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Tech CEOs Should Be Held Accountable, or Even Fired, Amid Layoffs

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Re: Tech CEOs Should Be Held Accountable, or Even Fired, Amid Layoffs

#361

Post by HTTP418 »

danaris wrote: post #315
skt5 wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> create a management committee, possibly with a rotating chairship, and in general give the employees more say over the direction of the company they work for". this sounds very similar to a government where politicians are elected (un)fairly. likely, this just presents another set of trade-offs.

Whenever you have to make decisions involving multiple humans, tradeoffs are pretty much a guarantee. However, over the past few hundred years, we've been gradually coming to the collective conclusion that autocracy is inferior to democracy for systems involving larger numbers of people and decisions of larger stakes. I don't see why that should apply any less to replacing the hierarchical model of companies, where a…

It's a very different situation. In a country you cannot escape the king, he will be the absolute ruler until he dies. Since there was no escape eventually they were replaced with democracy. You can willingly leave a corporation at anytime you want. Autocracy have an advantage over democracy when it comes to speed of change. Sometimes it's good change (progress) and sometimes it's bad change (i.e. over-hiring). Large corporations that become democratic will lose the ability to react quickly. In order for such companies to survive, the environment must remain consistent (no competition, no new technology).

Re: Tech CEOs Should Be Held Accountable, or Even Fired, Amid Layoffs

#362

Post by colinmorelli »

dopamean wrote: post #274
colinmorelli wrote: post #86

Regardless of individual opinions on whether CEOs should be terminated for layoffs or not - there's a surprising amount of comments here that seem to not understand that growing companies don't hire for today, but for where they want to be tomorrow. Where you want to be tomorrow is based on where you and your investors believe the world is going. If the world materially changes enough to shift your expectations about…

> when COVID hit and tech companies saw large surges This sounds like what you said it wasnt, "hiring for today."

Yes, changes happened today which impacted expectations of the future. Of course this should be fairly clear. All of our perception about what will happen in the future is informed on events that have already happened or are happening now. There's no other information to base it on.

It's not like Google/Meta/Microsoft were barely hanging on by a thread just able to get through their core workload before COVID hit. They didn't need another 10,000 employees to get through today. They needed (or, incorrectly, thought they did) them to support where the business would be going in the years ahead.

Re: Tech CEOs Should Be Held Accountable, or Even Fired, Amid Layoffs

#363

Post by danaris »

HTTP418 wrote: post #361
danaris wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whenever you have to make decisions involving multiple humans, tradeoffs are pretty much a guarantee. However, over the past few hundred years, we've been gradually coming to the collective conclusion that autocracy is inferior to democracy for systems involving larger numbers of people and decisions of larger stakes. I don't see why that should apply any less to replacing the hierarchical model of companies, where a…

It's a very different situation. In a country you cannot escape the king, he will be the absolute ruler until he dies. Since there was no escape eventually they were replaced with democracy. You can willingly leave a corporation at anytime you want. Autocracy have an advantage over democracy when it comes to speed of change. Sometimes it's good change (progress) and sometimes it's bad change (i.e. over-hiring). Large…

You can willingly leave a corporation the same way you could willingly leave a kingdom: easily if you're rich, and with great effort and danger if you're not.

Re: Tech CEOs Should Be Held Accountable, or Even Fired, Amid Layoffs

#364

Post by s1artibartfast »

Apocryphon wrote: post #346
s1artibartfast wrote: post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unemployment rate in Tech and software development is still incredibly low, even lower than the general rate.

What is the rate you are citing and when was it calculated amidst all of this https://www.trueup.io/layoffs

The latest numbers I have are going into January 2023 which were 1.8% for tech.[1]. Per your link, there were 120k people laid off in 2023, and 240k laid off in 2022, so the 240k would already be baked into the numbers. Your link also shows that there are still many more openings than the layoffs, althought the difference is getting closer

The number of "tech workers" depends on the definition used, but this grouping of BLS roles gives ~5 million workers from the US.[2]

If every tech workers laid off in 2023 stays unemployed all year, that would only bump the Tech unemployment from ~1.8% to maybe 3.8%. But we know that isn't the case because there are tons of open positions.

