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>Unity CEO John Riccitiello told employees two weeks ago that it was on solid financial footing and would not be resorting to layoffs. I know CEOs have to tow

• BowBun 4y ago
  I think the repercussions are just so small that it makes sense to act like this. As an employee, your opinion of the CEO bears little. We've read on HN the few stories of only the most-qualified people being able to cause a stir in high-profile companies when they don't want to work for someone. That's not most of us. On the flipside for the CEO, the board is happy with how they kept employees happy until the layoffs and then cut costs. Shareholders are happy that costs were cut. Other execs are happy that the CEO took the heat. In that CEO's circle, they did a good job and will be hired again to do the same.
• MattGaiser 4y ago
  A lot of it is wordplay. They want to give the impression that they didn't need to do the layoff, as they do have money, but it was the prudent thing to do.
• draw_down 4y ago
• itslennysfault 4y ago
  Several years ago I was working at one of the largest tech companies in the world, and there were rumors of layoffs in our org. We had a huge all hands meeting (over 1000 people in the room), and at the end the VP asked if there were any questions. I straight up asked him if that was happening. Every eye in the room glared at me in surprise. He assured me that was just a rumor and we had nothing to worry about, and "as far as he knew" there were no cuts upcoming. THE NEXT DAY they laid off 100 people. I was not laid off, but I started looking for other work because he lied to my face. About 2 months later I was turning in my badge and was very blunt on my exit questionnaire about the reason.
  • jokethrowaway 4y ago
    VP may have not know about it until the day. The days we did layoffs at my previous company it came as a shock for everyone, including middle managers. The VP got into a long and sudden meeting and then they announced it.
  • Nimitz14 4y ago
    His action was the only rational one. The fact you don't realize that does not make you look intelligent.
    • itslennysfault 4y ago
      Respectfully disagree. The fact that you can't see the flaw in losing the trust of your entire organization does not make you look intelligent. Over the course of the next 6 months all of the top performers left. Some stayed within the company and went outside of that VP's org. Most left for other companies. Most of these people had been with the company 5+ years.
  • dont__panic 4y ago
    I'm no apologist for overpaid middle management, but... I'm not sure what the best response would actually be to this kind of question. If you answer "yes," but the final layoffs aren't finalized... you initiate widespread panic, because everyone worries that they could get laid off. If you answer "no," you're a dishonest snake. If you know exactly which departments are facing layoffs, you could answer "yes" and just jump the gun to announce they layoffs right at that moment, but... you'll still end up stressing a lot of people out and hurting general productivity. Not trying to make up excuses for the lying here, but I'm genuinely curious what a VP should do in this position. Lie for the good of the many? Or be truthful to keep a clean conscience?
    • Dan_Sylveste 4y ago
      >what a VP should do in this position "I don't recall having been told that any layoffs are imminent, but even if I had been told that they were, that would be confidential information and I wouldn't be at liberty to say."
• cptcobalt 4y ago
  John Riccitiello, in his tenure as President and COO of EA, already had a significant negative reputation among gamers following the games business world...
• LegitShady 4y ago
  Toe not tow.
  • aetherson 4y ago
    There was a line that you put your toe on when the crew lined up on old ships!
    • hunter2_ 4y ago
      Participants in races toe the starting line to this day. "Conform" essentially covers all literal and metaphorical usage. I'm not sure how the CEO is conforming to a "party" in this particular case though.
• hysan 4y ago
  CEO of my current company pitched partnering with a consultancy to fill our resource needs (can’t hire anyone). During an org wide meeting, he promised that this wasn’t going to result in layoffs. That we needed to work with them so that they could help. Thus ensued 6 weeks of helping them learn our systems and business processes in a process, that in hindsight, felt like knowledge transferring. After that, a bunch of people were laid off without warning and the CEO has still yet to address the org directly. I have yet to figure out my takeaway from this experience, but it makes me wonder if I prefer incompetence or dishonesty.
  • bombcar 4y ago
    Dishonesty you can work around, incompetence is like insanity; you can't plan for it. And above is literally the plot of Office Space.
    • hef19898 4y ago
      Unfortunately you are right, dishonesty is something you can account for. I'll dishonest over incompetent any day of the week. At least dishonest bears less risk of running an org into the ground than incompetent. if it is both, run as fast as possible.
  • mywittyname 4y ago
    Coming out and saying there won't be any layoffs is code for, there's going to be layoffs.
• AlwaysRock 4y ago
  Yeah what does NOT lying get them? Almost nothing. Laid off folks would still be upset about being laid off. If they lie they get a few more weeks of work from these employees. It sucks but I wouldnt hold my breath on this ever changing. If things don't look good at your company interview elsewhere. Dont trust leadership because they will say what they have to to keep the business going, not to keep you employed.
  • foobarian 4y ago
    Add to that that they probably already had a finalized list. And not lying would probably cause a panic that might cause many people not on the list to leave. It's just very disruptive to an established plan.
• axg11 4y ago
  Every layoff I've witnessed first or second-hand was preceded by the same promise within <2 months from the layoff. I've come to the conclusion it's a necessary evil. These questions are only asked of leaders at companies on a shaky footing. As a CEO, your only option is to deny there will be layoffs. Any other statement will cause panic.
  • foobiekr 4y ago
    Most of the time, official denials like this are official confirmations. You just have to parse the actual statement. Recently, the CEO of a giant and old tech company, got into a meeting with all of his manager and above employees and very, very carefully said "no layoff is planned." Of course not: planned means they have finished.
    • endemic 4y ago
      Exactly. At the point where the question is being asked, you already know the answer.
