4 ms·

To add a counterpoint - I've heard senior executives remark about the likelihood that many of those let go are the not the employees that you really _want_ to p

To add a counterpoint - I've heard senior executives remark about the likelihood that many of those let go are the not the employees that you really _want_ to pickup. The reasoning they've implied there is that these big companies that hire so voraciously have simply made some mistakes along the way and used the current happenings to jettison those mistakenly-hired employees swiftly and efficiently. Note: I'm sure many very talented people were caught up in this tide, too. I'm just relaying some anecdotal opinions that I've heard from hiring managers and execs in my personal and professional circles.

tapatio 4y ago
It also makes logical sense. Why would you let go of a 10X engineer? You'd have to be an idiot.
- unity1001 4y ago
  > You'd have to be an idiot. Yep. Like someone who could do it through an algorithm. Like how Google did...
  - flavius29663 4y ago
    This is the first I hear of this, do you have a source for that?
    - unity1001 4y ago
      It was in one of the articles posted in HN. In the Open Source one I believe. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34558576 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34558576 https://www.theregister.com/2023/01/27/google_open_source/ https://www.theregister.com/2023/01/27/google_open_source/
- anthomtb 4y ago
  >Why would let you of a 10X engineer? Because you axed a 400 person division and at least a few of those folks were the mythical 10X-ers. >You'd have to be an idiot. Maybe. There are plenty of idiots in upper management with the power to decide who stays and who goes. But back to the hypothetical 400 person division, the executive will see a spreadsheet with $$$ expenditure and -$$$ revenue and make the cut with little concern for individual abilities.
- irrational 4y ago
  This was decades ago, but my uncle has a PhD in chemistry and worked for a very large and famous chemical company. They had a round of layoffs and fired his entire division. Well, he had a bunch of patents in his name that the company suddenly didn't have access to. Someone realized their mistake and asked him to come back. He already had multiple offers from competitors so they had to pay him a huge increase in salary and a bonus to come back. Mostly he didn't want to move his family, so he was willing to stay. Bottom line, there are and always have been idiots at every company.
  - buildbot 4y ago
    Were they from before working at that company? Pretty unusual for patents to not be assigned to the company they were working for though? If I leave Microsoft, my patents stay assigned to them while still authored by me/others.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
tracker1 4y ago
It goes in either direction... I think with Twitter, as an example, they ballooned and became more than an engineering culture... I think the layoffs were to really scale back to what is/was needed. Not necessarily a reflection on those let go, other than there were way more than needed for what the application is. I do hope they're able to be more agile moving forward, which seems to be the case so far. For other things, I think some of it is short sightedness and may or may not be good/bad. For many of these layoffs, it's probably office politics as much as anything else.

tapatio 4y ago

It also makes logical sense. Why would you let go of a 10X engineer? You'd have to be an idiot.

unity1001 4y ago
> You'd have to be an idiot. Yep. Like someone who could do it through an algorithm. Like how Google did...
- flavius29663 4y ago
  This is the first I hear of this, do you have a source for that?
  - unity1001 4y ago
    It was in one of the articles posted in HN. In the Open Source one I believe. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34558576 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34558576 https://www.theregister.com/2023/01/27/google_open_source/ https://www.theregister.com/2023/01/27/google_open_source/
anthomtb 4y ago
>Why would let you of a 10X engineer? Because you axed a 400 person division and at least a few of those folks were the mythical 10X-ers. >You'd have to be an idiot. Maybe. There are plenty of idiots in upper management with the power to decide who stays and who goes. But back to the hypothetical 400 person division, the executive will see a spreadsheet with $$$ expenditure and -$$$ revenue and make the cut with little concern for individual abilities.
irrational 4y ago
This was decades ago, but my uncle has a PhD in chemistry and worked for a very large and famous chemical company. They had a round of layoffs and fired his entire division. Well, he had a bunch of patents in his name that the company suddenly didn't have access to. Someone realized their mistake and asked him to come back. He already had multiple offers from competitors so they had to pay him a huge increase in salary and a bonus to come back. Mostly he didn't want to move his family, so he was willing to stay. Bottom line, there are and always have been idiots at every company.
- buildbot 4y ago
  Were they from before working at that company? Pretty unusual for patents to not be assigned to the company they were working for though? If I leave Microsoft, my patents stay assigned to them while still authored by me/others.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

tracker1 4y ago

It goes in either direction... I think with Twitter, as an example, they ballooned and became more than an engineering culture... I think the layoffs were to really scale back to what is/was needed. Not necessarily a reflection on those let go, other than there were way more than needed for what the application is. I do hope they're able to be more agile moving forward, which seems to be the case so far. For other things, I think some of it is short sightedness and may or may not be good/bad. For many of these layoffs, it's probably office politics as much as anything else.