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GitHub to lay off 10% and close all offices

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

#811

Post by quacksilver »

WorldMaker wrote: post #386
toomuchtodo wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd be interested what the financial analysis looks like leasing or owning hubs vs a cadence of offsites annually remote first orgs usually hold, considering meeting space + hoteling for staff during the meet. I'll chip in for this analysis and blog post!

That sounds like an interesting analysis, but I'm curious if this is one of those moments where economics around it will be deeply shifting over the next few years and any analysis will likely have to adjust frequently. For instance, even before the remote work shift in 2020 many cities were heavily competing on conference and hotel space allocations for an interesting variety of economic reasons (tourism dollars tha…

I have been to some fun offsites in Puerto Vallarta. I imagine other Mexican / central American towns/resorts are also available. It was cheap compared to a US city, everyone could fly there quickly and you could hang around as a tourist by booking FTO afterwards and delaying your flight back. (company didn't care if you picked a cheaper flight home a week or two later when expensing).

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

#812

Post by carlmr »

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.

I think comments like yours are interesting. You say people on HN shit on both, pretending you caught the hive-mind in some kind of hypocrisy. I'd bet there are more than two people here that can hold more than two opinions. Why would you expect everyone to be of the same opinion?

And the two extremes don't even cover the whole spectrum of opinions you can have.

I personally like working in the office, I believe humans are social animals that need more than just interaction through voice and crappy video with a bad angle, yet I hate the commute. So I'm completely fine with the hybrid approach we have right now at my company. Although I would understand if for cost-savings they'd make us 100% remote.

Working from home where I'm mostly independent is great, I can concentrate much better. Working from home on something that needs collaboration is hard. Meetings in Teams are psychologically exhausting. You can't see the reactions of people when you present something. This feedback is necessary.

Maybe if we had some kind of VR/metaverse kind of thing it would help, but it would need to convey facial micro-expressions in real-time. Audio would need to be placed appropriately in the room.

Like for VR meetings to make sense it shouldn't be necessary to mute your microphone. The app would need to make it sound like you're in a room together and multiple people can be distinguished properly by ear.

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

#813

Post by scott_w »

puckerup44 wrote: post #775
acheron wrote: post #770

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being social is fine. That’s what I have real friends for. I don’t need pretend friends at work.

I always see this parroted by people on HN and it's such a pathetic stance to take. Every job I've been at I've formed close friends. My closest friends include people from every job and I don't think it's a coincidence. These friendships are just as real (and I'd argue stronger) than your "real" friends. Maybe the problem is with you and you are just somebody people don't like? Or you think you shouldn't be making f…

Why did you jump to assuming people don’t like the parent poster? It’s totally possible that they get on well with everyone but don’t feel the need to go for after work drinks with them.

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

#814

Post by scott_w »

oblio wrote: post #581
jjeaff wrote: post #531

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or, just do some socializing outside of work.

People keep saying that. Humans don't work like that. Almost all meaningful relations are based on prolonged proximity.

My dad retired from his factory job last year. Outside of company Xmas events, he met his colleagues exactly 0 times in a social context while he worked there.

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

#815

Post by scott_w »

puckerup44 wrote: post #776
sanderjd wrote: post #649

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very few (but not zero!) of my meaningful relations have been through work.

This is so sad to hear and it's insane how many people on HN are against the idea of forming friendships at work. Ya'll really are socially inept.

Nobody is against it. People are just reflecting their lived experience.

What’s sad and socially inept is that you’re demonstrating no ability to empathise with that.

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

#816

Post by sokoloff »

fsckboy wrote: post #782
sokoloff wrote: post #767

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you arguing that low-skill workers should then choose to form a union?

I understand why low-skill workers want to form unions, just like I understand how people want to buy gas and drive a 1 ton internal combustion engine around by themselves, it makes their lives better in the short term. but in that comment I went on to say that the overall (aggregate, total) wages paid by greedy, rapacious capitalists to low-wage workers (taken as a group) will be higher without unions. It's well kno…

Thanks for that longer (and gracious) explanation.

