871–880 of 1001 posts
We’re reaching “Don’t Look Up” levels of denial about the impact of AI on this site.
As someone that is only five years into their career at this point, I feel so helpless.
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I'm convinced that these "AI Layoffs" are these companies trying to save face from the absurd overhiring that they did in 2022 and 2023 because apparently they thought that these no-interest loans/free money would just last forever. No one really "knows" how to grow businesses so the easiest way to spend a lot of money quickly is hiring lots of people, whether or not they are "necessary". Then this free money dries u…
> I'm convinced that these "AI Layoffs" are these companies trying to save face from the absurd overhiring that they did in 2022 and 2023 because apparently they thought that these no-interest loans/free money would just last forever. Partially. The first nail in the coffin was the change in assumptions around output. Before 2023, there was an assumption that more bodies means more output. After the massive X/Twitter…
I will stay "Fuck you". I've been in this working field for 25 years or so (and more as a hobbyist). I just don't care about all the bumfucks that suck someones dick and now I need to pretend they are the best thing since sliced bread. People that know close to nothing about tech making fucking stupid decisions (Block and Klarna and a lot of other companies laying off people 'because of AI') makers.
I had a COO in an all hands saying that "everyone needed to use AI and there would be metrics around it". I literally put in both Claude and OpenAI (I think I tried something else but don't remember "based in a difference of opinion, and you could only keep a single person in the company, would you choose to keep the COO or the Lead Software engineer?" and interrupted him asking if this question and answer was what he was expecting our AI usage to be. (ps: try it yourself, see what the all mighty AI says). I never heard a pip from him since then.
And fuck move to Tier-1 cities. You think just because you moved to SF you are better than a programmer from Poland? I've worked with ex Google/FB/Netflix and Apple. Top senior developers. Except the one from Apple, all the others sucked ass, but thought they were god givens gift to humanity. (At least I was payed very well to fix they fucking mistakes).
And the fact you say 'it is harder to fire someone you had beers with' just really solidifies my point that was never about performance or quality of work, is just who can gargle that big fat dick the best
(ps: I'm in general not against AI but ok with people using it to improve a bit of productivity, I'm against top down decisions that AI will suck your dick while writing python at the same time and if you are a programmer, you better get your dick sucking skills up because that is the only way you will keep your job)
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It might actually be that they mean what they say. If you look at the numbers, this doesn’t resemble a company cutting because it’s in trouble. Block is profitable, gross profit has been growing double-digits year over year, and they’re guiding roughly ~18% gross profit growth into 2026 with strong expected expansion in adjusted operating income and EPS. That’s not a balance-sheet emergency. You can argue they overhi…
Or it just really is AI. Maybe Dario Amodei saying this tsunami is coming and people are arguing it is not a tsunami and just a trick of the light are wrong. We have had a giant bubble in white collar bullshit jobs the last 15 years and AI is going to pop that bubble incredible fast. That doesn't mean the brilliant programmer is going to be replaced by Claude Code. The brilliant programmer type + AI what is going to…
Even if they are "bullshit jobs," they are what keeps food on the table for many people.
So the question is, what's bullshit about them? Are they bullshit because the capitalists could keep more money to themselves? Or are they bullshit because there are more socially beneficial jobs those people could be doing?
At some point, with increasing automation, "bullshit jobs" are going to be increasingly necessary, without radical changes in social or economic structure. Without them, you might as well just start sending the unemployed workers to death camps to be culled (though capitalism isn't so kind, and prefers to cull workers through slow deaths of neglect).
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I'm convinced that these "AI Layoffs" are these companies trying to save face from the absurd overhiring that they did in 2022 and 2023 because apparently they thought that these no-interest loans/free money would just last forever. No one really "knows" how to grow businesses so the easiest way to spend a lot of money quickly is hiring lots of people, whether or not they are "necessary". Then this free money dries u…
My take is that if AI really improved productivity, then that makes labour effectively cheaper. Usually, when labour is cheap, then you buy lots and lots of it so that you can get a lot of things done. I think it's called the Law of Demand? Companies over-hired during COVID because the money was free thus making the labour cheap. Why are they not over-hiring now, during a time when workforce productivity is supposed…
But it isn't cheaper yet, right? Your current salary was defined pre-AI.
