only managers that are decent are the ones that have kept their technical skills sharp. Most others just seem to be able to say “my team will follow-up” and “my team will look into this” and are beyond useless. Few are shedding a tear at cleaning that up.

Re: ASML staffing changes could result in a net reduction of around 1700 positions

#166

Post by Freak_NL »

retired wrote: post #59
Cthulhu_ wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I want to say "it's because they're Dutch lol" but it's signed by Cristophe (Fouquet), who is French. 1700 managers is a lot, but also, it's a huge multinational so I'm not surprised they have that many. They will be alright I'm sure - one, if there's any forced firings they will be well taken care of under Dutch labour laws, and two, ASML will look very good on a CV.

> any forced firings they will be well taken care of under Dutch labour laws Yes. Notice period stays in tact. Transition payment is 1/3rd of a monthly wage per year worked. And then your unemployment runs for up to 24 months at 70% of your income capped at €4500. Unemployment benefits are unconditional until you find a new job.

> Unemployment benefits are unconditional until you find a new job.

They are quite conditional: you must be applying for a new job while receiving them, and after the first six months any job you can do is eligible (not just the jobs you would want to do). You must report your job applications to the unemployment agency, and you can get called in and cut off from benefits for not earnestly seeking a job.

Re: ASML staffing changes could result in a net reduction of around 1700 positions

#167

Post by alias_neo »

joe_mamba wrote: post #104
alias_neo wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Qimonda Sorry for the tangent, I haven't heard this name in over 15 years, I interviewed with them the summer before the final year of my BEng, and was offered a job in China to allegedly built a real-time voice/video communications system between what they said were their three facilities in beautiful looking part of China I can't remember the name of now. Looking through my Gmail, it was 2008 they offered my the…

Thanks for sharing. You know what's ironic about Qimonda? China bought their IP after they went under, and used it to build two domestic NAND and DRAM manufacturers that are set to become giants. Funny how China has the vision to use, finance and monetize where western governments keep failing. That's what hurts the most to see. EU says they want a strong domestic electronics industry, but with the exception of ASML,…

It's certainly been interesting to watch over the span of my career so far.

It's really quite interesting thinking back to that time for me in University, every few years something happens that sparks a memory; right now, it's that roughly 2007-2008 my professor was telling me about this "rollable" screen technology that was going to enable rolling/folding phones at some point in the future; a little earlier he'd been telling me about this funky new thing called 'Organic LED' that was going to enable "printing" flexible circuits

He's an FREng (Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering) and was one of the people involved in the invention of the silicon chip.

Had a Gandalf look to him and was a real fountain of knowledge, I lucked out to get the guy as my professor.

Re: ASML staffing changes could result in a net reduction of around 1700 positions

#168

Post by mdemare »

articulatepang wrote: post #88
ygouzerh wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the company perspective, performing buyback when market is high is just throwing cash by the windows to over-priced shares. If they wanted to distribute cash, they could just use dividends

Three things: 1. From the perspective of shareholders, and for the moment ignoring taxes, buybacks and dividends are exactly economically equivalent. If a dividend happens, you get some cash. If a buyback happens, the value of your shares goes up. Crucially, the amount by which each share's price goes up is equal to what the per-share dividend would have been . It's a useful exercise to work this out and convince you…

This is not quite correct. If a dividend happens, the market capitalisation drops by the amount of the dividend, the number of shares remains constant, so the share price dips by the amount of the dividend per share. All investors get the dividend.

If a buyback happens, the market capitalisation drops by the amount of the buyback, and the number of shares drops by the same ratio, keeping the share price initially constant. The money goes to the investors who sell.

Buybacks are nevertheless good for investors who hold. They now have shares in a company whose market cap is 100% growing enterprise, instead of 90% enterprise and 10% bag of money. That means that if the company keeps doing well, the share price will increase faster than it would have done otherwise (it will also drop faster - it's no longer anchored to an inert pile of cash).

Re: ASML staffing changes could result in a net reduction of around 1700 positions

#169

Post by dada216 »

zwaps wrote: post #153
nialv7 wrote: post #77

It's insane to me how the manager culture is. Somehow going from an engineer to a manager is a "promotion"? No, they are equals. Just different people doing different kinds of jobs. There should be two tracks and people should be able to choose. If engineers feel they have to become managers to grow their careers, all you are getting will just be unhappy engineers and bad managers.

A weakness of European companies is that with very few exceptions, there is no equivalent IC role to managerial roles beyond maybe junior management. There are companies that promise this, but it is rarely done. For whatever reason, management is universally convinced that ICs have lower value and are more replacable than managers. It's also a distinctly European trait that European executives can look at US tech com…

It works well in finance, that's about it. It makes no sense, as you say, everywhere else where the core business has to do with anything that needs engineering.

Re: ASML staffing changes could result in a net reduction of around 1700 positions

#170

Post by piva00 »

vachina wrote: post #144
joe_mamba wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Within a couple of years the Philips people were able to transform the company to be very management/top heavy until nothing worked anymore You see the same pattern with Siemens and a lot of their spinoffs: Continental(VDO), Infineon, Qimonda, Gigaset, Healthineers (yes, that's a real name that somebody got paid to come up with), etc THe ones without some major moat like trains or energy, got slowly run into the gr…

My guess is German labor laws do not allow hustling. Progress will be slow if everyone kinda just coast on cruise control.

Labour laws have much less of an impact than the work or overall culture.

Sweden has quite strong labour protection but can be much more innovative than Germany because there's much less emphasis in respecting titles, seniority, and authority than the Germans. German education has a big emphasis on bowing down to authority from early age, Sweden is much more lax (and even though Jantelagen isn't a big thing in modernity it still can affect modern Scandinavia in general).

Blaming labour laws for issues arising from culture is a tired jab, it's not the culprit. You can find that out by working for a German company vs a Swedish one, it's starkly different.

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