12 ms·

Googlers scramble for answers after layoffs hit long-tenured, recently promoted

80 points by SirLJ 4y ago

psychphysic 4y ago
It's belt tightening time. We had a good run. In a few years everyone will forget again. What's the exit pay looking like btw? Hopefully people are getting at least 3 months?
- avidiax 4y ago
  U.S. is 16 weeks + tenure_years*2weeks, including accelerating stock vests. Rest of world is going to be in line with local laws. Not clear if that makes it better or worse than the U.S. package.
SanjayMehta 4y ago
Tenured? That's confusing in the context of a profit seeking corporation.
- bell-cot 4y ago
  https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/tenure#Noun https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/tenure#Noun The ivory tower sense, of an officially-secure permanent job, is only one of several.
goldenchrome 4y ago
I saw someone who was laid off after being at Google for 16 years. I saw their resume and they had only been a manager for the last few years and before that they were just Senior. I think if you’re only L5/L6 after 16 years then you’re probably a low performer. This is especially true at a company like Google which was a rocket ship in the last 16 years which means there were a million opportunities to get ahead. Your future value is lower than someone who made L6 after 8 years because that person may be a director in another 8 years. It doesn’t sound very nice but it’s fair.
- pm90 4y ago
  > I think if you’re only L5/L6 after 16 years then you’re probably a low performer. L5 is supposed to be a “terminal level” so there isn’t an expectation for employees to want to advance further. But perhaps there are some implicit assumptions on max tenure at that level.
  - sahila 4y ago
    *L4 is now the new terminal. Agree with what you said otherwise.
- temp20160423 4y ago
  If everyone is gunning for L6 after 8 years or L6 -> director in 8 more years, then the culture will be much worse. Assuming the long-tenured senior SWE is actually a solid engineer but doesn't want to play politics or manage up as required for L6+, this was a person who made G a very pleasant place to work. I know many L5 like this: smart, helpful, and made excellent colleagues. That being said, I doubt it was mostly targeting people who were tenured too long without enough promos. My guess is these are people without the full backing of their upper mgmnt chain. Since even directors had no input into this layoff round, you needed your VP's support. Added: maybe the person above is right since the grad changes are already moving G's culture into a more aggressive mode. G will slowly become like the other big tech companies (G will just pay slightly less since people will still have the outdated perception that the culture is better).
- nilkn 4y ago
  I wouldn't infer that the person is a low performer. However, I do think it's fairly likely they were either unknown at the VP level or not viewed as worth fighting to keep by VPs. Large layoffs are typically discussed and orchestrated only at the highest levels of management, so if you're an IC if you want to be protected you need to be on the radar of your boss's boss's boss's boss (or something like that). And I think you're right that someone who sat at L5/L6 for 15+ years wouldn't be a stand out at that level by any stretch.
pm90 4y ago
Apologies if this is naive, but it seems like Google employees need to understand that its no longer a company that has their interests at heart. The company leadership is making it clear through their actions. Is the expectation that leadership will really provide more clarity on why high performers were laid off? Why? What will the employees do if they don’t, or more likely let consultants come up with nonanswers?
- vineyardmike 4y ago
  > Google employees need to understand that its no longer a company that has their interests at heart. Google has spent decades trying to create this image, but you're right. > Is the expectation that leadership will really provide more clarity on why high performers were laid off? The company said nothing. If you don't know why someone was impacted, you can't know how to avoid future impact if you survived. Its bad for morale if everyone is looking over their shoulder. If the company hit low-performers, than its flawed if coworkers perceive a high-performer impacted (which is scary, since you could be the false-positive next). If its based on team (more important team, less important team), than people in "low priority" teams will want to prep their resume. > Why? Morale. If your employees are scared, they may work harder now, but they won't be loyal, and you may have issues long-term. Compare google to amazon.
  - mandeepj 4y ago
    > Compare google to amazon. Is there any difference now between them?
    - vineyardmike 4y ago
      One bad deed vs many bad deeds? Give it time and wait to see. Microsoft supposedly got less-toxic as it aged, so there’s room for significant change.
      - mandeepj 4y ago
        > there’s room for significant change. And, that comes with top leadership change like MS. I don’t think Google is toxic, just mismanaged. That can’t be said entirely about Amazon.
