GitHub to lay off 10% and close all offices • Hacker News Board

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

#671

Post by zeroonetwothree » Fri, Feb 10, 2023, 12:55 AM UTC

geuis wrote: post #428

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…

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.

Perhaps it's not the same people...

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

#672

Post by NegativeK » Fri, Feb 10, 2023, 12:57 AM UTC

Sebb767 wrote: post #317

NegativeK wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I honestly don't understand the passionate opinions about chat/conference software. They're all doing the same thing in roughly the same way, and I don't have a computer that's ancient enough to really notice resource hogging.

> and I don't have a computer that's ancient enough to really notice resource hogging. Most likely you don't use a conference software bad enough. That being said, having useful search, a quick UI and actual availability shown is massively helpful. A great comms tool also makes inter-department chats easy and fun (for example via #random). Lastly, the amount of time wasted with "can you see my screen?"/"can you hear…

> Most likely you don't use a conference software bad enough.

Fair; I could definitely believe that.

But among Zoom, Teams, Discord, and Slack (there's probably another one thrown in there,) I haven't had issues that really stand out to me. I've seen social workplace issues that made comms suck, but they transferred between chat apps.

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

#673

Post by billti » Fri, Feb 10, 2023, 12:57 AM UTC

__oh_es wrote: post #638

scarface74 wrote: post #618

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The average tenure at most tech companies are around 3 years. I assure you that most of your “friends” at work won’t keep in touch with you three years after you leave.

Perhaps the UK is different (Im making assumptions obvs) but I’ve kept in touch with quite a few from each job I’ve worked in - potentially 50% of my friends are people Ive worked with. I also see “acquaintances” keeping in touch with ex-colleagues on some social media sites, so I know Im not an exception. I appreciate “most” isnt all, but your comment is very different to my decade of experience. Work is a great pla…

I do think there's a big cultural difference. I've worked over a decade each in the UK, Australia, and now the US. In the UK and Australia, it was very common to hang out with colleagues socially, but I see it rarely in the US. Maybe it has to do with the "pub culture" in the UK and Aus, and a few beers after work being common, which it doesn't seem to be in the US (at least where I've lived - places with a 'bar scene' like New York may be quite different).

I may be biased due to getting older and having a family, so I'd expect to hang out after work less anyway, but I observe that generally amongst younger colleagues too.

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

#674

Post by userbinator » Fri, Feb 10, 2023, 12:57 AM UTC

bombcar wrote: post #476

noirbot wrote: post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I generally agree, but it also does feel like just an extension of dogfooding. If you work for a company that has a product that solves a certain business need, it generally makes sense that you wouldn't hire a different company to solve that need. Obviously in this case the reasonable response is that Teams and WebEx are worse products and MS and Cisco haven't shown much inclination to fixing that, but that's more t…

And perhaps those companies having to eat their own shit will make them finally fix them.

If all of Microsoft itself using Teams hasn't fixed the trivial problems with it after all this time, I don't think anything else will.

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

#675

Post by A4ET8a8uTh0 » Fri, Feb 10, 2023, 1:00 AM UTC

tempestn wrote: post #632

andrewmutz wrote: post #589

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is true: employees will be able to choose from far more options, and they will have more competition. The first phase of this is competing with anyone in the US, but soon enough companies will be hiring abroad for zoom-based jobs. If a foreign employee can work in a reasonable time-zone, and has great english language skills, what's the difference?

I think you'll see increasing numbers of Canadians working for US companies (that's already happening). Of course that's little different than hiring from areas in the US outside the major hubs. Somewhat lower average salaries, but similar skills and work habits, same time zones, etc. Expanding further, it's already the case that if you're looking for an international employee with similar skills and capabilities to…

It will be less stable, but I think I agree with your analysis ( and in real terms, when was it really stable .. 50s? ). Oddly, I think it may only add to the 'Previous team didn't know what they were doing. Fix it.' vicious cycle. In a sense, companies will be re-inventing the big 3 consulting companies.

