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I imagine it's three things. First and foremost, interest rates are up. Some development opportunities only make sense when loans are basically free. Second, th

I imagine it's three things. First and foremost, interest rates are up. Some development opportunities only make sense when loans are basically free. Second, the market's down, firing a bunch of people is a good way to boost stock prices in the short term, and people making these decisions are often primarily motivated by short term stock price gains. Third, big tech executives are heavily influenced by trends, they all talk to each other, and layoffs are trendy right now. Layoffs are probably a bad idea, in general, given how expensive it is to hire new devs and bring them up to speed, but on the other hand, it's probably a pretty good way to eliminate orgs you wanted to get rid of anyway while blaming the economy. I'm sure it's not a coincidence that so many of Amazon's layoffs came from Alexa.

ethbr0 4y ago
Assume a constant need to fire a decent chunk of the company. If you fire when everyone else is hiring, the market asks you if your growth prospects have dimmed. If you fire when everyone else is firing, the market says you're being financially responsible.
- gowld 4y ago
  > Assume a constant need to fire a decent chunk of the company. Why? If you are so good at identifying poor performers, fire them, and reap the profits of being leaner, more effective organization. "The market" is a boogeyman used to rationalized everything.
  - yCombLinks 4y ago
    Because every time you want to build a new product you risk that no one ends up wanting the product, or not enough people to justify keeping it going. Alternately once you have depleted all of your current ideas you don't have anything productive for those people to do.
    - marcosdumay 4y ago
      > Alternately once you have depleted all of your current ideas you don't have anything productive for those people to do. Ok, that can possibly happen. But if it constantly happens, you have problems.
Sevii 4y ago
I think people over focus on poor performers when in reality layoffs are a great chance to get rid of teams and departments that don't make economic sense anymore.

ethbr0 4y ago

Assume a constant need to fire a decent chunk of the company. If you fire when everyone else is hiring, the market asks you if your growth prospects have dimmed. If you fire when everyone else is firing, the market says you're being financially responsible.

gowld 4y ago
> Assume a constant need to fire a decent chunk of the company. Why? If you are so good at identifying poor performers, fire them, and reap the profits of being leaner, more effective organization. "The market" is a boogeyman used to rationalized everything.
- yCombLinks 4y ago
  Because every time you want to build a new product you risk that no one ends up wanting the product, or not enough people to justify keeping it going. Alternately once you have depleted all of your current ideas you don't have anything productive for those people to do.
  - marcosdumay 4y ago
    > Alternately once you have depleted all of your current ideas you don't have anything productive for those people to do. Ok, that can possibly happen. But if it constantly happens, you have problems.

Sevii 4y ago

I think people over focus on poor performers when in reality layoffs are a great chance to get rid of teams and departments that don't make economic sense anymore.