6 ms·

Cisco Reportedly Lays Off over 4k

119 points by jrwan 4y ago

RomanPushkin 4y ago
https://archive.ph/Wt7Rp https://archive.ph/Wt7Rp
clavalle 4y ago
The only shocking things about this layoff at Cisco, which happen about once a year, is that it didn't happen during their normal time in the summer and that the numbers are so modest.
- dilyevsky 4y ago
  Ikr? They’ve been laying off thousands from botched acquisitions and what not for as long as I can remember
RomanPushkin 4y ago
Phraseology: Roku: “Current economic conditions” Cisco: "rebalance across the board" Amazon: "unusual and uncertain macroeconomic environment” Disney: “a targeted hiring freeze” Meta: “macroeconomic downturn” Salesforce: "performance issues” Stripe: “stubborn inflation, energy shocks, higher interest rates, reduced investment budgets and sparser startup funding,” Opendoor: "the most challenging real estate market in 40 years”
- apohn 4y ago
  >Opendoor: "the most challenging real estate market in 40 years” Didn't the subprime mortgage crisis happen in 2007? The current situation is worse than that???
  - soperj 4y ago
    For the greater world I'd say definitely.
    - apohn 4y ago
      >For the greater world I'd say definitely. Could you elaborate? I honestly don't understand... The effects of subprime crisis was not limited to the US. And instead of people not being able to afford homes, there were lots of people worldwide who lost their homes after they lost their jobs and their properly values collapsed. https://www.globalpropertyguide.com/investment-analysis/The-worlds-2008-housing-markets-in-review-and-some-forecasts-for-2009 https://www.globalpropertyguide.com/investment-analysis/The-... Opendoor is US only (as far as I know) so the layoff justification just seems silly.
      - yamtaddle 4y ago
        I think it's possible market velocity is lower now (house prices still somehow insanely-high while mortgage rates are also much higher than they've been for many years) and expected to remain so longer, than in 2008, which might mean it is worse for Open Door, if not overall.
  - dilyevsky 4y ago
    Also forget about a multi year slump of the early 1990s
  - mattbrewsbytes 4y ago
    For them it is, I think they're one of those companies that buys property from you without listings, etc. then you can move and they clean it up and list it. My guess is the property is on their books and prices have been fluctuating a lot so they could be upside-down on a bunch of inventory with less home buyers because the interest rates rose. For a home owner selling and a realtor, the realtor likely has to compete to earn business but they are a third party to the transaction.
  - 1letterunixname 4y ago
    About 5 years post dotcom bubble. I think it's worse considering the inflation in food and gasoline. A 6 pack of beer at the grocery store is $10 now. 1 L of carrot juice is $6. It's unsustainable especially considering how wages barely moved for anyone. I don't see how people are getting by.
    - thdespou 4y ago
      Easy. Stop drinking so much beer and prepare your own food for starters.
- christophilus 4y ago
  FTX: "drug laced penthouse orgy ponzi scheme blowup"
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- i_love_music 4y ago
  Cool observation. Fascinating to see how corporate speak spreads and builds off each other. These are like memes in their technical definition - "behavior that may be considered to be passed from one individual to another by nongenetic means, especially imitation" Once a company or two uses these phrases it become politically acceptable to repeat them because they have now been "vetted". Contrarian or outsider views are not well received most of the time despite all of us wanting to believe we're different/unique/contrarian. Humans are such an interesting species.
  - lamontcg 4y ago
    Absolutely none of that is new, its all recycled from 2008, 2001 and prior cycles with minor tweaks for current conditions.
- flerchin 4y ago
  Twitter: "" gestures vaguely at Elon.
  - user_ 4y ago
    > "Frankly, the economic picture ahead is dire" > "An increasingly competitive world"
- mc32 4y ago
  I prefer this over everyone using the same excuse and or reason (contrast with Twitter talking points from pundits who use the same phraseology to push for or against something).
- RomanPushkin 4y ago
  Upstart: "the challenging economy" Seagate technologies: "global economic uncertainties" Philips: "worsening macroeconomic environment" Microsoft: "valuate our business priorities on a regular basis and make structural adjustments accordingly" Intel: "sudden and rapid" economic decline Twilio: workforce grew “too fast” and “without enough focus”
  - ryandrake 4y ago
    I love how vague they all are. They might as well have said "We have a bad feeling about the world" or "We consulted an ouija board" as justifications. Do they really think a normal person reads these and accepts the reasoning?
- RomanPushkin 4y ago
  SAP (2019): "fitness program"
apohn 4y ago
