Amazon job cuts: Read the memos • Hacker News Board

Re: Amazon job cuts: Read the memos

#31

Post by jrwoodruff » Fri, Jan 20, 2023, 2:39 PM UTC

eganist wrote: post #3

Super interesting seeing companies grow like wildfire and overspend as returns for investors skyrocket, and then as the market swings downward, they buoy their stock prices a bit by just as quickly cutting heads. The inverted accountability scheme for leaders doing this is another perverse enabling factor; I've complained about this before, but that tends to lead to flames about why founders etc. can't have ownership…

It'd be neat to have a list of companies that use this strategy. It seems like all the big ones do?

Re: Amazon job cuts: Read the memos

#32

Post by mittermayr » Fri, Jan 20, 2023, 2:39 PM UTC

There's rarely any talk about how many of these (if any!) are actually contractors / vendors. All the big companies have outsourced a huge number of staff to agencies (presumably to be more flexible in short-term budgeting and "turning the resource off", when needed, so they don't have to worry about the legal intricacies, as that is by-design conveniently also outsourced to the vendor in most cases). Curious if the 18k here is on top of shutting down external contracts.

Re: Amazon job cuts: Read the memos

#33

Post by 0xbadcafebee » Fri, Jan 20, 2023, 2:39 PM UTC

eganist wrote: post #3

Super interesting seeing companies grow like wildfire and overspend as returns for investors skyrocket, and then as the market swings downward, they buoy their stock prices a bit by just as quickly cutting heads. The inverted accountability scheme for leaders doing this is another perverse enabling factor; I've complained about this before, but that tends to lead to flames about why founders etc. can't have ownership…

There's no solution because, from society's perspective, there's no problem.

The whole idea of capitalism involves competition and consistent growth, right? In any human society, that leads inevitably to war and conquest. It also means exploiting whatever resources are available, including human resources. Back in the day it was using colonial slaves to cheaply mine resources, deforesting for fuel/ships/etc, or hunting animals to extinction (food, oil, pelts, etc). Today it's using cheap labor in 3rd world countries, dumping chemicals in rivers, deforesting rainforest for cattle pasture. And when a competitor (foreign empire or corporation) threatens you, you basically work to either destroy or own the competition and their citizens/customers (although you might also simply make a backroom deal for peace). All for the wealth and glory of a corporation/CEO/board/Emperor/nation.

Our companies are just acting as the new empires of global society. Have been for nearly a century, when the old empires began to crumble. Same humans, different maps & hats.

Re: Amazon job cuts: Read the memos

#34

Post by aliljet » Fri, Jan 20, 2023, 2:40 PM UTC

This should be renamed. Amazon has laid off 18,000 and this links to the memos from senior leadership at that company.

Re: Amazon job cuts: Read the memos

#35

Post by flandish » Fri, Jan 20, 2023, 2:43 PM UTC

mittermayr wrote: post #32

There's rarely any talk about how many of these (if any!) are actually contractors / vendors. All the big companies have outsourced a huge number of staff to agencies (presumably to be more flexible in short-term budgeting and "turning the resource off", when needed, so they don't have to worry about the legal intricacies, as that is by-design conveniently also outsourced to the vendor in most cases). Curious if the…

Interesting take. Can we consider contract labor a “layoff”? Wouldn’t they try to “look better” (like they are not laying off) by not considering “closed contract” not the same as “layoff”?

Wouldn’t the contracted firm be doing the layoff not the tech comp?

Interesting take!

Re: Amazon job cuts: Read the memos

#36

Post by rayrey » Fri, Jan 20, 2023, 2:44 PM UTC

throwaway6734 wrote: post #21

itsoktocry wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm not seeing a clear solution for this culture of toying with thousands of peoples' lives for a quick buck A bit over-dramatic, no? Nothing to say about the employees who left their companies for Google to "make a quick buck"? Business expand and contract. Should Google be considered a retirement home? The people who took these jobs are smart men and women who will go on to work at other companies. This isn't new…

Seriously, these companies were and still are paying insane salaries. I have no sympathy.

Sympathy is between shit and syphilis in the dictionary

Re: Amazon job cuts: Read the memos

#37

Post by black_13 » Fri, Jan 20, 2023, 2:44 PM UTC

mittermayr wrote: post #32

There's rarely any talk about how many of these (if any!) are actually contractors / vendors. All the big companies have outsourced a huge number of staff to agencies (presumably to be more flexible in short-term budgeting and "turning the resource off", when needed, so they don't have to worry about the legal intricacies, as that is by-design conveniently also outsourced to the vendor in most cases). Curious if the…

[dead]

Re: Amazon job cuts: Read the memos

#38

Post by hardware2win » Fri, Jan 20, 2023, 2:45 PM UTC

coffeebeqn wrote: post #26

brookst wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think these people would have been better off if tech had carried net fewer heads the past couple of years? Having an extra 100k employed for two years is worse than those jobs just never existing?

There is also every other company in the economy who couldn’t compete with Google for engineers

Sad.

Should I care? After all it is about my salary

Re: Amazon job cuts: Read the memos

#39

Post by ljm » Fri, Jan 20, 2023, 2:47 PM UTC

brookst wrote: post #8

eganist wrote: post #3

Super interesting seeing companies grow like wildfire and overspend as returns for investors skyrocket, and then as the market swings downward, they buoy their stock prices a bit by just as quickly cutting heads. The inverted accountability scheme for leaders doing this is another perverse enabling factor; I've complained about this before, but that tends to lead to flames about why founders etc. can't have ownership…

Do you think these people would have been better off if tech had carried net fewer heads the past couple of years? Having an extra 100k employed for two years is worse than those jobs just never existing?

From Amazon's point of view, this doesn't seem too far removed from their annual firing quotas which I think is already an onerous practice.

From the hyper-scale startup point of view, it's blatantly unsustainable and frankly irresponsible to play fast-and-loose with people's careers by hiring them and then making the position redundant, sometimes within less than a year; even six months in some cases that I've known. The best one can hope for is a generous severance so as to buy time to find a new job in an increasingly crowded market.

Re: Amazon job cuts: Read the memos

#40

Post by sriram_sun » Fri, Jan 20, 2023, 2:48 PM UTC

mittermayr wrote: post #32

There's rarely any talk about how many of these (if any!) are actually contractors / vendors. All the big companies have outsourced a huge number of staff to agencies (presumably to be more flexible in short-term budgeting and "turning the resource off", when needed, so they don't have to worry about the legal intricacies, as that is by-design conveniently also outsourced to the vendor in most cases). Curious if the…

Contract jobs are never part of layoffs.

OTOH, not all full time roles have an actual human assigned. They could also be budgeted for, but not filled yet. Post 2008, managers usually kept a couple of unfilled roles for events like this.