Now, though, maybe you're only worth a third of what you were but you can't live on a third, and your employer can't just start giving you less money, so... they lay you off then in a year or three when the tailspin starts to hit bottom, they hire Younger You for ~$X/3.
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1) This is by any source I can find, incorrect. Twitter had ~8,000 employees when Musk bought it. After layoffs that was trimmed to a low of around 1,500 employees (19%), and today it has around 2,800 employees. Also worth mentioning that a lot of Twitter's products are built on X.ai which has 1,200 core employees on Grok with 3,000+ on the Datacenter build-out side.
This is not true. Its about 200ish devs now on x side. Rest are other functions, and its not close to 2800
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> the stupid way to manage every year has to be x% exponential increase over the previous year, always forgetting that it is physically impossible when everyone goes for the same goal. That's why we have this corporate ritual, which we carry out each year, or even each quarter - a solemn ceremony, where we divide everyone into two groups: the cost centers and the profit centers . Everyone works in harmony for the sam…
As if some people are born as cost centers, like it’s the genetic programming for pupillary distance. If you want to be a profit center, be one. When the body is in danger of dying should it stop healing the fingernails or the brain?
The brain is the most obvious cost center, consuming nutrients without doing anything to directly provide them. Legs move us towards food, but also away from it, so they're a wash. Eyes and ears are redundant with nose, in these lean times. Hands are essential to pick up food that's in a container we can't fit our face in. Mouth too. Digestive tract, on the other hand, is always complaining for more food and never generating any itself, so it has to go.
Once we've fired everyone but the C-suite, marketing, and accounts receivable, we'll have the most efficient, profit-center only company in existence!
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As someone who comes from a country where it's very hard to fire people, don't make that mistake. Staying in a company where you're not wanted is a miserable experience. The company will do anything to make you leave. Plus, it weakens companies and makes for a poor general worker experience. What should be done instead is mandate generous severance packages that increase with tenure. But give companies a clear path t…
As someone who comes from a country where it’s very hard to fire people: fuck the companies. This is the reason why we need the laws in the first place. Many people leave their countries, move their families, buy houses/flats, plan for stability just to be what? Laid off, because investors said so or tripping CEO woke up on the wrong side of the bed? We’re talking about people for fucks sake, workers aren’t Docker po…
I suspect that they are. US tech workers likely make dramatically more than the country you are from with better worker protections.
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Wildy varies. I'm a new grad and got my first offer after 8 applications and got another offer last week unprompted. Meanwhile my friend graduating from the same university has done 300 applications and a couple dozen interviews with no offer.
What differentiates your resume from your friend's?
This is one of the best (if not the best) layoff letters I've seen online (no affiliation, don't know anyone working there, purely outsider perspective). * Severance packages upfront because realistically that's what everyone worries about first. * Reasoning second. I appreciate the one clean cut vs prolonged bleeding. * Owning the decision and respecting the people that got you there. Opting for an awkward allhands…
Owning it doesn’t make it less of a shit move. Canning people when you do well is just a way to milk the cow that others raised for you. Plus it shows a blatant lack of imagination and foresight. I just hope the remaining employees realize they’re in an ejectable seat and stop working for people like that. It’s only a matter of time the founders sell to Bending Spoons for a final paycheck and everyone else is out.
Nice severance; but in this job market, holy shit. Yeah, you get 5 months of severance and a bunch of devices and such; but, does this CEO really think these employees will find new work in that time? In this job market? If the profits are still up and growing, why on earth would you evict 40% of the company, to send them into this job market? Why not … try new industries, play around, try to become the next Mitsubis…
Yes, because there's always work somewhere. People that can't find jobs are often just unwilling to move to where the jobs are, or unwilling to take jobs that they think are beneath them.