cashsterling 4y ago
This string of high-tech layoffs this feels like a wage-war to me. At some point engineers & scientists of various disciplines need to form country-wide unions. Imagine for a moment that CS & software engineers, electrical engineers, MechE's, ChemE, CivE's, etc. formed unions and then maybe collaborated to occasionally act an unified super-union. Those unions would wield incredible power over national economic policy and the dealings in a lot of company board rooms.
- nigrioid 4y ago
  It would just give them more motivation for outsourcing.
  - brendamn 4y ago
    Outsource to where? Outsourcing isn't exactly new and many large orgs already outsource as many activities/projects/roles as possible. Even with outsourcing there is still a skilled tech labor shortage.
    - missedthecue 4y ago
      When GM or Ford wants to outsource, they need to pour billions into new plants in Alabama or Mexico or other non-UAW locations. If google wanted to outsource, they could hire people globally, with very little cost or efficiency loss. All else being equal, a dev in Baton Rouge (or Bogota, or Buenas Aires, or Bangalore) is as productive as one in San Jose. And it doesn't cost anything extra to bring one on.
      - doctorwho42 4y ago
        Then why haven't they? I doubt the efficiency claim.
        missedthecue 4y ago
        They have. Google used to be mostly Palo Alto (and foreign branch offices) and now they're much much less Palo Alto.
mathteddybear 4y ago
When I read Google lays off 6% of workforce I thought they just fired the lowest bucket in the most recent performance review. Maybe they fired also those who submitted it after a deadline? On the other hand, quite a lot of laid off stories were from new hires, and the performance reviews underwent some changes last year...
- vineyardmike 4y ago
  > I thought they just fired the lowest bucket in the most recent performance review They did not. Should they have? Maybe. They for sure impacted some groups more than others. I was in Nest (Devices+Services), and I hear we were impacted worse than Search. For example, Fuchsia OS team had heavy cuts. Interestingly, it did impact even AI/Search/Ads, which I didn't expect. Maybe there was a performance component, but it is quite opaque, and there definitely were good/average performers who were impacted. Certainly plenty who weren't in the bottom 6%.
  - gymbeaux 4y ago
    [flagged]
    - gymbeaux 4y ago
      [flagged]
      - dang 4y ago
        Can you please stop posting unsubstantive comments? We end up rate-limiting and/or banning accounts that keeping doing that. You've been doing it repeatedly, but fortunately not for very long, so this should be easy to fix. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
        gymbeaux 4y ago
        I don’t see why not! Thanks for not banning me outright.
sumoboy 4y ago
There are no answers other than go update your resume and find a new job. Managers find low performers, directors find low performers, vp's find low performers and they all get axed. Your just a name on a list unless someone protects you. Google and others IMO are just following a trend that in the long run will hurt them in the long term for for future hires. They'll just have to buy companies to acquire talent like IBM has done. Sucks losing any job, but learn from it and find something better.
- firstfewshells 4y ago
  Google enjoys a cult like status in people from a certain south asian country which idolizes "prestige" and also produces millions of software engineers a year. I don't think they will have any trouble recruiting people.
  - John23832 4y ago
    Unless they’re expecting to repatriate to that certain south asian country, they’re going to need to protect some reputation at home.
  - phendrenad2 4y ago
    When people idolize things, they put that thing on a pedestal, and as soon as that thing slips up, they quickly abandon it. Google's first layoff probably isn't enough to damage its image, but if they don't keep that mystique and aura of prestige, they could find their fanbase drying up.
  - b212 4y ago
    But out of those millions how many are Google material or can be decent devs by western standards? From my experience the working culture of India stays in direct opposition to the working culture of the US. So even the best devs might be often not good enough due to cultural differences unless they’re naturalized or truly exceptional in one way or another (a few out of every 100k?).
    - bagacrap 4y ago
mozman 4y ago
In my recent but ancedotal experience the hires being let go are dead weight. Many were token hires which shouldn't have been made in the first place. The lens which judgement is made will likely always be debated. Good people will inevitably be caught in the layoffs. Not everyone is cut out for tech.
- specialist 4y ago
  Excess labor was the point. To deny competitors access to that labor. Once one tech giant shed their own excess labor, the shared delusion popped, triggering a stampede.
anonreeeeplor 4y ago
