Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

GitHub to lay off 10% and close all offices

twitter.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

501–510 of 907 posts

Re: GitHub to lay off 10% and close all offices

#501

Post by whizzter »

dcchambers wrote: post #215
softwaredoug wrote: post #201

I really liked Shopify's remote model of not closing offices, but turning them into "ports" for teams in major cities to get together throughout the year for planning, team building, and retreats. You had an official place to get together, enjoy the perks of tech company offices, but with the intention of deep short bursts of interaction rather than focused work.

We have done the same at Zendesk. We've reduced our office footprint but have kept our hubs open with large enough offices open for the occasional large on-site and for easier team collaborations, as well as space for anyone that prefers to work in an office environment. I like the model, but I question long term economic viability of owning that much office space with mostly low utilization and only occasional spike…

Depends, already years ago there was a hub-n-spoke-like model for office buildings where you had smaller offices for smaller companies that had the ability to temporarily rent the larger "shared" areas of the building.

It didn't really take off afaik, but with more bigger and stable tenants making a larger bulk of these it might actually take off a bit as a model.

Re: GitHub to lay off 10% and close all offices

#503

Post by aerotwelve »

throwaway290 wrote: post #32
jobs_throwaway wrote: post #11

wild how so many companies are laying off 7-15% of their workforce in such quick succession

Anyone made redundant by LLM who is not in a protected class will be fired, otherwise top management violates legal duty to maximize shareholder value.

From Lynn Stout's "The Shareholder Value Myth"[1]; Stout is a former business law professor at Cornell:

> “United States corporate law does not, and never has, required directors of public corporations to maximize either share price or shareholder wealth… State statutes similarly refuse to mandate shareholder primacy… As long as boards do not use their power to enrich themselves, the [business judgment rule] gives them a wide range of discretion to run public corporations with other goals in mind, including growing the firm, creating quality products, protecting employees, and serving the public interest. Chasing shareholder value is a managerial choice, not a legal requirement.”

Such firings will be because management chose to make them, not because they were forced to by the threat of lawsuits by a non-existent legal doctrine.

1: https://www.amazon.com/Shareholder-Value-Myth-Shareholders-C...

Re: GitHub to lay off 10% and close all offices

#504

Post by rnk »

gorjusborg wrote: post #474
geuis wrote: post #428

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Look, you can't have it both ways. People on HN are always talking badly about companies that don't allow work from home, or require at least a couple days in the office. Then a company says it's going entirely remote (not including the layoff context) and people shit on that. Which is it? As for the layoffs, I don't have anything to add to that. There a Microsoft decision.

There are a bunch of different people reacting to a stressful change in economy and its effects on the job market. That's all. It may be 'easier' to fire people when you don't have to deal with their physical presence, but I doubt that factors much into the decision overall. My bet is that companies are battening down the hatches because they see strong headwinds economically (or are using other layoffs as an excuse…

Some companies laying off, the common issue is the appearance of over-hiring like facebook. I know two small companies that are hiring, so what can you conclude? Nothing in general. I think it's mostly just following the herd.

Re: GitHub to lay off 10% and close all offices

#505

Post by LAC-Tech »

rossdavidh wrote: post #420

Closing all offices, I have to say, makes it way easier to do more layoffs. Having been through layoffs in semiconductor manufacturing in the 90's, when you had to, you know, get the people from work and take them to a place and all that, it involved paying a lot of money for extra security and such. With no offices, it's a lot easier, and you never have to meet the person face to face. Five years from now, I think w…

Five years from now, I think we will not see "remote only" for a large company and think "ooh, they value their employees I guess", but rather, "uh oh, they like to think of their employees as being like virtual servers, easy to spin up and easy to shut down the moment you don't need to pay for that capacity".

Good.

Because that's the reality we live in. Acting personally surprised or offended or hurt when a business makes a business decision is not good for you. The sooner people accept and realise this the better.

(This message was bought to you by a contractor).

Re: GitHub to lay off 10% and close all offices

#506

Post by majewsky »

JasserInicide wrote: post #477
thinkharderdev wrote: post #350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since you are 35 I guess you just missed the financial crisis in 2007. I can assure you that was WAY more intense than what we're seeing now. In fact what we're seeing now isn't an apocalypse of any sort. Basically a bunch of huge tech companies staffed up during the pandemic years and now a combination of high interest rates and a slowing (relative to expectations) economy is battering their stock price. So the acti…

Yeah it's really annoying seeing so many people talk about this recession like it's catastrophic. They clearly were too young for the dotcom bubble, let alone 2008. Getting tired of everyone in their mid 20s to early 30s experiencing baby's first recession and thinking the world is ending.

Well, everyone has a first recession. Same situation as https://xkcd.com/1053/

Re: GitHub to lay off 10% and close all offices

#507

Post by margorczynski »

electrondood wrote: post #23

When I visited the GitHub office in SF in 2017, it was nearly empty. Given how extravagant and beautiful it is, it struck me as a colossal waste of money even then.

Kinda shows that most people would choose remote and less commute over an office even as amazing as this one.

For senior management + owners this is even better as with the remote-only approach suddenly they have global access to a much cheaper talent pool.

Re: GitHub to lay off 10% and close all offices

#508

Post by reaperducer »

rossdavidh wrote: post #420

Closing all offices, I have to say, makes it way easier to do more layoffs. Having been through layoffs in semiconductor manufacturing in the 90's, when you had to, you know, get the people from work and take them to a place and all that, it involved paying a lot of money for extra security and such. With no offices, it's a lot easier, and you never have to meet the person face to face. Five years from now, I think w…

uh oh, they like to think of their employees as being like virtual servers

We are all cattle, not pets.

Re: GitHub to lay off 10% and close all offices

#509

Post by olivermuty »

dafelst wrote: post #481
Bilal_io wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact they're closing all offices and switching to fully-remote suggests it was Github's decision. Microsoft doesn't seem pro WFH

A bunch of my former co-workers at MSFT are working from home 100% of the time. Maybe it is a per organization thing.

Satya proudly announced WFH as a thing you could do around mid pandemic, then it was bastardized as it went down the orgs.

Some are 100% wfh, vast majority is some arbitrary %.

Re: GitHub to lay off 10% and close all offices

#510

Post by sahila »

mrtranscendence wrote: post #387
bob1029 wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Hence, they would not be beholden to shareholder pressures. Private companies have shareholders & related interests/pressure as well.

True, but Gabe Newell owns over 50% of Valve so I'm guessing the pressure in this case is more limited.

Even that wouldn’t explain google and meta as the founders own over 50% of voting shares.
Post reply on HN