It is not just just English and skill set that is the issue. In my neck of the woods, I just dealt with otherwise really smart data guy, who was giving me something that clearly did not make sense in the business context - not everything can reasonably be placed in a requirement ( assume earth is not flat ).

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

#676

Post by hot_gril » Fri, Feb 10, 2023, 1:02 AM UTC

Ancalagon wrote: post #541

LAC-Tech wrote: post #505

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

This makes it easier for them to fire you and everyone else. Why, even as a contractor, would you be ok with that? Niceties or no you are weakening your own position and the value of you labor.

To take the lucrative job someone less skilled was holding.

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

#677

Post by billti » Fri, Feb 10, 2023, 1:02 AM UTC

thefz wrote: post #460

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…

> Closing all offices, I have to say, makes it way easier to do more layoffs. I don't know. With sufficiently large organizations it's quite easy to lay off people you never crossed eyes with, remote or not.

Exactly. My impression is that in very large orgs the first couple levels of management normally find out about layoffs a couple hours before they have to deliver them. Both to keep the news under wraps and to avoid personal bias, how many and who is usually a decision taken by directors up and HR.

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

#678

Post by robertcope » Fri, Feb 10, 2023, 1:04 AM UTC

ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #620

scarface74 wrote: post #614

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“Depress salaries” == “Now the person in the middle of Nebraska can make more than he could make before without moving to California”

Maybe the HN fear of "depress salaries" isn't someone from Nebraska taking Cali tech jobs, but could be most likely a dog whistle for foreigners from abroad taking US tech jobs. I don't live there anymore but in my home county in Eastern Europe, the WFH boom from 2020 brought in thousands of well paying tech jobs from US companies which might have never arrived if not for Covid. Tech workers there are making bank now…

I 100% think this is the long term play. Once we figure out how to really have "remote only" companies, the "remote" part won't be "remote in the USA" but "remote in some cheap part of the world". We tried this with outsourcing but it failed because we didn't have the "remote" part down... now we do...

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

#679

Post by maerF0x0 » Fri, Feb 10, 2023, 1:05 AM UTC

shaoonb wrote: post #376

maerF0x0 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

which is why America needs deflation, or deflationary pressures (such as devaluation of the dollar against foreign currencies expressed as local price inflation) .

Honest question: how can devaluing the dollar be deflationary?

The key is in the combination of words.

> Devaluing the dollar against a foreign currency.

Ok, so labour traded for global goods intermediated by cash means we can remove the intermediary and think about the just the work for goods trade.

Imagine I work 1 hour for 10 loaves of bread. If I get more bread for my time, my value has inflated, if I get less bread for my time my value has deflated.

Ok now lets add money to the picture. (please excuse unrealistic exchange rates and the lack of profit margins to help illustrate the point)

If I work 1 hour for $20 and it currently buys $30 CAD and $30 CAD buys 10 loaves of Canadian bread, then we have the same scenario as describe before. The price of bread on the shelf in USA is $2 USD, or 6 minutes of my time.

Now looks what happens when we devalue the USD...

I work 1 hour for $20 and it buys $20 CAD (Less than before), and $20 CAD buys 6 2/3rds a loaf of bread. The price of a loaf of bread on the shelf is $3 USD ($20 USD/6.66) or 9 minutes of my labor. See how the price in USD went up? That's the deflation of a currency against another currency.

And that's how US labor becomes "cheaper" because the rest of the world now gets 9 Minutes of your time for one loaf of bread.

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

#680

Post by zeroonetwothree » Fri, Feb 10, 2023, 1:05 AM UTC

afro88 wrote: post #302

mardifoufs wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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

Slowing down laptop refreshes is so short sighted. One of the cheapest productivity boosts you can give someone is a faster laptop. Better than hiring another dev to join a bloated team.

My PC from 2011 still works fine. My 2015 MBP lasted until 2022 (when it broke, it was actually still working fine). So I'm skeptical you really need to be refreshing every 3 years.