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Apple avoids job cuts because it didn’t overhire like Google and Amazon

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Re: Apple avoids job cuts because it didn’t overhire like Google and Amazon

#411

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Look, if Apple just made the watch open source with fully-user-upgradable parts and modular CPU + display + battery, and a command line interface, they would reach dozens of new customers.

> dozens Even if there are 7 dozen extra customers, that's maximum (looks up price of most expensive Apple Watch) of 7 * 12 * $799 = $67k.

And the cost to acquire those customers including the development costs?

Apple made a profit of $99 billion in 2022. $67K is the amount Apple made about every 20 seconds.

Re: Apple avoids job cuts because it didn’t overhire like Google and Amazon

#412

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Yeah, you didn’t cite any laws that restrict this future. You’re wrong. I'm not wrong. I just don't call wishful thinking "the future", "reality" etc. > Let’s also not be disingenuous. those “fantasy interfaces” are working prototypes and not just movie CGI Prototypes are not "actual usable interfaces that are used by real humans for any extended periods of time". Note how his own company uses none of these interfa…

You are completely wrong. you have yet to cite a law of physics or some biological fact that will prevent this from being a reality. Ie you’re making really terrible assumptions based on lack of knowledge. > A pair of galsses with 46 degree field of view that you need to connect with a cable to the actual device where all the processing and control happens. Yes, and it’s shipped and will continue to be improved throu…

> We know more about the Apple device through patent filings and leaks.

No you don't. Apple routinely files hundreds of patents (any major company does that). It doesn't mean those patents will end up as a shippable product.

All you know is the never ending rumor mill.

> these devices are already real and shipped.

Of course they are not

> As for batteries, that’s been solved 1-2 years ago.

Of course they haven't. There's literally no battery + cpu + gpu tech that you can put in an AR device lightweight enough for extended use.

All "lightweight" ones use a cable to connect to an external device.

The rest are bulky and heavy. Because you cannot bullshit your way out of physics and biology by pretending "this has been solved".

> I don’t understand why you keep doubling down on a subject that you know nothing about.

There's objective reality and there's wishful thinking

Re: Apple avoids job cuts because it didn’t overhire like Google and Amazon

#413
Have a look at the growth rate at Meta. It's been a hockey stick until recently.

There are now so many wellness coordination inclusion coordinator coordinators that explain the bloat. And there's an army of accountant data analysts who micromanage purchases of managers making $700k for work-necessary items costing $200.

PS: I work there.

Re: Apple avoids job cuts because it didn’t overhire like Google and Amazon

#414
post #33

> Apple, meanwhile, was more cautious. Its headcount increased just 20% from 2020 to 2022 At Apples size this is still pretty huge. At least, I thought it was until I saw that Amazon, Meta and Salesforce basically DOUBLED in 2 years. If this data is correct isnt that insane? How can you effectively double orgs of this size over a 2 year period? Its not like a startup with 50 people or something. I guess I was out of…

> How can you effectively double orgs of this size over a 2 year period?

That's the cool part - you can't.

Re: Apple avoids job cuts because it didn’t overhire like Google and Amazon

#415

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How can you effectively double orgs of this size over a 2 year period? Apparently you can't.

Given the number of orgs that have done this quite successfully in the BC (before Covid) era, it seems like you can.

Which ones for example?

Re: Apple avoids job cuts because it didn’t overhire like Google and Amazon

#416
post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The funny thing is my personal experience was the opposite. I have a lot of experience in embedded software. The recruiters I interacted with at Google knew about my specialization and targeted positions that were embedded-related (like, at waymo or their other projects). However, the actual phone screen interview was with a web programmer that had very little C++ background and seemed pretty uncomfortable with me us…

I wasn't trying to make it about me.. I am not in embedded software, though I've dabbled in it and that would have been a nice path to take instead. But we all specialize in something and I don't really think I've gone down a path where any of those big companies would really ever be a good place for me now. I think whatever path you go down in terms of specialization would certainly influence your interactions with…

Ahhh I remember when Google was the shining light of the software world.

