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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

#241

Post by geodel »

latexr wrote: post #236
fullsend wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No scandals, no twitter addiction, no sexual assault cases. No bullshit. All this guy does is wake up at 4, work till 10, and sleep. Cuts his own pay voluntarily. Didn’t double his headcount while revenues fell like so many. Tim Cook is such a beast. Jobs left one last blessing for Apple shareholders in his decision to elevate Cook.

> No scandals, no twitter addiction, no sexual assault cases. No bullshit. It’s unfortunate (and it says a lot about our current situation) that that behaviour is worthy of note. > Jobs left one last blessing for Apple shareholders in his decision to elevate Cook. I don’t understand the obsession with shareholders. It’s all about money money money, good products and respect for the customer be dammed. Cook was a fant…

Customers have a dozen companies to chose from that would respect them. Or are you saying Apple customers are specifically those who do not like respect nowadays.

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

#242

Post by rileymat2 »

sokoloff wrote: post #216
rileymat2 wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hear this a lot lately, and intuitively it is true of startups and businesses that are pre revenue, but I have trouble seeing how it applies to companies with billions in profit.

Google makes billions in profits by selling ads. Many of the buyers of those ads are affected by interest rates. Therefore, Google is affected by those interest rates.

This is fair, but general economic health applies to every company in the economy, and this large cap tech company segment is both profitable and seemingly laying off employees at a higher rate than the economy as a whole. So that blame seems misplaced.

From a theoretical perspective at this level of scale the number of engineers in particular does not scale with the ebb and flow of the selling of ads to the degree of the layoffs. Many were for divisions that were not related to ads, except for getting funded by them.

Obviously if there is not funding for these other divisions because the ad business dries up there would be large cuts, but these companies are still very very profitable even on lower ad sales. So perhaps they did not have a positive ROI, and that is fine, but a far different reason than waving vaguely at interest rates.

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

#243

Post by dmitriid »

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

* for now

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

Still looks good for Apple.

- 18.3% Drop in the holiday quarter for the sector, but 14.9% drop for Apple.

- 11.3% YoY drop for the sector, only a 4.0% drop for Apple.

I wouldn't be surprised if in the end Apple will have gained marketshare as a result.

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

#244

Post by a2tech »

Lutger wrote: post #183
2muchcoffeeman wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not sure I believe that. It honestly sounds like an excuse to fire people. Or leadership has no clue. The biggest thing I got from the pandemic is flexible work arrangements. But I and everyone I knew all wanted to get back out there. Just not back out on public transport to work. We were doing things online because there was no other option. But once the borders opened and restrictions eased, everyone did what t…

I never wanted to commute. Not in busy trains and certainly not getting stuck in traffic jams. I also never wanted to shop or spend time in the supermarket getting spaced out by their weird lightning they install to make you make bad decisions. I do want to visit friends, go out in nature and once in a while eat at a restaurant. But for me, I am so happy to wfh 80% of the time and do 99% of shopping and groceries onl…

Something that the pandemic has rammed home with my wife and I is just how poor the out of home dining experience is in general. The food is lackluster, the ambiance is awful, being surrounded by other people eating is terrible (my wife is a quiet talker and being fat always makes eating in public a shameful experience), so we'd MUCH rather eat at home. The quality of the ingredients are far higher, the food is tastier (my wife is an amazing and experimental cook), and we don't have to yell to be heard. We eat out when we're traveling but thats about it. Eating at home is better in every way.

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

#245

Post by DrBazza »

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…

The pile of cash just reminds me of Carl Icahn and others. It's "fortunate" that Apple is so highly valued that a corporate raider can't purchase a controlling interest and pay out to investors.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asset_stripping

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

#246

Post by billychuck21st »

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.

apple does start and fail a lot of projects, you won't notice because they keep them secret.

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

#247

Post by latexr »

geodel wrote: post #241
latexr wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No scandals, no twitter addiction, no sexual assault cases. No bullshit. It’s unfortunate (and it says a lot about our current situation) that that behaviour is worthy of note. > Jobs left one last blessing for Apple shareholders in his decision to elevate Cook. I don’t understand the obsession with shareholders. It’s all about money money money, good products and respect for the customer be dammed. Cook was a fant…

Customers have a dozen companies to chose from that would respect them. Or are you saying Apple customers are specifically those who do not like respect nowadays.

> Or are you saying Apple customers are specifically those who do not like respect nowadays.

That’s such a leading question, I’m genuinely wondering if you’re arguing in good faith.

I’m saying neither of those. I’m talking about how Apple’s leadership transition from Jobs to Cook changed focus from what the company used to do best.

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

#248

Post by msm_ »

toyg wrote: post #240
fullsend wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No scandals, no twitter addiction, no sexual assault cases. No bullshit. All this guy does is wake up at 4, work till 10, and sleep. Cuts his own pay voluntarily. Didn’t double his headcount while revenues fell like so many. Tim Cook is such a beast. Jobs left one last blessing for Apple shareholders in his decision to elevate Cook.

[flagged]

I don't completely understand your comment. Do you imply there's something wrong with being autistic? Or that overworking is an exclusively autistic trait? Both interpretations seems off, so I believe I missed your point.

Though I suspect it's a joke that went well over my head.

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

#249

Post by cmrdporcupine »

anchpop wrote: post #74
kennywinker wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it called a "bet" when you stand to win big, but if you lose it's the people you hired who've lost, and you don't lose basically anything?

Who lost? Everyone who got laid off wouldn't have had at a job at all if they weren't hired, and they probably got severance packages for more than the average American makes in a year.

This is nonsense because the people that were laid off at Google (as one example) were not selected by their tenure or having been hired during pandemic or during the remote phase, nor was it based on performance reviews.

People who had been there 12, 13, 16 years; people who had been just promoted. People who were senior management. People who were engineers. People who were on mat leave...

Management there effectively fed people's employee numbers through a random generator. And people who (IMHO naively/foolishly) gave their lives to the company suffered.

Decisions to overhire during the pandemic impacted people who had nothing to do with that decision. And not just because of the layoffs, but also because the company growth during that period was so intense that it led to onboarding and project mgmt difficulties as well.

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

#250

Post by mcphage »

jackpeterfletch wrote: post #199
2muchcoffeeman wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did the pandemic really increase business so much that they had to hire that many people?

I was at the time and continue to be astonished by the lack of foresight when it came to the pandemic. In business management, financial markets, hiring, investment, real estate patterns etc etc. There have been some lasting effects, but it was always clearly a temporary, if not prolonged situation.

> the lack of foresight when it came to the pandemic

> it was always clearly a temporary, if not prolonged situation

Oh, they knew it was temporary, and they knew they'd do a mass layoff when that time came. This was always the plan.

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