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Laid off is itself a less harsh version of fired.
They're not quite the same, those two terms have taken on different meanings. "Fired" has come to mean "for cause", and "laid off" has come to mean "not for cause".
> Seventeen of our teammates are impacted today. Never allow corporations to speak in passive, weak, blameless terms. Use direct, honest, language, and force them to do the same. "Seventeen of our teammates are impacted today." - > "We laid off 17 employees today" "I was impacted by layoffs" -> "Google laid me off" etc
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While those examples do use the passive voice, the passive is not the real problem. "These events impacted seventeen of our teammates" is the active voice, and it is no more forthright. "Mistakes were made by Bob, Sean, and Susan, who have been fired" is (if accurate) quite clear about assigning blame while using the passive. It's true that some people overuse the passive, and for those people noticing and considerin…
To me it’s the phrase “these events” like it’s something beyond their control. Replacing that with “our decision” would be taking more ownership. Edit: re-reading TFA, they don’t attribute the layoffs to “these events” so I’ll amend this as being a response directly to the parent comment.
See also https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/index.php?s=passive for much related amusement.
I’m surprised that even an innovative, creative organization like YC wasn’t able to create other positions for these folks. I guess that just shows how hard business is even for people who are good at it.
Creating a position for employees that aren't needed is generally not a business priority. Besides, it's likely that this is primarily a cost-cutting measure given similar industry trends at the moment.
Sure, I guess I was using too much of a shorthand in my comment. What I meant was, I’m surprised a company with such a high talent density didn’t generate enough new business quickly enough to be able to anticipate near future needs for these folks so that it would make sense to keep them.
I would think YC would have a lot of opportunities to deploy capital, and so a lot of opportunities to gain value from a variety of employee types.
If I knew more about the internals of YC I might be able to make more specific suggestions.
By the way, any company out there, I’d be willing to brainstorm (for free) about how you can repurpose and keep your people, or find other creative solutions. I’ll check for replies to this comment later today and tomorrow, and maybe I’ll edit it to add a throwaway or alternate email shortly.
Email: jmorrow977 at gmail. I’ll check tonight and daily for the next couple days or week.
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YC took a risk with a new division and then closed it when it didn't work. That's not a "bad look" at all.
It's a bad look if it's "obviously why it didn't work"
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I agree. You're fired when you sexually harass or suck eggs. Being laid off doesn't have the stigma for the employee.
Yes it absolutely does carry a stigma. What companies layoff their best people? (I say as someone who has been laidoff)
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Laid off is itself a less harsh version of fired.
fired usually means, with cause. laid off is for when a lot of people are getting cut at the same time because upper management asked to do big cuts
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Does this accomplish anything other than increasing resentment?
Begs the question, what do you think companies gain by using such passive language?
"The market says that we need to downsize" sounds a lot better than "an investment analyst says I go, or you go".
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My hunch is that the evolution was driven by executives, probably in the 70s and 80s, that didn’t want to say they were firing people in order to make more money. In other words the same dynamic that now leads to ‘impacted’.
It’s a very useful distinction; it likely would have evolved one way or another.