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Tech layoffs are feeding a new startup surge

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Re: Tech layoffs are feeding a new startup surge

#201

Post by vineyardmike »

claytonjy wrote: post #145
mortenjorck wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was laid off in December and this has been by far the hardest search of the now four times (yes, really) I’ve been laid off in my career. The few times I’ve received anything resembling feedback in this cycle has been along the lines of “we have a large number of highly qualified candidates for this role” and with a lot of LinkedIn postings citing 200+ applicants, I believe it.

Never apply through LinkedIn. It is so low-friction that the vast majority of applicants are nowhere near qualified, and hiring managers quickly learn to ignore anything that came in from LinkedIn.

I’ve actually found LI to be good for leads for generic companies as an alternative “resume drop” - any time the company paid to distribute the job you know they’re actively recruiting for it.

Re: Tech layoffs are feeding a new startup surge

#202

Post by yunwal »

ejb999 wrote: post #170
ahi wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I got laid off in November (not faang). I was going to wait until the right position came around, but as the lay offs kept coming in January I jumped on the first non-terrible opportunity. If the music stops I don't want to be without a chair.

good choice - you definitely don't want to be caught without a chair when the music stops. Whether one likes musk or not, and whether or not you agree with how he is running twitter or not - he let go like 80% of the company and it is still more or less running (with some bumps) - I don't think other companies will go to quite that extreme, but I'd bank that some executives right now in some companies are asking them…

I mean, twitter’s worth about 40% of what it was when Musk bought it. Hardly a success story.

Re: Tech layoffs are feeding a new startup surge

#203

Post by yunwal »

phendrenad2 wrote: post #132
jb1991 wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And what writing is on the wall, exactly, for Amazon? AWS powers the internet. Apple uses it for cloud services, for cryin' out loud -- the largest AWS customer in fact. AWS has more market share than all of its competitors combined . Where is this writing you're speaking of?

But where is AWSs moat? It's not enough to have all of the customers. Customers are fleeting and will leave if they get a BBO (bigger, better offer). If you scrap together an AWS migration tool that can pull databases, instances, and lambdas off of AWS and mirror them in your cloud, for less money, you'll probably attract a lot of customers.

> If you scrap together an AWS migration tool that can pull databases, instances, and lambdas

Ah yes, I’ll just throw a quick script together. Never mind that there are entire consulting firms dedicated to doing exactly this and each of their projects takes months to years and hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars.

Re: Tech layoffs are feeding a new startup surge

#204

Post by m463 »

yamtaddle wrote: post #28
simonw wrote: post #3

I imagine severance packages are a big factor here. People laid off by Google might have a full six months or more of severance pay, plus health insurance through Cobra. That's a pretty fantastic opportunity to spend six months on a startup in relative economic safety!

> plus health insurance through Cobra. Nb. using COBRA is often pretty damn expensive, since you're paying the full cost of whatever plan the company uses. It can make sense for some people since it means your deductible and max-out-of-pocket don't reset like they would if you switched to a marketplace plan (and then reset again when you get a new job and another plan) but it's not quite as nice a thing to have as it…

I thought cobra gave you group healthcare rates. Meanwhile individual healthcare might have had restrictions and higher premiums.

Re: Tech layoffs are feeding a new startup surge

#205

Post by yamtaddle »

m463 wrote: post #204
yamtaddle wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> plus health insurance through Cobra. Nb. using COBRA is often pretty damn expensive, since you're paying the full cost of whatever plan the company uses. It can make sense for some people since it means your deductible and max-out-of-pocket don't reset like they would if you switched to a marketplace plan (and then reset again when you get a new job and another plan) but it's not quite as nice a thing to have as it…

I thought cobra gave you group healthcare rates. Meanwhile individual healthcare might have had restrictions and higher premiums.