  • luma 4y ago
    > I've come to the conclusion it's a necessary evil. You can drop the word "necessary" from that statement. We're just saying that CEOs, by the nature of their job, are not to be trusted with anything that might come between the shareholders and the money they think they are due. Let's not say that the poor CEOs are in an untenable position, rather, the sort of person who is comfortable with choosing an investor's bank account over an employee's family is also the sort of person who is likely to be chosen to be CEO.
    • mason55 4y ago
      > the sort of person who is comfortable with choosing an investor's bank account over an employee's family is also the sort of person who is likely to be chosen to be CEO. A hard part about being a leader is doing what's best for the highest number of people. If you're short on runway and the investors tell you that you either lay people off or you're not getting funded, it's not about choosing investors over employees, it's about saving as many employees as you can. In the current climate this is exactly what investors are saying. Ben Horowitz has some good stories about this in The Hard Thing About Hard Things
• JieJie 4y ago
  I was working at Wizards of the Coast in the '90s (pre-Hasbro), right after we moved to a huge and expensive building. They laid off a ton of staff that winter to cut costs. Just completely senseless.
  • madamelic 4y ago
    I genuinely think there is like "Curse of the New Office". Nearly every place I've been ends up either having layoffs or collapsing entirely 6 - 12 months after moving into a bigger office.
• foobiekr 4y ago
  The incompetence was well on display anyway with their acquisition binge. Now that reality is coming back into vogue, a lot more companies than Unity are going to be realizing that revenue, unit economics and profitability actually matter, and most of the high flyers of the last ten years are poorly structured for it.
• TheRealDunkirk 4y ago
  A long time ago, in my Fortune 250, there were rumors flying about a merger with another company. So much so, that the CEO issued a company-wide email that, no, they "were not entertaining any credible offers at the time." I thought that was a weasely way of saying "no," but I was more naive then, and believed him. A month later, they announced that were "merging" with another Fortune 250. That company sold our company off, piece by piece, in a classic raid to prop up their failing business, and then divested the last, biggest piece as private equity. Our CEO was promised the merged CEO position within 2 years. They pulled the ripcord on his golden parachute 1 year into it. He got $19M for the selling out the company, and $15M more for f*cking off, and THEN had the audacity to walk into the old HQ and cry about it. His bio at IU's "notable alumni" says he "retired." Screw him. It was a great company to have worked for, which had lasted over 100 years, and it was gone in 3 years. It's been 20 years now, and I'm still mad about it. He says he regrets it (https://web.archive.org/web/20150726032123/https://www.ibj.com/articles/54056-hunt-a-mea-culpa-over-sale-of-arvin-industries https://web.archive.org/web/20150726032123/https://www.ibj.c...), but when a board throws tens or hundreds of millions at someone, they usually take the deal, and act accordingly.
  • mandeepj 4y ago
    > but when a board throws tens or hundreds of millions at someone, they usually take the deal, and act accordingly. Board also has to act in favor of what's better financially for the company. If that CEO did not have agree for merger, they'd have fired him. At least, he'd have dignity if he choose that and your respect as well, but that does not have paid his bills. I'm not sidelining with anyone.
    • citizenkeen 4y ago
      But they didn't have to lie about it.
      • bink 4y ago
        They're in a pretty tough position if they're negotiating a merger/purchase. Don't those talks usually include an agreement not to disclose them? Something about not wanting it to be used to solicit competing offers? If they're in the middle of talks and someone blabs and an employee asks about it, they effectively either have to blow up the deal, lie, or say "I can't talk about it" (which would be seen as a yes anyways).
• afterburner 4y ago
  CEOs act as marketing at the highest level. I have always assumed they would lie about something like this. In fact it's even more common with lower levels of management (because they can't make the call on their own).
• gernb 4y ago
  I don't know Riccitiello but honeslty I've done this myself (not a CEO). Bascially I beleive I (we) can do something and stated so and within 2 weeks my info / situation changed and I we can no longer do that something. To put it another way, the CEO or founder is often the most optimistic person. Imagine a single founder, they want to believe they'll pull through, get that funding, find the customers, whatever it is that keeps things going up. People will claim a CEO has to be different but I personally think it's human nature for most people to hope/wish/desire/see the best outcome. Unless there is some smoking gun email that says "I'm going to tell them we'll be fine but actually I'm going to layoff a bunch in 2 weeks", my gut says the CEO beleived what he said when he said it.
  • tedivm 4y ago
    This is basically just saying that CEOs are allowed to lie because they're also lying to themselves at the same time, but honestly I think that goes back to the incompetence thing. Two weeks between "no layoffs, we're doing great!" to "yup, we're laying people off" means that the CEO had to be optimistic to the point of delusion (or incompetent, as I said).
    • jjav 4y ago
      > This is basically just saying that CEOs are allowed to lie because they're also lying to themselves at the same time, but honestly I think that goes back to the incompetence thing. To be fair, there are times when they layoffs are imminent but the CEO keeps optimism up and sometimes the customer/funding does show up and the money doesn't run out. You typically don't hear about these ones (or only years later).
• symlinkk 4y ago
  He’s extremely competent at lying to make the company look good
• munificent 4y ago
  I think people like Riccitiello are perfectly happy with a reputation that is "Will say whatever bullshit to employees as needed by the situation but is able to generate revenue for the company." No one ever fired a CEO for lying. They get fired when the stock price goes down.
• Cypher 4y ago
  They would've started the rumour themselves about layoffs before dismissing it, then they quietly let them go one by one. There's an old play book floating somewhere, I think it was aimed at union workers. The reason is plant the seed and soften the shock.
• deleted 4y ago
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