> I was there at the North acquisition, the vast majority of people kept there jobs and so did the founders. You worked there? I hired former North employees.

> I was there at the North acquisition, the vast majority of people kept there jobs and so did the founders. You worked there? I hired former North employees. Most of them were looking at a way out since their equity had negative value at the point [0]. Founders are "advisors" at Google. Basically a retainer when someone is under NDA after an acquisition. Regarding the layoffs, the company 1/3rd of it's workforce right before getting acquired [1][2] (So much so that some of the funding was pulled out! [3]). Internally, it was a patent play to keep the Intel Vaunt patents from getting auctioned to Apple or Microsoft [4]. > The layoffs are organized exclusively at such a high level the people making the decisions have absolutely no idea how the people they are choosing perform. Layoffs give leeway to engineering managers to trim as they see fit. CEO won't have a case for every underperforming employee or employee with an attitude problem. Mass layoffs are for purely economical reasons, but it's notorious that it's a pretty convenient way to get rid of "hard to fire employees" without having to put in place HR counselling, performance improvement plans and so on. [0] https://www.reddit.com/r/kitchener/comments/hg11tl/a_vision_fades_alphabet_buying_canadian_smart/ https://www.reddit.com/r/kitchener/comments/hg11tl/a_vision_... [1] https://www.theverge.com/2019/2/22/18236253/north-focals-smart-glasses-150-employee-lay-offs https://www.theverge.com/2019/2/22/18236253/north-focals-sma... [2] https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/article-a-vision-fades-alphabet-buying-canadian-smart-glasses-pioneer-north/ https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/article-a-vision-fa... [3] https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/kitchener-waterloo/north-inc-thalmic-labs-lays-off-workers-drops-price-1.5037229 https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/kitchener-waterloo/north-inc-... [4] https://www.theverge.com/2018/12/17/18144221/north-focals-intel-vaunt-patents-ar-glasses https://www.theverge.com/2018/12/17/18144221/north-focals-in...