Oracle slashes 30k jobs

Post by whatisthiseven » Tue, Mar 31, 2026, 5:48 PM UTC

prepend wrote: post #511

seanhunter wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Short answer: today I think there is genuinely nothing that anyone should use oracle for, but their database used to be seriously far ahead of the competition. A very long time ago (circa 2000) there were basically 2 databases that worked for use cases where you needed high availability and vertical scalability and those were Oracle and Sybase and Oracle was really the only game in town if you actually wanted certain…

I disagree as I was running clustered sql server 6.5 and 7 in 1998 for hundreds of concurrent users doing millions of reads per hour on NT basically commodity boxes. Replaced it with Oracle for 100x cost and lost performance. I think even back then you were usually better off with distributed databases running mysql or postgres over Oracle. Although people liked to think a giant Oracle db was better.

Post by jimkleiber » Tue, Mar 31, 2026, 5:50 PM UTC

Aurornis wrote: post #525

jimkleiber wrote: post #484

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe the solution is to not do mass layoffs. Not sure there's a dignified way to let go of many humans at the same time with almost no reason for why they're being let go except maybe a vague profitability scorecard. And also to expect and manage people snapping and giving them an off-ramp, financially but emotionally as well and maybe professionally, too. Why not try to help them find other jobs? Companies don't ju…

> Maybe the solution is to not do mass layoffs. Not sure there's a dignified way to let go of many humans at the same time The number of people included in a single layoff wasn't a factor. The people who snapped treated it as a personal affront and wanted revenge on the company. If anything, being laid off in a large group made it feel less personal to people. The people who felt unfairly singled out were the angries…

Post by muskstinks » Tue, Mar 31, 2026, 5:54 PM UTC

B1FF_PSUVM wrote: post #195

baumy wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember reading this post years ago, and it has stuck in my brain ever since: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18442941 So I suspect the answer is: they need _at least_ 10x as many engineers to get things done as you would expect. Maybe more like 50x

That was a highlights grade comment ( https://news.ycombinator.com/highlights ) And the last comment by 'oraguy' - I hope he just picked up another id because "never work for Oracle again" ...

Post by Aurornis » Tue, Mar 31, 2026, 5:55 PM UTC

niek_pas wrote: post #517

Aurornis wrote: post #508

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have to be honest that I'm confused by the comment, too. Including the edit about how being out of work would be traumatic, as if losing a job was unique to the United States.

My point was that going from (let's say) 'employed, productive member of the workforce, with social relationships at work' to 'sitting at home collecting unemployment' with no transition, no coaching, in the scope of 5 minutes seems like a traumatic rupture. (I'm not saying I _know_ better, just how I think I would _experience_ such a thing.) Losing a job happens everywhere, but there are different ways to handle it,…

Post by triceratops » Tue, Mar 31, 2026, 5:55 PM UTC

wnevets wrote: post #494

triceratops wrote: post #464

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> what exactly should they be held accountable for? Bad leadership. Costing the company a ton of money and goodwill. Need I go on?

The wasted cashed is only part of the story. Just think of the wasted man hours spent on integrating 30K new employees that supposedly the company didn't need. The time spent in meetings about restructuring departments, new points of contacts, reassignment of duties, figuring out who to promote, training the new hires, etc. Now the company gets to it all again in reverse with much lower moral and excitement. The amou…