5 ms·

Many years ago, I worked at Intel. Layoffs/restructuring/reorging were...common. Often affecting thousands of people. It's brutal.

era86 6y ago
I feel like this is true with ANY size company, small or large. It's a business deal, you're not "joining a family".
- CydeWeys 6y ago
  It's definitely much more true of some companies than others.
nojito 6y ago
This isn't unique to mega-corps.
bluetwo 6y ago
Didn't intel also have a "lay off the bottom 2% yearly" culture? I recall reading about that years back.
- stakkur 6y ago
  Without risking some random Intel lawyer reprisal, it was often worse than that. At one point, Intel had the 'ranking and rating' that was once used at Microsoft. I think this is called 'forced ranking' today. My god.
  - Exmoor 6y ago
    At least at Microsoft it was called "stack ranking." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitality_curve https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitality_curve
- qdog 6y ago
  I think it was more like the bottom 5%. The theory is by cutting the bottom and always hiring you constantly improve your workforce. The reality is then you will always fill reqs, sometimes as quickly as possible, to make sure there is a sacrifice for the gods. Perversely, a team of high-performers is actually punished, as everyone is also ranked against each other, so even if you have the top 10 performers in the company, one or more of them may be fired and will often have their compensation effected (less/no RSUs etc.). Certainly that was how it felt about 5 years ago, not sure about today.
- hn_throwaway_99 6y ago
  To be honest, I've been on both sides of the fence for this one, and it's a tough call: 1. The "periodically cull the bottom" way of doing things invariably leads to a toxic culture with people looking over their shoulder. 2. Conversely, I've been in tech companies where it was EXTREMELY difficult to fire anyone who wasn't outright awful. Over time that can really erode your culture because people who are on the poor side of mediocre hang around and weigh everything down. The best solution is to always have high standards, but evaluate people against those actual standards, and don't be afraid to take action if necessary, but don't have arbitrary X% cutoffs.
hckr_news 6y ago
I worked at UHG’s tech arm called Optum and layoffs/churns were very common. Entire teams can just disappear off the floor without a moment’s notice. They’ve offshored most of their work to other countries and most of the offices stateside are ghost buildings. UHG execs are just focused on its stock ticker.

era86 6y ago

I feel like this is true with ANY size company, small or large. It's a business deal, you're not "joining a family".

CydeWeys 6y ago
It's definitely much more true of some companies than others.

nojito 6y ago

This isn't unique to mega-corps.

bluetwo 6y ago

Didn't intel also have a "lay off the bottom 2% yearly" culture? I recall reading about that years back.

stakkur 6y ago
Without risking some random Intel lawyer reprisal, it was often worse than that. At one point, Intel had the 'ranking and rating' that was once used at Microsoft. I think this is called 'forced ranking' today. My god.
- Exmoor 6y ago
  At least at Microsoft it was called "stack ranking." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitality_curve https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitality_curve
qdog 6y ago
I think it was more like the bottom 5%. The theory is by cutting the bottom and always hiring you constantly improve your workforce. The reality is then you will always fill reqs, sometimes as quickly as possible, to make sure there is a sacrifice for the gods. Perversely, a team of high-performers is actually punished, as everyone is also ranked against each other, so even if you have the top 10 performers in the company, one or more of them may be fired and will often have their compensation effected (less/no RSUs etc.). Certainly that was how it felt about 5 years ago, not sure about today.
hn_throwaway_99 6y ago
To be honest, I've been on both sides of the fence for this one, and it's a tough call: 1. The "periodically cull the bottom" way of doing things invariably leads to a toxic culture with people looking over their shoulder. 2. Conversely, I've been in tech companies where it was EXTREMELY difficult to fire anyone who wasn't outright awful. Over time that can really erode your culture because people who are on the poor side of mediocre hang around and weigh everything down. The best solution is to always have high standards, but evaluate people against those actual standards, and don't be afraid to take action if necessary, but don't have arbitrary X% cutoffs.

hckr_news 6y ago

I worked at UHG’s tech arm called Optum and layoffs/churns were very common. Entire teams can just disappear off the floor without a moment’s notice. They’ve offshored most of their work to other countries and most of the offices stateside are ghost buildings. UHG execs are just focused on its stock ticker.