Why are only google employees the ones who are so entitled they are demanding unions. Every other company laid off tens of thousands and you didn’t hear anything in the comments sections or twitter. But Google? Omg my union! Whiniest people on earth. Seriously! Most entitled. It’s all over twitter and hacker news comment sections. Because it’s a concerted effort. I know this will be downvoted because union activists are promoting this on every social channel but it has to be said: You are not entitled to your 7 figure income. This is not even a biased post, it’s just facts. Google has the most entitled culture and you see it come out in these moments. They need to CUT HARDER.
- throwaway5959 4y ago
  What facts have you outlined here?
- EricE 4y ago
  Not just Google - tech in general is rife with people who think their poo doesn't stink. Profits (or lack of) have a way of snapping things back into focus!
  - gymbeaux 4y ago
    Yes and no. It seems like employees are paying for the mistakes of the CEOs. Take Google- Pichai hired too many people, so he made some vague threat about underperformers knowing who they are and needing to resign, then announced layoffs. So lack of profits might be snapping something back into focus, but I think we can safely say Pichai still has a direct line from his ass to his nose and an ego to match.
- gymbeaux 4y ago
  My hot take is that my LinkedIn feed is being filled with reposts of “I was affected by the layoff…. {proceeds to humble brag about Ivy League college they attended and other Valley companies they’ve worked for, and express concern about finding another job ASAP despite having months worth of severance}” and it rubs me the wrong way. This is the general trend of ALL layoff posts I’ve seen from ex-Amazon, Google and Microsoft people recently. It’s: 1. I was laid off, but I’m not bitter. 2. My resume is prestigious. 3. Please help me find another role. So I do believe “entitled” fits. If I were given a 3-month paid vacation, I would take the damn vacation.
up2isomorphism 4y ago
The layoff literally means the the role is eliminated, it can be eliminated because of your performance, or it can be because companies doesn’t need the role anymore even if you are performing well. Not to say we should feel sympathy for these people but Why is this so surprising?
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- yazzku 4y ago
  The layoffs are all across the board, from Chrome to Cloud to AI to Fuchsia to their research division, so it's not like there is a specific role they don't need anymore. The employees also woke up to the news the same way everyone else did; they might have even seen the HN article before finding the email in their corporate inbox. It's a confusing situation, as the article describes, and the company seems to be handling it as smoothly as all the projects in its graveyard. In the grander scheme of things, I am sure companies will use this and the other layoffs as an excuse to stifle raises, lower bonuses, and squeeze more out of the workers who are presumably on a spree of unproductivity scratching their hairy balls at home. The article also touches a bit on this.
- krsrhe 4y ago
  [dead]
dang 4y ago
Recent and related: Google Fuchsia OS team affected by layoffs - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34473500 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34473500 - Jan 2023 (77 comments)
sydbarrett74 4y ago
'Long-tenured', i.e., older and better-compensated. Silicon Valley worships youth. So this layoff trend is a convenient way for FAANG-type companies to get rid of people they view as 'too old', keeping the younger, hungrier employees who are willing to work for less.
- mikebenfield 4y ago
  But they also laid off plenty of young and new people...
  - hypothesis 4y ago
    Which can be promptly rehired for even less money? Or did they also froze hiring completely?
    - mikebenfield 4y ago
      They are definitely not doing much hiring.
- bagacrap 4y ago
  they don't really provide any details to back up that claim, but I will say there's nothing about tenure that compels one to be a good employee. Let's hope for the sake of justice they managed to weed out those who have transitioned to the rest n vest lifestyle.
wolongong942 4y ago
There's going to be a lot of surplus elites shaking their heads at low 6 figure offers from non-FAANGs. I'm guessing we'll see a ex-google/ex-Facebook multi-millionaire tech lead influencer boom on YouTube and Tiktok.
- comte7092 4y ago
  What does the phrase “surplus elites” even mean in this context? I don’t see how making a large salary as a software engineer makes one an “elite”. Is this just a clunky term for a rich person?
  - 0xBDB 4y ago
    It refers to this (not an endorsement or otherwise on my part): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elite_overproduction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elite_overproduction
  - olliej 4y ago
    It means that the person making the comment is a bigot and has bought into the “coastal elite” and/or “tech elite” that conservatives use to dehumanize and delegitimize people who aren’t similarly bigoted.
olliej 4y ago
I feel like recently promoted -> sudden dismissal would have a case, if a bunch of people in CA hadn’t bought into “right to work” BS that only guarantees the right to causelsss dismissal.

