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While it might not saturate the US job market as a whole, it will saturate the parts of the local programmer market that can come even close to matching the sor
by dagw 4y ago
While it might not saturate the US job market as a whole, it will saturate the parts of the local programmer market that can come even close to matching the sorts of salaries these people where probably paid.
If they're willing to move to anywhere in the US and/or take a 50+% pay cut then they'll have no problem getting a job. If they all want to stay where they are and get paid within 20% of their current salary then lots of people will end up without a job.
- habinero 4y agoOr they'll start their own companies. Not a bad time to do it.
- whywhywhywhy 4y agoIf they’re doing that then it means Meta, Twitter, Stripe, etc process got rid of the wrong people.
- HgW33WiY6m3W4H9 4y agoI work at Stripe. I can’t throw a proverbial paper clip at this company without hitting someone who could be founding a company right now. There’s no way to lay off 14% of Stripe without setting free scores of future founders.
- naijaboiler 4y agohubris of tech workers. as if starting successful companies is just that easy
- sillysaurusx 4y agoIt’s helpful to remember that we’re collectively doing about 1% of what we theoretically could be accomplishing. If you somehow forced someone to sit and practice drawing a hand for eight hours a day, they would get surprisingly far as an artist. Being a founder isn’t too dissimilar. Determination tends to be decisive. If you spent eight hours a day trying to make a small group of users love you, you’d get surprisingly far. I think that’s what they mean about potential founders at Stripe. There’s a lot of potential energy that a layoff might release.
- andsoitis 4y agomy guess is that most, if not nearly all, successful founders were pulled into that position (i.e. self-directed) vs pushed out of desperation.
- d6rd7rxuxutx 4y agoI'm not sure about that. Starting a company is a risk vs reward calculation. If they were getting high salaries it wouldn't be unreasonable to want to minimize your risk by working on a project on the side while getting a bigger saving bank until a certain point. If you get fired the calculation is now whether you want to invest in job search or take the plunge and start the company
- andsoitis 4y agoIf you were that risk averse (that you didn’t act on your entrepreneurial instincts) when times were good, my money is that you’re more likely to double down in searching for safety. I don’t know that there are any stats on this so in the end it is juts your and my opposing instincts :-)
- Firmwarrior 4y agoA lot of entrepreneurs' personal stories start off with a setback like this last couple of weeks have imparted upon thousands of people I'll bet a lot of those "low performers" just had a hard time jumping through hoops at the circus, but will do just fine out on the savannah
- whimsicalism 4y agoThis is the "live laugh love" of the Bay Area. > It’s helpful to remember that we’re collectively doing about 1% of what we theoretically could be accomplishing. Is this supposed to mean anything at all?
- throwaway2037 4y agoI feel exactly the same. I would love to run my own tiny company, but it looks very tough to bootstrap. Everytime I hear someone say it is easy, I cringe.
- ransom1538 4y agoUber for cats will rise again!
- mywittyname 4y agoOP isn't saying it's "easy". They are pointing out that forming a startup is achievable by a small (scores = several 20s ~= 60-100) number of people impacted.
- Sakos 4y agoImagine thinking that starting a new company is a bad idea. It might not be easy, but the engine of progress is the birth of new firms, not the monopolization of markets through a handful of them. The vast majority of jobs are provided by small to medium-sized businesses, not companies like Twitter or Stripe. This is particularly true in Europe, but it's quite universal. We need new companies, even if some fail (or even most).
- mbreese 4y agoNot necessarily… a potential good startup founder is not necessarily a skill set that a FB needs right now. And many business ideas that aren’t “FB-scale ideas” can still be quite successful for a small founding crew.
- underdeserver 4y agoNot necessarily. There may be business opportunities that Meta, Twitter and Stripe are not interested in.
- stephencanon 4y agoThat’s right—-any time you’re laying off thousands people at once, some of them will the “the wrong people”. There is no mechanism for mass layoffs that can accurately target only “low performers”. Even if these layoffs reflect good decisions, good decisions at corporate scale are not necessarily good decisions at the individual level.
- seydor 4y agoLet's hope so
- scarface74 4y agoExcept for that whole funding environment being dead thing. Not to mention that nine out of ten startups fail even in good times.
- indymike 4y agoI used a 1yr severance as a seed fund for my current company.
- scarface74 4y agoThat doesn’t dispute the fact that only 1 out of 10 startups “succeed” and that definition of “success” is overly generous.