It's hard to understand if this is actually related to layoffs based on larger market forces, or just a once a year house cleaning. I've worked at places that laid people off once a year. It's a common way to give managers a way to get rid of under performing employees without the hassle of going through a PIP. The manager gets rid of a bad fit, the employee gets some severance, so both sides get something. But since this is happening at the same time as other companies doing layoffs it can seem like it's all occuring for the same reasons.
- pixl97 4y ago
  I mean it doesn't matter in the sense if those laid off can't find a job easily. The numbers are starting to build up.
  - apohn 4y ago
    You are correct that if you are unemployed and looking for a job it doesn't matter. All you see is increasing competition in the job seeker market and that sucks. But it does matter for people who are employed and looking for jobs. If you are unhappy and/or underpaid at your current job, layoffs all caused by larger market forces might be interpreted as a hint that you should think about staying at a "safe" job unless you really hate it. However, if some significant portion of the the layoffs is due to recent over-hiring and that has now swung the other way into layoffs, changing jobs might be less risky.
    - y-c-o-m-b 4y ago
      > If you are unhappy and/or underpaid at your current job, layoffs all caused by larger market forces might be interpreted as a hint that you should think about staying at a "safe" job unless you really hate it. That's an excellent point. I'm itching to leave my company at the moment, but I've avoided looking elsewhere because it's relatively "safe" (for now), so you're spot on. This also appears to be the case with literally everyone I've spoken to about the topic in my social circle. That being said, all those people have reported recent layoffs at their companies; across many different sectors and income brackets. My sister works in healthcare and said the hospital just sent out letters notifying everyone of upcoming layoffs.
swframe2 4y ago
A pundit pointed out that in several cases, the tech firms laying off have returned to their employee size of 1 year ago and that there are still many jobs available in the industry. Have you seen articles on how long people are taking to find their next job and if they are better off?
- autotune 4y ago
- DFXLuna 4y ago
  This is something I'm interested in as well. It feels like last year, I saw every tech company fighting tooth and nail to scrape up every last engineer. We even had trouble making modest pickups at my own megacorp because candidates were getting multiple offers during our accelerated interview process. This seems weird though because I have no doubt that every financial analyst at each of these companies saw the incoming downturn a mile away. If it was just a few of the companies making recent questionable decisions (Twitter, meta) it would make more sense to me, but the list of companies laying people off keeps growing.
autotune 4y ago
I worked at Cisco for about 3 months as a contractor before not getting renewed a month ago. Most hilariously inept infrastrecture code base I have had the displeasure of working with so far, and this team was supposed to be the one paving the way forward for finally bringing them from on-prem to the cloud. Literally could only understand my manager about half the time as he had a thick accent and spoke quickly (did not have this problem with any other team members despite them having the same type of accent), and my laptop broke halfway through and it took them a week to send someone out to fix it. Making about $50k per year more full time in a new gig and get to work with an infra code base that I actually enjoy. AMAA.
1letterunixname 4y ago
I believe it was 2001 or 2 post dotcom, Intel fired a fraction of the company by algorithm. A lead architect of a critical project was fired. Oops.
slt2021 4y ago
Cisco has been known to have constant annual layoffs
theGnuMe 4y ago
Interesting how stripe lists "sparser startup funding".
Giorgi 4y ago
All of these companies seem to rely on pandemic lockdown - demand for remote job influx. As pandemic is over, surge of the demand evaporated and now they need to downsize again. What's ironic I remember articles actually predicting that at the end of the pandemic people will not go back to offices and would rather quit than work inside the office again. But here we are, companies firing en masse
- willio58 4y ago
  I’m one of those that would rather quit than work in an office. Remote life is too hard to give up now. Im healthier physically and mentally, have more time to spend with friends and family, why would I give that up?
VirusNewbie 4y ago
Cisco recruiter hit me up on LI today!
candiodari 4y ago
Been there done that. Part of a cisco layoff due to department moving ... 15 years ago I think. Caused me to sell my shares, which turned out to be an excellent decision.
bricss 4y ago
Cisco it's graveyard for almost anyone's career.

