Oracle slashes 30k jobs • Hacker News Board

Re: Oracle slashes 30k jobs

#711

Post by razakel » Tue, Mar 31, 2026, 9:03 PM UTC

WalterBright wrote: post #420

wiseowise wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The one where one trip to ER can leave you on the street and students have six digit debts?

Ironically, you picked two systems that are heavily interfered with by the government. Back in the Great Depression, my great grandmother got sick and was hospitalized, and they took care of her until she passed. My grandfather did not have enough to pay the bill. The hospital told him not to worry, just pay what he could. It took him a while, but he paid the bill in full.

Was the hospital affiliated with a religious order?

Re: Oracle slashes 30k jobs

#712

Post by bombcar » Tue, Mar 31, 2026, 9:03 PM UTC

OkayPhysicist wrote: post #560

ilovefrog wrote: post #549

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's crazy to me that companies are allowed to do this, given that staff are generally expected to be accommodating and give notice when they quit.

Expected, yes, required, not at all. It is completely legal to just stop showing up one day.

You also don't have to give back 6-12 weeks of pay when you give your 2 weeks notice.

Re: Oracle slashes 30k jobs

#713

Post by mirekrusin » Tue, Mar 31, 2026, 9:06 PM UTC

tombert wrote: post #641

mirekrusin wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

37signals, vanguard, costco, proton, fastmail, mullvad vpn, framework, automattic, valve, patagonia, lego, linear, hetzner, tarsnap, ...

Ok, and when you apply for and get rejected from all those companies, what do you do then? Suppose you give me a list of literally every company you think is ok, and I were declined by all of them, then what? This isn't a theoretical question for me. I've applied to and been declined from all the companies you listed (except tarsnap because I didn't see a careers page). What exactly do I do then? Do I then just decid…

Create your own company.

Re: Oracle slashes 30k jobs

#714

Post by tokioyoyo » Tue, Mar 31, 2026, 9:08 PM UTC

wnevets wrote: post #308

Very often people will defend these kind of layouts as the result of overhiring but then shouldn't the leadership that over hired 30K people also be held accountable?

If you follow the “stock price is the golden indicator of company’s well being attitude”, then over-hiring at that point was a great decision. And cutting the headcount is also a great decision right now. So they did nothing wrong.

I personally don’t agree with this, but it’s easy to say “overhiring was bad”, when at that point, it might’ve been a great business decision. Things just have changed now.

Re: Oracle slashes 30k jobs

#715

Post by rootusrootus » Tue, Mar 31, 2026, 9:08 PM UTC

bombcar wrote: post #699

danmaz74 wrote: post #373

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For the morale of remaining employees?

I've seen layoffs with severance so good that the remaining employees felt bad themselves.

Ha! So true. Our last layoff had severance so generous that I told my manager next time pick me.

Re: Oracle slashes 30k jobs

#716

Post by mirekrusin » Tue, Mar 31, 2026, 9:09 PM UTC

HDThoreaun wrote: post #576

mirekrusin wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

37signals, vanguard, costco, proton, fastmail, mullvad vpn, framework, automattic, valve, patagonia, lego, linear, hetzner, tarsnap, ...

Valve takes 30% of revenue from developers because they have cornered the distribution market. Their margins on the steam store are probably second only to the apple store's, another heinously immoral product.

If everybody does it wrong and you know the right way - sounds like you’re sitting on a million dollar idea.

Re: Oracle slashes 30k jobs

#717

Post by mirekrusin » Tue, Mar 31, 2026, 9:11 PM UTC

ivell wrote: post #159

mirekrusin wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

37signals, vanguard, costco, proton, fastmail, mullvad vpn, framework, automattic, valve, patagonia, lego, linear, hetzner, tarsnap, ...

"You either die a hero, or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain" It is only a matter of time...

People can’t wait to make heroes villains.

Re: Oracle slashes 30k jobs

#718

Post by greatgib » Tue, Mar 31, 2026, 9:21 PM UTC

At the same time I'm happy about this news for the feeling of "justice" to have people without ethic working for such a bad company getting what they deserves. And the company going down even if just a little bit.

But on the other side, I'm afraid that the fired employees will go to work for other companies contaminating them with the harmful spirit against customers.

Re: Oracle slashes 30k jobs

#719

Post by meatmanek » Tue, Mar 31, 2026, 9:23 PM UTC

jeffbee wrote: post #313

tmoertel wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When laying people off, better companies will often accelerate vesting so that the departing employees get additional stock. For example, Google does this: We’ll also offer a severance package starting at 16 weeks salary plus two weeks for every additional year at Google, and accelerate at least 16 weeks of GSU vesting. https://blog.google/company-news/inside-google/message-ceo/j...

OK but for most people a 16-week acceleration is still forfeiting 92% of unvested shares.

By the same logic, wouldn't 4 months of severance pay be equivalent to forfeiting 92% of salary?

For something paid at regular intervals like RSUs, you really should never be looking at the total value of the grant, and instead think of it in terms of how many shares per paycheck/month/quarter/year you vest.

If you've got a cliff coming up, that's different. I'd be pissed if a company laid me off 11.5 months into a 12 month cliff or a few weeks before an annual bonus and didn't accelerate the vesting / bonus.

Re: Oracle slashes 30k jobs

#720

Post by billywhizz » Tue, Mar 31, 2026, 9:24 PM UTC

wilsonnb3 wrote: post #267

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…

Just curious, how was SQL Server perceived at the time compared to Sybase and Oracle? I know it originated as a port of Sybase.

SQL Server was very good and used in a lot of enterprises. ime the decision between Oracle and SQL Server tended to be down to whether the IT department or company was a "Microsoft Shop" or not. There were a lot of things that came free with SQL Server licenses and it had really nice integrations with other Microsoft enterprise systems software and desktop software.

Oracle was definitely seen as the more mature and resilient (and expensive!) RDBMS in all the years I worked in that space. It also ran on Unix/Linux whereas SQL Server was windows only. Many enterprises didn't like running Microsoft servers, for lots of (usually good) reasons.