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Reports Coming in of Big IBM Layoffs Underway in the U.S.

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Re: Reports Coming in of Big IBM Layoffs Underway in the U.S.

#261

Post by hga »

dredmorbius wrote: post #256
hga wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And that's wasn't the first Cold War related layoff period, we largely stopped fighting it in the '70s (roughly "Vietnam" through when the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan gave Carter a clue), and between that and the end of the Apollo program aerospace crashed and never returned to its old level. My family hired an EE to do electrical engineering in ~1972 and he was thrilled to be able to get back to it after doing al…

Interesting. So this crash happened before the oil embargo (fall, 1973)?

Yes, before the oil embargo. Since the DoD and NASA/the space industry were and probably still are the biggest buyers, and US airlines were completely regulated in that period, oil, or rather, distillate prices wouldn't have had a great effect.

For that matter, certainly nowadays higher oil prices can mean more business for airplane companies as that makes buying more efficient planes more important.

Re: Reports Coming in of Big IBM Layoffs Underway in the U.S.

#262

Post by dang »

reddytowns wrote: post #250
pyre wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think some of the resentment comes from "Golden Parachutes" too. While it's stupid for the Board to allow a contract where the CEO get $X million even if they run the company into the ground, the CEO that runs the company into the ground bears some responsibility too.

Why don't you become a consultant, then, and tell companies to hire the cheapest CEO they can get, and see how that works out for them? Aiee! Jesus, downvoters, dissent from the party line isn't tolerated, is it?

> Jesus, downvoters, dissent from the party line isn't tolerated, is it?

These downvotes have nothing to do with a "party line" but with your comments being unsubstantive. Comments on HN need to be both civil and substantive.

Also, it breaks the rules to go on about downvotes in HN comments. You've done this often in previous threads too; please don't. We have not one but two guidelines about it:

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Reports Coming in of Big IBM Layoffs Underway in the U.S.

#263

Post by reddytowns »

dang wrote: post #262
reddytowns wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why don't you become a consultant, then, and tell companies to hire the cheapest CEO they can get, and see how that works out for them? Aiee! Jesus, downvoters, dissent from the party line isn't tolerated, is it?

> Jesus, downvoters, dissent from the party line isn't tolerated, is it? These downvotes have nothing to do with a "party line" but with your comments being unsubstantive. Comments on HN need to be both civil and substantive. Also, it breaks the rules to go on about downvotes in HN comments. You've done this often in previous threads too; please don't. We have not one but two guidelines about it: https://news.ycombin…

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11221340 and marked it off-topic.

So now, I'm not only downvoted, but censored, too.

Ah, I get it, denial. shrugs...

Ugh, and downvoted again. Maybe I should submit a "Downvote reddytowns" topic

Re: Reports Coming in of Big IBM Layoffs Underway in the U.S.

#264

Post by yarou »

dredmorbius wrote: post #200
qaq wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perl hackers? Booking.com will actually pay you to learn perl :)

Frequently a negative sign. Up-and-coming tech frequently has a flood of talent. Dying: companies with vested systems (say, Cobol, or Solaris) are catching the tail-end of the curve. The truly good programmers have gotten out, or switched skills, or transferred to management. Hopping on a sinking ship usually doesn't last long. (Nothing against Perl. It's just a seriously fading language at this point.)

I'm sure they said the same thing 10 years ago.

Re: Reports Coming in of Big IBM Layoffs Underway in the U.S.

#265

Post by ricksplat »

MikeNomad wrote: post #214
dclowd9901 wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Haha, come at me, youth! Seriously, though, as long as you keep up, and avoid being a curmudgeon, you're gonna be fine. The only ones who die in this industry choose to stop swimming.

Trying to work with your analogy... Does that mean H1Bs are the sharks, or the chum?

They're the freezer stackers

Re: Reports Coming in of Big IBM Layoffs Underway in the U.S.

