All those layoffs sound super bad of ppl in developed countries and super good for ppl in less developed countries.
Im getting twice as much offers now and salary ranges double every few weeks.
GitHub to lay off 10% and close all offices
561–570 of 907 posts
Re: GitHub to lay off 10% and close all offices
#562I 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…
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Re: GitHub to lay off 10% and close all offices
#563Earlier 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.
I'll contend that while I've been fully taken advantage of remote work (and probably want my next job to be remote too), I still fully believe it's a long term "leading lambs to the slaughter" type of plan. Companies save big on remote in so many ways. No more offices. No more weekly happy hours (just do a company retreat every 6 months). They can now depress salaries even further because they have a wider pool from…
> they have a wider pool from which to choose
This goes both ways for employer and employee
Re: GitHub to lay off 10% and close all offices
#564Earlier quoted context omitted.
The whole experience the last few years has taught me a valuable lesson about how simple and reactive all of these tech companies are. No one really knows what they are doing. Other than a very few special people, most of the leaders at these major tech companies are not super-geniuses. They are human like the rest of us and subject to all that it means... Irrational, over-reactive, subject to the whims of the stock…
I find it freeing to know that no one really knows what they are doing. Looking into startup world from academia, it seemed like these people really were thoughtful and strategic in how they operated. After getting into a couple very well funded startups, and seeing how the sausage is made, you realize that no one knows what they are doing. It's not that they're stupid, just that business is hard and the environment…
Getting someone to give you money for a product is always hard. We see things all around us that we and others pay for every day, but that's just survivorship bias. It doesn't stop many of us from thinking it's easy, "there's n-billion people on the internet, if I can get 1%..."
Re: GitHub to lay off 10% and close all offices
#565Closing 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…
Closing all offices enables GitHub to hire in cheaper geographies. Seems that the San Francisco headquarter was their only real office anyway,and I estimate approx 400 GitHubbers were working from there (55000 sqft office space, tech typically uses 150 sqft per employee). Gradually re-hiring those in cheaper geographies plus reduction of perks can mean quite significant savings and is another stab at Silicon Valley.
Re: GitHub to lay off 10% and close all offices
#566When 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.
They even had a full-scale replica of the Oval Office there https://twitter.com/harrymccracken/status/710956599477534720...
On the seal: "melius simul quam solus" means: "better together than alone." On the scale of extravagant perks and celebrations of success it is a fairly minor and inexpensive one.
Re: GitHub to lay off 10% and close all offices
#567I am absolutely certain this is to suppress wages and employee rights. It is a coordinated effort across the industry and should be immediately investigated.
No. They all knew they over hired and were simply waiting for the first one to make a move. And, if you look at the numbers relatively, these are barely a scratch with the numbers hired over the last few years.
Re: GitHub to lay off 10% and close all offices
#568I'm really behind. I thought Github had no offices, no org chart, and full comp transparency. Was that a very early version during a bubble? There's probably a book I could read by now.
Re: GitHub to lay off 10% and close all offices
#569Fortune now confirming: https://fortune.com/2023/02/09/github-is-laying-off-10-of-st...
>i) Effective immediately, we will be moving laptop refreshes from three years to four years. ii) We will be moving to Microsoft Teams for the sole purpose of video conferencing, saving significant cost and simplifying cross-company and customer conversations Layoffs and having to use teams? Talk about a morale hit
Forcing people to use Teams wouldn't fly in a just world: it's a very cruel and unusual punishment.
Re: GitHub to lay off 10% and close all offices
#570Earlier 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.
I'll contend that while I've been fully taken advantage of remote work (and probably want my next job to be remote too), I still fully believe it's a long term "leading lambs to the slaughter" type of plan. Companies save big on remote in so many ways. No more offices. No more weekly happy hours (just do a company retreat every 6 months). They can now depress salaries even further because they have a wider pool from…
> I'll contend that while I've been fully taken advantage of remote work ...
I think you meant " fully takING advantafe of remote work ". Not to nitpick. I just genuinely thought you meant you were taken advantage of by your employer.