80 points by SirLJ 4y ago

It's belt tightening time. We had a good run. In a few years everyone will forget again. What's the exit pay looking like btw? Hopefully people are getting at least 3 months?

avidiax 4y ago
U.S. is 16 weeks + tenure_years*2weeks, including accelerating stock vests. Rest of world is going to be in line with local laws. Not clear if that makes it better or worse than the U.S. package.

SanjayMehta 4y ago

Tenured? That's confusing in the context of a profit seeking corporation.

bell-cot 4y ago
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/tenure#Noun https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/tenure#Noun The ivory tower sense, of an officially-secure permanent job, is only one of several.

goldenchrome 4y ago

I saw someone who was laid off after being at Google for 16 years. I saw their resume and they had only been a manager for the last few years and before that they were just Senior. I think if you’re only L5/L6 after 16 years then you’re probably a low performer. This is especially true at a company like Google which was a rocket ship in the last 16 years which means there were a million opportunities to get ahead. Your future value is lower than someone who made L6 after 8 years because that person may be a director in another 8 years. It doesn’t sound very nice but it’s fair.

pm90 4y ago
> I think if you’re only L5/L6 after 16 years then you’re probably a low performer. L5 is supposed to be a “terminal level” so there isn’t an expectation for employees to want to advance further. But perhaps there are some implicit assumptions on max tenure at that level.
- sahila 4y ago
  *L4 is now the new terminal. Agree with what you said otherwise.
temp20160423 4y ago
If everyone is gunning for L6 after 8 years or L6 -> director in 8 more years, then the culture will be much worse. Assuming the long-tenured senior SWE is actually a solid engineer but doesn't want to play politics or manage up as required for L6+, this was a person who made G a very pleasant place to work. I know many L5 like this: smart, helpful, and made excellent colleagues. That being said, I doubt it was mostly targeting people who were tenured too long without enough promos. My guess is these are people without the full backing of their upper mgmnt chain. Since even directors had no input into this layoff round, you needed your VP's support. Added: maybe the person above is right since the grad changes are already moving G's culture into a more aggressive mode. G will slowly become like the other big tech companies (G will just pay slightly less since people will still have the outdated perception that the culture is better).
nilkn 4y ago
I wouldn't infer that the person is a low performer. However, I do think it's fairly likely they were either unknown at the VP level or not viewed as worth fighting to keep by VPs. Large layoffs are typically discussed and orchestrated only at the highest levels of management, so if you're an IC if you want to be protected you need to be on the radar of your boss's boss's boss's boss (or something like that). And I think you're right that someone who sat at L5/L6 for 15+ years wouldn't be a stand out at that level by any stretch.

pm90 4y ago

Apologies if this is naive, but it seems like Google employees need to understand that its no longer a company that has their interests at heart. The company leadership is making it clear through their actions. Is the expectation that leadership will really provide more clarity on why high performers were laid off? Why? What will the employees do if they don’t, or more likely let consultants come up with nonanswers?

vineyardmike 4y ago
> Google employees need to understand that its no longer a company that has their interests at heart. Google has spent decades trying to create this image, but you're right. > Is the expectation that leadership will really provide more clarity on why high performers were laid off? The company said nothing. If you don't know why someone was impacted, you can't know how to avoid future impact if you survived. Its bad for morale if everyone is looking over their shoulder. If the company hit low-performers, than its flawed if coworkers perceive a high-performer impacted (which is scary, since you could be the false-positive next). If its based on team (more important team, less important team), than people in "low priority" teams will want to prep their resume. > Why? Morale. If your employees are scared, they may work harder now, but they won't be loyal, and you may have issues long-term. Compare google to amazon.
- mandeepj 4y ago
  > Compare google to amazon. Is there any difference now between them?
  - vineyardmike 4y ago
    One bad deed vs many bad deeds? Give it time and wait to see. Microsoft supposedly got less-toxic as it aged, so there’s room for significant change.
    - mandeepj 4y ago
      > there’s room for significant change. And, that comes with top leadership change like MS. I don’t think Google is toxic, just mismanaged. That can’t be said entirely about Amazon.