Yes, group rates. It probably varies by states, but basically all group plans—even ones that aren't that great—are more expensive than even our gold-tier HCA plans, let alone silver and bronze (because all our HCA plans are terrible by comparison to even the fairly-poor group plans). The group plans might actually be cheaper in other states, I dunno. (there are also literally zero providers of individual plans that aren't on the healthcare exchange, in this state—none—so the couple options on there are all you've got)

Re: Tech layoffs are feeding a new startup surge

#206

Post by protastus »

jimbokun wrote: post #195
protastus wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> oblivious to ethical consequences of technical work He was told about the consequences pretty much from day 1. I don't think anyone at Facebook (especially not Zuckerberg) gets to be oblivious.

I don’t think anyone realized the full extent of the consequences until very recently. Even now, we’re still learning just how pervasive the mental health consequences of social media have been. See the recently released CDC data on teen mental health.

The trajectory for Facebook has been consistently bad. Not knowing the "full extent" is not absolution.

The CDC study is a lagging indicator; it describes the trendline of a mental health crisis that's self-evident to practitioners. On the research side, there have been many studies in the last 10 years associating Facebook use with poor mental health outcomes.

The Cambridge Analytica scandal broke out 5 years ago.

Re: Tech layoffs are feeding a new startup surge

#207

Post by A4ET8a8uTh0 »

FormerBandmate wrote: post #140
throw_pm23 wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nah, I think the good and bad aspects should be judged separately, we shouldn't be giving these companies a free pass for the infrastructure contributions they made -- you know which bad regime was also good at building motorways -- I'm grateful for google search and for maps, Facebook and some of the other stuff not so much.

The Holocaust absurdly outweighs the Autobahn, the Nazis were the worst people in history. The net result of big tech has been relatively good (for the average person’s material conditions, the jury’s still out on psychological effects but regardless of anything, it’s not even comparable to the Nazis).

Interesting. Romans built roads, killed a whole bunch of people in the name of the empire and had no problem with slavery. And yet, sufficient amount of time have passed to allow for a detached look to what they did and how it was accomplished. Were Romans so much better than Nazis or just so far back in the past that their relative badness does not register?

Re: Tech layoffs are feeding a new startup surge

#208

Post by satvikpendem »

myth_drannon wrote: post #63
ejb999 wrote: post #12

I imagine it is a tiny fraction of the people getting laid off that go that route - imo, most are out applying for jobs. I work for a fortune 50 company - (not faang), on our team we had 2 openings posted back in early November - one for a developer, one for a lead developer (same tech stack) - this was for a fully remote positions, but limited to timezones that mostly overlapped with the USA - we got 3 applicants fo…

Last summer and also before that, when I applied, I would get ~90% response rate and would have at least a call from recruiter/HM. Last week I sent a bunch of applications and crickets... this is something that I've never experienced in +10 years being in the industry. I'm not in dire need for a job but I can imagine how much,much stressful is to be unemployed now vs even 3-5 years ago.

I guess I don't exactly understand as my experience is quite different. I have recruiters beating down my LinkedIn and email literally every day for pretty decent jobs.

Re: Tech layoffs are feeding a new startup surge

#209

Post by onlyrealcuzzo »

skeeter2020 wrote: post #161
onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, but for everyone of those people, there are 1,000 other people just as smart also working on good ideas that are going nowhere fast. I'm not sure if you're agreeing or disagreeing or neither. But I think the "why didn't I think of that guy" is mostly luck. Lots of people are smart and work hard and don't really get anywhere.

Smart and Work Hard are only two of the 5+ components needed for success, of which Luck, Opportunity and Timing also belong. I'm sure there's more.

What is timing beside luck?

Re: Tech layoffs are feeding a new startup surge

#210

Post by rocket_surgeron »

twblalock wrote: post #198
rocket_surgeron wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Look at all the stuff this generation of workers have built in big tech — the amazing devices in all areas of the market, the progress in electric cars, the massive scale in compute infrastructure that enables most smaller companies to easily spin up entire regions rather than run their own hardware… The number of people working on these is insignificantly irrelevant compared to the number of people working on the b…

> Even your comment focuses on the financial incentives.... I also mentioned the Renaissance of access to knowledge in our pockets, the way mobile payments help people, the access to maps, the ability of remote work to scale to a large portion of the population...

Focuses on, not focuses exclusively on…
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