This is all very worst case estimates because many of the people laid off don't fall into the job roles I mentioned, they just work for a tech company

https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/tech-employment-hol...

https://www.computerworld.com/article/3542681/how-many-jobs-...

Re: Tech CEOs Should Be Held Accountable, or Even Fired, Amid Layoffs

#365

Post by earthling8118 »

superfrank wrote: post #356
earthling8118 wrote: post #352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The consequences of all swimmers not being like Michael Phelps are significantly lesser than the CEO example to the point that I don't think this comparison could ever be a fit one. If a swimmer swims more slowly, big deal, nobody cares. If a CEO makes bad decisions people's lives can be uprooted. There's a key difference here.

> If a swimmer swims more slowly, big deal, nobody cares. If a CEO makes bad decisions people's lives can be uprooted. There's a key difference here. You've completely missed the point of my analogy. If you compare everyone else the the person who is the best in the category, then everyone else will pale in comparison. Using "You're not as good as The Best" as a reason to fire someone is stupid since there's only one…

I absolutely did not miss your point. I don't think everyone needs to be the same as the "best". I do think that when we operate an economic system we need to have a certain level of quality in important positions-- one that has not been met. This isn't a game and our lives hold more weight than a swimming competition.

I'd much rather eliminate scarcity and the need for people to have a job to provide their basic needs. Accomplishing that is even more difficult though

Re: Tech CEOs Should Be Held Accountable, or Even Fired, Amid Layoffs

#366

Post by Apocryphon »

superfrank wrote: post #354
Apocryphon wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, I think the culpability of CEOs has to be balanced with the corporate boards that appoint them and give them direction, and the major activist shareholders who were the ones who gave them marching orders to the tune of unrealistic growth targets into a volatile skewed economic situation in the first place. But the point is when everyone gets something wrong, there should be time for at least reflection an…

> there should be time for at least reflection and steps to remediate such a mistake from happening again in the future I agree with you there, but when almost the entire industry got something wrong, I don't firing your CEO does anything to prevent that mistake from happening again. If you ask yourself, would it be reasonable to believe another person would have done better in this situation, I don't think the answe…

Maybe the shareholders should stop and reflect upon whether their expectations of exponential growth, even in a booming market, especially in a booming market propped up by abnormal conditions, are reasonable. Because sure they lose money but they're not losing their jobs.

Re: Tech CEOs Should Be Held Accountable, or Even Fired, Amid Layoffs

#367

Post by Apocryphon »

s1artibartfast wrote: post #364
Apocryphon wrote: post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is the rate you are citing and when was it calculated amidst all of this https://www.trueup.io/layoffs

The latest numbers I have are going into January 2023 which were 1.8% for tech.[1]. Per your link, there were 120k people laid off in 2023, and 240k laid off in 2022, so the 240k would already be baked into the numbers. Your link also shows that there are still many more openings than the layoffs, althought the difference is getting closer The number of "tech workers" depends on the definition used, but this grouping…

Good to hear, hope it stays that way

Re: Tech CEOs Should Be Held Accountable, or Even Fired, Amid Layoffs

#370

Post by AbrahamParangi »

Clent wrote: post #305
foobiekr wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you want execs that never take risks and simply milk cash cows until they die? Do you want golden parachutes? This is how you get these.

If we don't let them be bad in the job in one way, they'll be bad in the job in another way, therefore why bother. I reject these defeatist attitudes and question the engineering skills of anyone who thinks this way. It is always better to try something. Human created systems are inherently problematic and do not fix themselves. The dream is to engineer a system that does not have faults.

Have you ever tried personally? Because it’s a hell of a lesson.
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