cashsterling 4y ago

This string of high-tech layoffs this feels like a wage-war to me. At some point engineers & scientists of various disciplines need to form country-wide unions. Imagine for a moment that CS & software engineers, electrical engineers, MechE's, ChemE, CivE's, etc. formed unions and then maybe collaborated to occasionally act an unified super-union. Those unions would wield incredible power over national economic policy and the dealings in a lot of company board rooms.

nigrioid 4y ago
It would just give them more motivation for outsourcing.
- brendamn 4y ago
  Outsource to where? Outsourcing isn't exactly new and many large orgs already outsource as many activities/projects/roles as possible. Even with outsourcing there is still a skilled tech labor shortage.
  - missedthecue 4y ago
    When GM or Ford wants to outsource, they need to pour billions into new plants in Alabama or Mexico or other non-UAW locations. If google wanted to outsource, they could hire people globally, with very little cost or efficiency loss. All else being equal, a dev in Baton Rouge (or Bogota, or Buenas Aires, or Bangalore) is as productive as one in San Jose. And it doesn't cost anything extra to bring one on.
    - doctorwho42 4y ago
      Then why haven't they? I doubt the efficiency claim.
      - missedthecue 4y ago
        They have. Google used to be mostly Palo Alto (and foreign branch offices) and now they're much much less Palo Alto.

mathteddybear 4y ago

When I read Google lays off 6% of workforce I thought they just fired the lowest bucket in the most recent performance review. Maybe they fired also those who submitted it after a deadline? On the other hand, quite a lot of laid off stories were from new hires, and the performance reviews underwent some changes last year...

vineyardmike 4y ago
> I thought they just fired the lowest bucket in the most recent performance review They did not. Should they have? Maybe. They for sure impacted some groups more than others. I was in Nest (Devices+Services), and I hear we were impacted worse than Search. For example, Fuchsia OS team had heavy cuts. Interestingly, it did impact even AI/Search/Ads, which I didn't expect. Maybe there was a performance component, but it is quite opaque, and there definitely were good/average performers who were impacted. Certainly plenty who weren't in the bottom 6%.
- gymbeaux 4y ago
  [flagged]
  - gymbeaux 4y ago
    [flagged]
    - dang 4y ago
      Can you please stop posting unsubstantive comments? We end up rate-limiting and/or banning accounts that keeping doing that. You've been doing it repeatedly, but fortunately not for very long, so this should be easy to fix. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
      - gymbeaux 4y ago
        I don’t see why not! Thanks for not banning me outright.

sumoboy 4y ago

There are no answers other than go update your resume and find a new job. Managers find low performers, directors find low performers, vp's find low performers and they all get axed. Your just a name on a list unless someone protects you. Google and others IMO are just following a trend that in the long run will hurt them in the long term for for future hires. They'll just have to buy companies to acquire talent like IBM has done. Sucks losing any job, but learn from it and find something better.

firstfewshells 4y ago
Google enjoys a cult like status in people from a certain south asian country which idolizes "prestige" and also produces millions of software engineers a year. I don't think they will have any trouble recruiting people.
- John23832 4y ago
  Unless they’re expecting to repatriate to that certain south asian country, they’re going to need to protect some reputation at home.
- phendrenad2 4y ago
  When people idolize things, they put that thing on a pedestal, and as soon as that thing slips up, they quickly abandon it. Google's first layoff probably isn't enough to damage its image, but if they don't keep that mystique and aura of prestige, they could find their fanbase drying up.
- b212 4y ago
  But out of those millions how many are Google material or can be decent devs by western standards? From my experience the working culture of India stays in direct opposition to the working culture of the US. So even the best devs might be often not good enough due to cultural differences unless they’re naturalized or truly exceptional in one way or another (a few out of every 100k?).
  - bagacrap 4y ago

mozman 4y ago

In my recent but ancedotal experience the hires being let go are dead weight. Many were token hires which shouldn't have been made in the first place. The lens which judgement is made will likely always be debated. Good people will inevitably be caught in the layoffs. Not everyone is cut out for tech.

specialist 4y ago
Excess labor was the point. To deny competitors access to that labor. Once one tech giant shed their own excess labor, the shared delusion popped, triggering a stampede.