#266

Post by Conjoiner »

fdej wrote: post #207
Godel_unicode wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I assume you're being down voted for being new, but I read your comment as a more verbose "citation needed"

The paper: https://dx.doi.org/10.1002/smj.2192 The PR version: http://today.tamu.edu/2015/10/15/ceo-effect-on-firm-performa...

It's not: 'citation needed' it's rather: 'research is unreliable and, one paper shows x, the next paper shows not-x'

Re: Reports Coming in of Big IBM Layoffs Underway in the U.S.

#267

Post by TulliusCicero »

rtpg wrote: post #248
mathattack wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very good point - the human toll is tough. Did Dubuque get anything in writing about the jobs to be provided? $50M in tax breaks to support 1000 jobs is very expensive!

This might be a case of (X-50 Million) (X being the taxes on 1000 jobs) is bigger than 0 (amount of taxes collected on non-existent IBM office)

But you're not factoring in the cost of the services for that office and the people who work there.

Re: Reports Coming in of Big IBM Layoffs Underway in the U.S.

#268

Post by venomsnake »

komaromy wrote: post #58
moonlighter wrote: post #56

Meanwhile, IBM's CEO Ginny Rometty not only pocketed a salary of $1.6M in 2015, but also took a bonus of $4.6M. Not bad for 16 straight quarters of shrinking sales, evaporating profits and a falling stock price. http://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-mh-ibm-s-ceo-w...

That doesn't sound like all that much for the CEO of an IBM-sized company.

I could run IBM, Yahoo and Nokia to the ground for penny on the dollar that the corresponding executives made/are making.

You don't need to pay me Elop level money to destroy something like Nokia - I would happily do it for 100K per year. I may not do it as well, and could probably have the unfortunate success story here and there. But I am capable - just give me a chance.

Re: Reports Coming in of Big IBM Layoffs Underway in the U.S.

#269

Post by raverbashing »

dredmorbius wrote: post #117
mathattack wrote: post #40

Here's what I don't get... If you have any options at all, why stay at a company with sub-par technology that abuses their workers? They've been stuck in low 3 Glassdoor [0] range for a while. It's layoff after layoff as they slowly dismantle the company. Why stay? Geographic limitations? Narrow skillsets? [0] https://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/IBM-Reviews-E354.htm#trend...

Among other factors mentioned: employer-specific skillsets. Technology jobs are very highly specialised. And I'm not just speaking of computer tech. I'm old enough to have seen several generations of obsoleted "gold tickets". Nuclear Engineering, future destroyed March 28, 1979. Freeway engineers, the freeway protests of the 1960s/1970s. Big Three auto manufacturers, dream destroyed with the first oil embargo, and su…

This is a very interesting angle of discussion, really

But I think this is partially their fault as well

A Nuclear plant engineer, while specialized in some element of that plant (and there are many elements, in civil, mechanical, chemical engineering) has knowledge that's applicable in a lot of different situations

Were the Automobile engineers content of designing more of the same poorly constructed vehicles? While the ICE is old technology I can't imagine the things that could come out of it if they really invested in rethinking it (also other parts like the drivetrain)

> But they're also laden with a tremendous amount of arcane knowledge, that, unfortunately, gets in the way of learning new skills.

That's true. But I think it's also a matter of attitude

You know, I can be the best specialist in some technology, let's say: installing Oracle, or even better, let's say I'm a top notch Golang programmer today

Tomorrow Golang won't exist, or won't be relevant. I am SURE of this

> But really, it's quite crushing. You may not understand it now, but you almost certainly will, eventually.

Yeah, I agree

Re: Reports Coming in of Big IBM Layoffs Underway in the U.S.

#270

Post by biehl »

beambot wrote: post #194
fdej wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, there was some recently published research that claimed to find that most of the effect attributed to CEO performance actually can be explained by random fluctuations. Make of that what you will.

How do companies perform with no CEO? Regardless of the firm's performance, it's a difficult role to fill -- especially for a large, multi national conglomerate.

Or "How did companies perform when absolute and relative CEO pay was lower in general"?
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