119 points by jrwan 4y ago

https://archive.ph/Wt7Rp https://archive.ph/Wt7Rp

The only shocking things about this layoff at Cisco, which happen about once a year, is that it didn't happen during their normal time in the summer and that the numbers are so modest.

dilyevsky 4y ago
Ikr? They’ve been laying off thousands from botched acquisitions and what not for as long as I can remember

RomanPushkin 4y ago

Phraseology: Roku: “Current economic conditions” Cisco: "rebalance across the board" Amazon: "unusual and uncertain macroeconomic environment” Disney: “a targeted hiring freeze” Meta: “macroeconomic downturn” Salesforce: "performance issues” Stripe: “stubborn inflation, energy shocks, higher interest rates, reduced investment budgets and sparser startup funding,” Opendoor: "the most challenging real estate market in 40 years”

apohn 4y ago
>Opendoor: "the most challenging real estate market in 40 years” Didn't the subprime mortgage crisis happen in 2007? The current situation is worse than that???
- soperj 4y ago
  For the greater world I'd say definitely.
  - apohn 4y ago
    >For the greater world I'd say definitely. Could you elaborate? I honestly don't understand... The effects of subprime crisis was not limited to the US. And instead of people not being able to afford homes, there were lots of people worldwide who lost their homes after they lost their jobs and their properly values collapsed. https://www.globalpropertyguide.com/investment-analysis/The-worlds-2008-housing-markets-in-review-and-some-forecasts-for-2009 https://www.globalpropertyguide.com/investment-analysis/The-... Opendoor is US only (as far as I know) so the layoff justification just seems silly.
    - yamtaddle 4y ago
      I think it's possible market velocity is lower now (house prices still somehow insanely-high while mortgage rates are also much higher than they've been for many years) and expected to remain so longer, than in 2008, which might mean it is worse for Open Door, if not overall.
- dilyevsky 4y ago
  Also forget about a multi year slump of the early 1990s
- mattbrewsbytes 4y ago
  For them it is, I think they're one of those companies that buys property from you without listings, etc. then you can move and they clean it up and list it. My guess is the property is on their books and prices have been fluctuating a lot so they could be upside-down on a bunch of inventory with less home buyers because the interest rates rose. For a home owner selling and a realtor, the realtor likely has to compete to earn business but they are a third party to the transaction.
- 1letterunixname 4y ago
  About 5 years post dotcom bubble. I think it's worse considering the inflation in food and gasoline. A 6 pack of beer at the grocery store is $10 now. 1 L of carrot juice is $6. It's unsustainable especially considering how wages barely moved for anyone. I don't see how people are getting by.
  - thdespou 4y ago
    Easy. Stop drinking so much beer and prepare your own food for starters.
christophilus 4y ago
FTX: "drug laced penthouse orgy ponzi scheme blowup"
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
i_love_music 4y ago
Cool observation. Fascinating to see how corporate speak spreads and builds off each other. These are like memes in their technical definition - "behavior that may be considered to be passed from one individual to another by nongenetic means, especially imitation" Once a company or two uses these phrases it become politically acceptable to repeat them because they have now been "vetted". Contrarian or outsider views are not well received most of the time despite all of us wanting to believe we're different/unique/contrarian. Humans are such an interesting species.
- lamontcg 4y ago
  Absolutely none of that is new, its all recycled from 2008, 2001 and prior cycles with minor tweaks for current conditions.
flerchin 4y ago
Twitter: "" gestures vaguely at Elon.
- user_ 4y ago
  > "Frankly, the economic picture ahead is dire" > "An increasingly competitive world"
mc32 4y ago
I prefer this over everyone using the same excuse and or reason (contrast with Twitter talking points from pundits who use the same phraseology to push for or against something).
RomanPushkin 4y ago
Upstart: "the challenging economy" Seagate technologies: "global economic uncertainties" Philips: "worsening macroeconomic environment" Microsoft: "valuate our business priorities on a regular basis and make structural adjustments accordingly" Intel: "sudden and rapid" economic decline Twilio: workforce grew “too fast” and “without enough focus”
- ryandrake 4y ago
  I love how vague they all are. They might as well have said "We have a bad feeling about the world" or "We consulted an ouija board" as justifications. Do they really think a normal person reads these and accepts the reasoning?
RomanPushkin 4y ago
SAP (2019): "fitness program"

apohn 4y ago

It's hard to understand if this is actually related to layoffs based on larger market forces, or just a once a year house cleaning. I've worked at places that laid people off once a year. It's a common way to give managers a way to get rid of under performing employees without the hassle of going through a PIP. The manager gets rid of a bad fit, the employee gets some severance, so both sides get something. But since this is happening at the same time as other companies doing layoffs it can seem like it's all occuring for the same reasons.