- indymike 4y agoNo, it doesn't dispute that startups are risky, even if you know what you are doing. By the way, water is wet, too.
- headsoup 4y agoWouldn't layoffs starting at larger tech companies imply demand is waning and there would be a much smaller market for all of these new startups?
- nradov 4y agoDemand is always growing in some markets. I predict major growth in the defense and agriculture technology markets over the next decade.
- acdha 4y agoClean tech also seems big - even if the Republicans did manage to gut federal support for renewables (I’m doubtful given e.g. how much money Texas wind farms are making) consumer trends are looking solid and a lot of state policies represent locked-in market.
- nkozyra 4y agoDemand for what, though? Startups can cover ... well anything, really? There's certainly less demand for Facebook's style of social media, for sure.
- schnitzelstoat 4y agoYeah, ads revenues are down which means a whole load of ad-supported business models are no longer economically viable. I don't think a recession with low demand and high interest rates is a good time to start a company at all.
- reaperducer 4y agoWouldn't layoffs starting at larger tech companies imply demand is waning and there would be a much smaller market for all of these new startups? It depends on how you define "startup." They don't necessarily have to keep staring at screens for their living. It was mass layoffs of real estate and banking workers in 2008 that kick started the food truck industry.
- acdha 4y agoThis is a valid concern in a recession but there are different niches and business models. Facebook has been very profitable selling ads but that’s not the only option, and there are opportunities which might be a good fit for a small company which a big one is structurally incapable of finding. After the dotcom crash, I knew several people who found solid niches selling services to other businesses - it didn’t have the hypergrowth potential of something like an ad-supported social network but most of those fail, and there’s a lot of money in less sexy industries.
- netheril96 4y agoFed raising the interest rate is hardly a good time to start a startup.
- slaw 4y agoOnly for startups that depends on free money from Fed like Movie Pass, Juicero. Startups with sound ideas should be fine.
- oska 4y agoOnly if you can start a company that's cashflow positive from essentially day one. Burn rate provided by suppressed interest rates and cashed up venture capitalists is quickly becoming a disappearing concept.
- acdha 4y agoThe first dotcom crash was good that way: people make worse decisions when they have piles of VC funny money and anyone with a real business has trouble standing out when the field is full of competitors burning bright but fast.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- chasd00 4y agoIsn't this about the worst time to start a company? Uncertain economic outlook, high inflation, high borrowing costs.
- shagie 4y agoLess competition, more available labor, the books start with a "this is hard" and get better when things get better (compare with starting when things are easy and then having it rough when times get hard)...
- Archelaos 4y agoIt should also be noted that a person recalled from the home office already has a hidden 20% pay cut if she or he has to commute for about an hour in each direction. EDIT: I mistakenly first wrote "each day" instead of "in each direction".
- brookst 4y agoTrue, if you assume time is perfectly fungible into money. For most of us it’s not.
- Red_Leaves_Flyy 4y agoYou can also consider this in terms of work. Being forced into the office increases work by 20% without a commensurate raise.
- namdnay 4y agounless you spend a less time in the office than you would at home
- brookst 4y agoSure, but "pay cut" has a specific meaning, and that's not it. When I roll on to a new project and it is more/less work than my previous one, I don't think of it as a pay increase or decrease.
- acdha 4y agoDefinitely true normally but we’re in this weird world where a ton of people got to try a previously unavailable or unemphasized option. Full-time remote work used to be a bit unusual but a couple of years was enough for a lot of people to get used to the idea and now it feels like a cut to go back, even if they were used to being in the office in February 2020.
- acdha 4y agoNo, but commuting has other expenses: beyond the obvious cost of cars that often includes eating out more (often at pricier locations), extended childcare, wardrobe expenses, etc. No, a FAANG employee probably isn’t suffering (although consider the pay outside of the prestige jobs) but everyone just got a multi-year reminder of those indirect costs.
- Red_Leaves_Flyy 4y agoI’ve been here long enough to have seen the countless comments lamenting the current state of qualifications and ability in the industry. Here’s to hoping that meta and stripe laid off under achievers that would be wise to get into a different industry where they’ll perform better. Musks layoffs ignored since it seems clear that his were indiscriminate and hasty to the point of negligence.
- pedrosorio 4y ago> under achievers that would be wise to get into a different industry where they’ll perform better Why would they perform better in another industry where presumably they do not have qualifications either (nor ability)?