I'm not sure I'll ever get over my anti-MS bias. I respect them a lot for some things, but I had a couple of real shitty experiences with their university recruiting team about 10 years ago, and I don't like the way they make everything to be managed by others. That they sell consumer software feels like a bit of an anomaly sometimes.

Re: Apple avoids job cuts because it didn’t overhire like Google and Amazon

#417

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> regulate that down to something reasonable like 5% or 3% How is 5% "reasonable?" Who determines that? That's not something up for a vote -- that's up to the market. Let's say you have an iOS app. If you sell it for $5 on the App Store, you keep $3.5. And you sell 100,000. App Store nets you $350k. And let's say you sold the app direct to users and did everything yourself: $5 sales price, you keep $5 however, you al…

> How is 5% "reasonable?" Who determines that? That's not something up for a vote -- that's up to the market. If you ask Apple themselves to split the payment processing from the hosting and 'marketing', they claim it's 3% and 27%. So if you could use their payment processing by itself, that would put you at $485k before server costs, not $419k. So you can have very nice servers and over a third more revenue. You'll…

> So if you could use their payment processing by itself, that would put you at $485k before server costs, not $419k. So you can have very nice servers and over a third more revenue.

Most companies don't do their own payment processing. They have accounts with companies that provide merchant services (e.g. WorldPay, Ayden, various investment banks) under specially negotiated contracts. These contracts would cover contingencies that wouldn't apply to "normal" customers and there's obviously a premium to pay for that. What you're demanding is the financial equivalent of adding millions of people to an individual's credit card account.

Why would you think a for-profit company (or for that matter, any financially sensible individual) would should share the financial benefits its negotiated for itself with millions of others? Not only would Apple be introduced to additional legal and financial liability, but so would the payment processor.

Re: Apple avoids job cuts because it didn’t overhire like Google and Amazon

#418

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True, but misleading. Amazon gives big cash bonuses to new hires in years 1 and 2 in order to compensate for the back-weighted vesting schedule.

As big as 20% of their RSU grant + the bonus they would get at another company would be? If not, not misleading at all.

From what I've heard, yes they size their Y1 and Y2 cash bonuses such that your TC will be stable over the first 4 years as long as AMZN stock goes up 15%/year.

eg one of the first Google results for "teamblind Amazon offer eval" turns up someone who was offered >$100k of cash bonus in each of their first two years: https://www.teamblind.com/post/Offer-Comparison---Amazon-vs-...

Re: Apple avoids job cuts because it didn’t overhire like Google and Amazon

#419

I can only speak to my experience in the engineering org at Meta and past experience at Apple. One key difference between Apple and Meta is that each individual (on the ground) team at Apple is responsible for its own hiring. Whereas at Meta, they have a general company-wide engineering pool that is mainly driven by recruiters to fill. A manager at Apple will get a batch of resumes and start hiring with a recruiter a…

This doesn't seem a plausible hypothesis. there are tons of companies which adopt the Apple model, mind included in this model. actually you have to argue to make the case for why your role is important which makes qualifying for head count even more unlikely

Re: Apple avoids job cuts because it didn’t overhire like Google and Amazon

#420
post #32

Apple's underlying economics haven't changed, so they have not had any reason to over-hire in the first place. Amazon, Google, Meta, Shopify and others are all e-commerce based. There was a clear trend that e-commerce had shifted up due to the pandemic, and looked to be permanent. That bet was wrong, so they all had layoffs. Other companies were willing to hire lots of developers because the ROI on devs was good comp…

exactly. decompass companies hired because they were seeing a boost in the amount of consumption, literally tripling overnight in some cases. has been well documented as "the quickening" where decades of growth was observed in the matter of weeks.

https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/strategy-and-corporate...

CEOs that didn't meet those needs would be fired for ceding market share instead. This demand explosion did not manifest in hardware companies such as Apple.

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