pixl97 4y ago
I mean it doesn't matter in the sense if those laid off can't find a job easily. The numbers are starting to build up.
- apohn 4y ago
  You are correct that if you are unemployed and looking for a job it doesn't matter. All you see is increasing competition in the job seeker market and that sucks. But it does matter for people who are employed and looking for jobs. If you are unhappy and/or underpaid at your current job, layoffs all caused by larger market forces might be interpreted as a hint that you should think about staying at a "safe" job unless you really hate it. However, if some significant portion of the the layoffs is due to recent over-hiring and that has now swung the other way into layoffs, changing jobs might be less risky.
  - y-c-o-m-b 4y ago
    > If you are unhappy and/or underpaid at your current job, layoffs all caused by larger market forces might be interpreted as a hint that you should think about staying at a "safe" job unless you really hate it. That's an excellent point. I'm itching to leave my company at the moment, but I've avoided looking elsewhere because it's relatively "safe" (for now), so you're spot on. This also appears to be the case with literally everyone I've spoken to about the topic in my social circle. That being said, all those people have reported recent layoffs at their companies; across many different sectors and income brackets. My sister works in healthcare and said the hospital just sent out letters notifying everyone of upcoming layoffs.

swframe2 4y ago

A pundit pointed out that in several cases, the tech firms laying off have returned to their employee size of 1 year ago and that there are still many jobs available in the industry. Have you seen articles on how long people are taking to find their next job and if they are better off?

autotune 4y ago
DFXLuna 4y ago
This is something I'm interested in as well. It feels like last year, I saw every tech company fighting tooth and nail to scrape up every last engineer. We even had trouble making modest pickups at my own megacorp because candidates were getting multiple offers during our accelerated interview process. This seems weird though because I have no doubt that every financial analyst at each of these companies saw the incoming downturn a mile away. If it was just a few of the companies making recent questionable decisions (Twitter, meta) it would make more sense to me, but the list of companies laying people off keeps growing.

autotune 4y ago

I worked at Cisco for about 3 months as a contractor before not getting renewed a month ago. Most hilariously inept infrastrecture code base I have had the displeasure of working with so far, and this team was supposed to be the one paving the way forward for finally bringing them from on-prem to the cloud. Literally could only understand my manager about half the time as he had a thick accent and spoke quickly (did not have this problem with any other team members despite them having the same type of accent), and my laptop broke halfway through and it took them a week to send someone out to fix it. Making about $50k per year more full time in a new gig and get to work with an infra code base that I actually enjoy. AMAA.

1letterunixname 4y ago

I believe it was 2001 or 2 post dotcom, Intel fired a fraction of the company by algorithm. A lead architect of a critical project was fired. Oops.

slt2021 4y ago

Cisco has been known to have constant annual layoffs

theGnuMe 4y ago

Interesting how stripe lists "sparser startup funding".

Giorgi 4y ago

All of these companies seem to rely on pandemic lockdown - demand for remote job influx. As pandemic is over, surge of the demand evaporated and now they need to downsize again. What's ironic I remember articles actually predicting that at the end of the pandemic people will not go back to offices and would rather quit than work inside the office again. But here we are, companies firing en masse

willio58 4y ago
I’m one of those that would rather quit than work in an office. Remote life is too hard to give up now. Im healthier physically and mentally, have more time to spend with friends and family, why would I give that up?

VirusNewbie 4y ago

Cisco recruiter hit me up on LI today!

candiodari 4y ago

Been there done that. Part of a cisco layoff due to department moving ... 15 years ago I think. Caused me to sell my shares, which turned out to be an excellent decision.

bricss 4y ago

Cisco it's graveyard for almost anyone's career.