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> A CEO would not need to lay off people if their long term plans worked accordingly, which means that they suck at their job. So any CEO who is not a psychic

> A CEO would not need to lay off people if their long term plans worked accordingly, which means that they suck at their job. So any CEO who is not a psychic will most likely end up sucking at their job.

manuelabeledo 4y ago
Let me put it this way. If I were to hire an engineer that writes 10x more code than the next, but all the code needs to be rewritten after a year because he made some very questionable decisions, I would definitely fire that guy. Similarly, if I hire a CEO who hires 20,000 people, then lays 12,000 off after a year, I would have to question his ability as the head of the company. It is not about being able to predict the future, at all. Also, have I mentioned that most of these companies aren't posting losses? Or even problematic trends in their revenue reports?
- sokoloff 4y ago
  Alphabet is absolutely posting troublesome trends in their revenue reports. Google ad results down, YouTube results down two quarters in a row… That’s what pays the bills at Alphabet.
  - bastardoperator 4y ago
    So you agree the CEO should be fired...
    - sokoloff 4y ago
      I think they should if they fail to react appropriately to the downturn in ad spending by their customers.
  - manuelabeledo 4y ago
    I mean, the trend is downwards... If you take the anomaly of 2020-2021 into account [0] Also, revenue is not down. Growth is. Apparently, we live in this stupid dystopia where growth is more important than money, even for gargantuan companies like Alphabet. How are they planning on growing at a >10% rate YoY forever? [0] https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/GOOG/alphabet/revenue https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/GOOG/alphabet/reve...
    - sokoloff 4y ago
      You cited Alphabet revenue, not advertising or YouTube revenue. > Google’s parent company, reported $59 billion in advertising revenue for the fourth quarter, a decrease of 3.6% from the same period in 2021. Those results marked the second time ad sales fell since Google became a publicly traded company in 2004. > Google’s video platform, YouTube, recorded a second straight quarter of declining revenue for the three months through Dec. 31, with sales retreating 7.8% from the year-earlier period to $8 billion. Source: https://www.wsj.com/articles/alphabet-google-googl-q4-earnings-report-2022-11675306621 https://www.wsj.com/articles/alphabet-google-googl-q4-earnin...
      - manuelabeledo 4y ago
        > You cited Alphabet revenue, not advertising or YouTube revenue. Because you previously said: > Alphabet is absolutely posting troublesome trends in their revenue reports. Essentially you are telling me that if revenue as a whole goes up, but not in some divisions, that makes sense of layoffs across all divisions.
        sokoloff 4y ago
        Yes, I then cited the troublesome figures in those reports in the literal next words.
- cultofmetatron 4y ago
  >If I were to hire an engineer that writes 10x more code than the next, but all the code needs to be rewritten after a year because he made some very questionable decisions, I would definitely fire that guy. thats dubious. did that code serve the purpose needed? did it provide enough value during that time to offset the cost of replacing it? I've written plenty of dubious code to get out a feature in front of a customer who would have otherwise left us. Sometimes that was it and we never had to touch it again. other times, more people would depend on it and the initial feature justified the resources to rewrite it. Its more complicated than "was the code bad." code is the product of the constraints at the time. that includes things like time sensitivity or budget.

manuelabeledo 4y ago

Let me put it this way. If I were to hire an engineer that writes 10x more code than the next, but all the code needs to be rewritten after a year because he made some very questionable decisions, I would definitely fire that guy. Similarly, if I hire a CEO who hires 20,000 people, then lays 12,000 off after a year, I would have to question his ability as the head of the company. It is not about being able to predict the future, at all. Also, have I mentioned that most of these companies aren't posting losses? Or even problematic trends in their revenue reports?

sokoloff 4y ago
Alphabet is absolutely posting troublesome trends in their revenue reports. Google ad results down, YouTube results down two quarters in a row… That’s what pays the bills at Alphabet.
- bastardoperator 4y ago
  So you agree the CEO should be fired...
  - sokoloff 4y ago
    I think they should if they fail to react appropriately to the downturn in ad spending by their customers.
- manuelabeledo 4y ago
  I mean, the trend is downwards... If you take the anomaly of 2020-2021 into account [0] Also, revenue is not down. Growth is. Apparently, we live in this stupid dystopia where growth is more important than money, even for gargantuan companies like Alphabet. How are they planning on growing at a >10% rate YoY forever? [0] https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/GOOG/alphabet/revenue https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/GOOG/alphabet/reve...
  - sokoloff 4y ago
    You cited Alphabet revenue, not advertising or YouTube revenue. > Google’s parent company, reported $59 billion in advertising revenue for the fourth quarter, a decrease of 3.6% from the same period in 2021. Those results marked the second time ad sales fell since Google became a publicly traded company in 2004. > Google’s video platform, YouTube, recorded a second straight quarter of declining revenue for the three months through Dec. 31, with sales retreating 7.8% from the year-earlier period to $8 billion. Source: https://www.wsj.com/articles/alphabet-google-googl-q4-earnings-report-2022-11675306621 https://www.wsj.com/articles/alphabet-google-googl-q4-earnin...
    - manuelabeledo 4y ago
      > You cited Alphabet revenue, not advertising or YouTube revenue. Because you previously said: > Alphabet is absolutely posting troublesome trends in their revenue reports. Essentially you are telling me that if revenue as a whole goes up, but not in some divisions, that makes sense of layoffs across all divisions.
      - sokoloff 4y ago
        Yes, I then cited the troublesome figures in those reports in the literal next words.
cultofmetatron 4y ago
>If I were to hire an engineer that writes 10x more code than the next, but all the code needs to be rewritten after a year because he made some very questionable decisions, I would definitely fire that guy. thats dubious. did that code serve the purpose needed? did it provide enough value during that time to offset the cost of replacing it? I've written plenty of dubious code to get out a feature in front of a customer who would have otherwise left us. Sometimes that was it and we never had to touch it again. other times, more people would depend on it and the initial feature justified the resources to rewrite it. Its more complicated than "was the code bad." code is the product of the constraints at the time. that includes things like time sensitivity or budget.