So how many people? I can't find this info anywhere.
There were around 4000 employees before this announcement, so around 280 people affected.
Elastic lays off 7% of employees
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Re: Elastic lays off 7% of employees
#32Before the 1980s layoffs were seen as a massive failure of the company and almost never happened to tenured employees unless the company was collapsing. Before we are all made to think this is normal and unavoidable behavior.
I know HN is mostly against regulation, but I'm very glad my country restricts mass firings, and particular stricter rules apply for companies that turn a profit.
If you're generating benefits, there should be very few reasons you need to let go people massively.
Re: Elastic lays off 7% of employees
#33[flagged]
Re: Elastic lays off 7% of employees
#34Earlier quoted context omitted.
i dont understand this either. just dont hire for half a year or so, a generic globocorp gets to that 7% easily.
That doesn't boost the stock after the announcements, why would they do it?
i dont think this announcement will boost the stock either, for the same reason we are wondering here why 7% is noteworthy for a globocorp.
Re: Elastic lays off 7% of employees
#35Earlier quoted context omitted.
which is why most corporations should be classified as sociopaths, at a minimum.
Well, sort of. That anthropomorphizes them and allows the sociopaths running the corporations to pawn the responsibility of their decisions to the corporation, which is actually a legal fiction that is incapable of independent thought or expression.
They have already done that when giving companies right as people which then takes responsibility off the CEO.
Re: Elastic lays off 7% of employees
#36Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've grown to hate executives. This is obviously an AI-generated nothing burger. They never mean what they say publicly.
Do not want to sound like as if I am taking their side but the reality is that all these decisions are mandated by some subset of investors in one way or another. These executives are replaceable, and they would be replaced if they do not toe the line. In other words these executives happen to choose a easy and beneficial path rather than standing up for the long term right thing for the company.
The thing is, a profitable company that sees an obvious efficiency staring it in the face is still going to take that efficiency.
I don’t think a lot of us employees will be happy to admit that AI is turning out to be a legitimate productivity aid that is allowing individuals to accomplish more work per person.
We’d rather sit here and stew about companies “blaming AI for layoffs” but I imagine that is only sometimes the case.
A somewhat related tangent: I have had the thought that many parts of the Japanese system of hiring for life might actually be really appropriate for the AI age. That system seems to result in a lot of companies finding ways to reshuffle employees into making some kind of product that has market value rather than the Western reaction that that seems to favor downsizing and focusing the company on a smaller set of markets in the name of ruthless efficiency. This seems to result in many Japanese firms making a wide breadth of interesting products at very high quality levels.
If your company is profitable because AI is increasing efficiency (allegedly, of course), why layoff 7% of your employees when you could instead assign them to make something new or complementary to your current product line? Western companies seem to refuse to do that out of a sense of focus and efficiency, but maybe giving that strategy a go more frequently would result in unrealized opportunities.
Re: Elastic lays off 7% of employees
#37> Customer expectations are increasing and evolving faster than ever before
Wouldn't that suggest you need those workers more?
Re: Elastic lays off 7% of employees
#38I'm sure now that they've right-sized the org, the leftover engineers + AI are really gonna grind out the best features. We should be seeing 10x any day now.
Re: Elastic lays off 7% of employees
#39Before the 1980s layoffs were seen as a massive failure of the company and almost never happened to tenured employees unless the company was collapsing. Before we are all made to think this is normal and unavoidable behavior.
I don't know how the social contract between employees/employers gets rebuilt..feels like it needs to though
> I don't know how the social contract between employees/employers gets rebuilt.
The only social contract that is guaranteed is the one written into law. That's why we have government, but the problem is that the government is (for a while now) captive to / bought by large corporations, not responsive to employees/workers/voters.
Whatever principled social contract you may have thought large corporations upheld was smoke and mirrors. It just worked for enough of the right kind of person for a while.
Re: Elastic lays off 7% of employees
#40Makes me sad to read it as an ex-Elastic employee. AI is used to justify the redundancies, and the company still expects to grow in this fiscal year. In the SEC filling the specifically mention more “head count” in “go-to-market” roles [1]. > a reduction of approximately 7% of our workforce > Advances in AI, automation, and technology are reshaping how work gets done, and we're changing with them. (…) That's what thi…
I've grown to hate executives. This is obviously an AI-generated nothing burger. They never mean what they say publicly.
An AI can also regurgitate others decisions, based on a much wider knowledge base than these executives.
AI hardware costs are nothing compared to executives’ stock options too…