anonreeeeplor 4y ago

Why are only google employees the ones who are so entitled they are demanding unions. Every other company laid off tens of thousands and you didn’t hear anything in the comments sections or twitter. But Google? Omg my union! Whiniest people on earth. Seriously! Most entitled. It’s all over twitter and hacker news comment sections. Because it’s a concerted effort. I know this will be downvoted because union activists are promoting this on every social channel but it has to be said: You are not entitled to your 7 figure income. This is not even a biased post, it’s just facts. Google has the most entitled culture and you see it come out in these moments. They need to CUT HARDER.

throwaway5959 4y ago
What facts have you outlined here?
EricE 4y ago
Not just Google - tech in general is rife with people who think their poo doesn't stink. Profits (or lack of) have a way of snapping things back into focus!
- gymbeaux 4y ago
  Yes and no. It seems like employees are paying for the mistakes of the CEOs. Take Google- Pichai hired too many people, so he made some vague threat about underperformers knowing who they are and needing to resign, then announced layoffs. So lack of profits might be snapping something back into focus, but I think we can safely say Pichai still has a direct line from his ass to his nose and an ego to match.
gymbeaux 4y ago
My hot take is that my LinkedIn feed is being filled with reposts of “I was affected by the layoff…. {proceeds to humble brag about Ivy League college they attended and other Valley companies they’ve worked for, and express concern about finding another job ASAP despite having months worth of severance}” and it rubs me the wrong way. This is the general trend of ALL layoff posts I’ve seen from ex-Amazon, Google and Microsoft people recently. It’s: 1. I was laid off, but I’m not bitter. 2. My resume is prestigious. 3. Please help me find another role. So I do believe “entitled” fits. If I were given a 3-month paid vacation, I would take the damn vacation.

up2isomorphism 4y ago

The layoff literally means the the role is eliminated, it can be eliminated because of your performance, or it can be because companies doesn’t need the role anymore even if you are performing well. Not to say we should feel sympathy for these people but Why is this so surprising?

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
yazzku 4y ago
The layoffs are all across the board, from Chrome to Cloud to AI to Fuchsia to their research division, so it's not like there is a specific role they don't need anymore. The employees also woke up to the news the same way everyone else did; they might have even seen the HN article before finding the email in their corporate inbox. It's a confusing situation, as the article describes, and the company seems to be handling it as smoothly as all the projects in its graveyard. In the grander scheme of things, I am sure companies will use this and the other layoffs as an excuse to stifle raises, lower bonuses, and squeeze more out of the workers who are presumably on a spree of unproductivity scratching their hairy balls at home. The article also touches a bit on this.
krsrhe 4y ago
[dead]

dang 4y ago

Recent and related: Google Fuchsia OS team affected by layoffs - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34473500 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34473500 - Jan 2023 (77 comments)

sydbarrett74 4y ago

'Long-tenured', i.e., older and better-compensated. Silicon Valley worships youth. So this layoff trend is a convenient way for FAANG-type companies to get rid of people they view as 'too old', keeping the younger, hungrier employees who are willing to work for less.

mikebenfield 4y ago
But they also laid off plenty of young and new people...
- hypothesis 4y ago
  Which can be promptly rehired for even less money? Or did they also froze hiring completely?
  - mikebenfield 4y ago
    They are definitely not doing much hiring.
bagacrap 4y ago
they don't really provide any details to back up that claim, but I will say there's nothing about tenure that compels one to be a good employee. Let's hope for the sake of justice they managed to weed out those who have transitioned to the rest n vest lifestyle.

wolongong942 4y ago

There's going to be a lot of surplus elites shaking their heads at low 6 figure offers from non-FAANGs. I'm guessing we'll see a ex-google/ex-Facebook multi-millionaire tech lead influencer boom on YouTube and Tiktok.

comte7092 4y ago
What does the phrase “surplus elites” even mean in this context? I don’t see how making a large salary as a software engineer makes one an “elite”. Is this just a clunky term for a rich person?
- 0xBDB 4y ago
  It refers to this (not an endorsement or otherwise on my part): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elite_overproduction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elite_overproduction
- olliej 4y ago
  It means that the person making the comment is a bigot and has bought into the “coastal elite” and/or “tech elite” that conservatives use to dehumanize and delegitimize people who aren’t similarly bigoted.

olliej 4y ago

I feel like recently promoted -> sudden dismissal would have a case, if a bunch of people in CA hadn’t bought into “right to work” BS that only guarantees the right to causelsss dismissal.