Upon a more careful re-reading, your post is more clear; I chalk up my misreading to reading and replying while commuting back home from the airport. The fault is in my reading not your writing.

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

#817

Post by rswail »

wankle wrote: post #714
philistine wrote: post #689

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The workers will always lose out because the employer has more power. Accept that reality, and that the simple counter-balance is workers organizing.

[flagged]

How are Unions "organized Mafia" (btw, Mafia, by definition is "organized crime") yet organizations like the Chamber of Commerce and other "business associations" are not?

Why are businesses allowed to "organize" and "influence politics" (Citizens United decision anyone?) yet when a union does it, it's considered somehow theft from workers and "socialist".

If capitalism is about regulated free markets, then why is a regulated labor market not "free"? Unregulated markets are both anarchic and lead to oligarchic and monopolistic behavior, as can be seen in areas like big tech etc.

Capital "vs" labor is by definition about labor attempting to extract as much of the profit of their labor as they can, while capital will be working to achieve the opposite. To ensure that this is at least managed, a regulated market, with an impartial regulator and legitimate market laws is required.

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

#818

Post by thanatropism »

puckerup44 wrote: post #775
acheron wrote: post #770

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being social is fine. That’s what I have real friends for. I don’t need pretend friends at work.

I always see this parroted by people on HN and it's such a pathetic stance to take. Every job I've been at I've formed close friends. My closest friends include people from every job and I don't think it's a coincidence. These friendships are just as real (and I'd argue stronger) than your "real" friends. Maybe the problem is with you and you are just somebody people don't like? Or you think you shouldn't be making f…

I had friends at the office and even a kind of crush. One month into the pandemic, we just didn't care about trying to keep the non-work banter going. It's a forced situation; romance as a result of shared stressors in particular is well documented, but not necessarily healthier than just meeting someone randomly.

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

#819

Post by rswail »

fsckboy wrote: post #782
sokoloff wrote: post #767

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you arguing that low-skill workers should then choose to form a union?

I understand why low-skill workers want to form unions, just like I understand how people want to buy gas and drive a 1 ton internal combustion engine around by themselves, it makes their lives better in the short term. but in that comment I went on to say that the overall (aggregate, total) wages paid by greedy, rapacious capitalists to low-wage workers (taken as a group) will be higher without unions. It's well kno…

While I understand your argument, and it has some legitimacy, particularly in relation to anti-trust regulation and moving back to actually enforcing the laws, as opposed to what has been happening since the late 1980s.

Low-skill workers only have the power to withdraw their labor (which is their only negotiating leverage) when their labor is required.

As for unions getting higher wages for their members, that's their job (by definition). It's not at the expense of unemployment for their non-members.

The "hard core" market solution you're proposing is what used to be implemented ever since the anti-trust laws and regulations were passed in the early 20th century. Standard Oil was broken up and the companies that exist as a result today (Mobil, Exxon, etc) have all done very well in spite of Standard Oil being split. The same applies to AT&T and IBM (less so, due to their own management) and Microsoft.

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

#820

Post by rswail »

robertcope wrote: post #678
ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #620

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

As someone that has dealt with local (Australia) and remote (Slovakia, Mumbai, Phillipines, Thailand) outsourcing, the problem is not the individual workers, or even language, time zones etc.

The problem is more about the company/organization that is doing the outsourcing than the outsourced work itself. You have to have a clear definition of what you are trying to outsource. Is it "just coding"? Is it "some design, but not analysis"? Is it "do everything below a certain level of management" (the worst)?

If you don't know what you want other than "cheap" then you won't get either of the other two qualities of "good" or "quick".

Developers aren't fungible, neither are designers, or analysts or architects. About the only people that are fungible and easily replaceable are project managers (sorry, buzzword compliant "product owners" and "SAFe scaled Agile practitioners").

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