19 ms·

I am absolutely certain this is to suppress wages and employee rights. It is a coordinated effort across the industry and should be immediately investigated.

brink 4y ago
What evidence do you have if you're absolutely certain?
- Bilal_io 4y ago
  Hence the need for an investigation. I don't think there is collusion, but I wouldn't be surprised. My conspiracy (let me put the tinfoil hat on) is that corporates and mega rich people wanted the recession badly because they can benefit from it. But it didn't happen so they're doing the layoffs and increasing prices to manufacture the recession despite their all-time high profits.
  - it_citizen 4y ago
    Genuine question. How would the mega rich benefit more from the recession than from a stable or high growth environment? Seems easier to capture a bigger piece of the pie when the pie is growing for everybody no and nobody complains? Not to mention the social and political unrest which might be triggered by a recession. Recent and old history has shown times and times again that it is when people go hungry or desperate that they challenge the established social order.
    - willcipriano 4y ago
      Wages lag growth, have a high growth environment for a few years and then cut off the faucet once people start demanding higher wages. It may not be a conspiracy but that is what's happening.
      - deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
    - Bilal_io 4y ago
      Two things contribute to why I think that: History taught me that the rich benefit from piece and from unrest. Knowing human greed and that it's always greener on the other side. But as I said, it's just a conspiracy theory that the recession is being manufactured.
fullshark 4y ago
Was the pandemic hiring spree coordinated also? Just copycat behavior the whole way through imo.
- Ekaros 4y ago
  In the end it is all about what stock markets expect and want. Before they wanted hiring, now they want layoffs. There is really no collusion. In general I think the true leadership of many of these companies is overstated. Layoffs are way to appear to save money so they are doing just that. And the pandemic seem to have been growth in remote products, so they had to grow for that. Even if most of the new workforce might not have been needed.
- webology 4y ago
  It's mostly copycat behavior. https://news.stanford.edu/2022/12/05/explains-recent-tech-layoffs-worried/ https://news.stanford.edu/2022/12/05/explains-recent-tech-la... These companies are either setting all-time profit and revenue numbers or just missing last year's all-time records. Wall Street wasn't happy that they just missed their growth targets, but keep in mind that all growth is compounded. So they have never been more profitable, and yet here we are.
  - Taurenking 4y ago
    [dead]
- mcast 4y ago
  ZIRP allowed companies to borrow infinite money at almost no cost
  - roflyear 4y ago
    What mechanism allowed that? From what I recall corporate bond rates were low but not no cost low. Bank rates maybe were like a few percent but infinity money?
    - 4y ago
throwaway2214 4y ago
"Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon%27s_razor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon%27s_razor
- 1-more 4y ago
  then nothing can ever be malice. This razor sucks.
  - JoshCole 4y ago
    It can, you just need to point out in what ways a thing is not adequately explained by stupidity.
    - mshake2 4y ago
      Tell me the difference between stupid and illegal and I'll have my wife's brother arrested. -Jared Vennett, The Big Short
      - JoshCole 4y ago
        Adam McKay and Charles Randolph wrote a script. Therefore, Jared is wrong about what he is capable of doing and what is he capable of learning. However, Jared is based on a real person - Gregg Lippman. Despite this, after a brief search I found no public information about the arrest of this brother. So either Gregg didn't say this or he said it and it wasn't true, because people in his position would have been told the difference during the course of their life or maybe I didn't search hard enough - but I don't think I should search harder, so if you really feel this is strong support please provide evidence it is so. I'm more interested in building explanations on reality than supporting my positions with comedic fiction. I'll share some small part of my explanation. I apologize for my lack of brevity. In game playing we have the ability to calculate the time to calculate and store perfect play in various games. After around the complexity of chess we get to the point where it is physically impossible to store perfect play because the combinatorial explosion generates more states than we have atoms to work with in our universe. This forces approximation, which forces error, which means that for almost every task in this universe error is not only present but absolutely demanded. In multi-agent settings these issues only get worse, because not only is the state space very high due to the combinatorics, but in addition the optimal policy is a function of other policies. The connecting point here is that since our problems are a superset of things we know to be physically unrealizable it follows that error is inevitable and therefore the observance of stupidity relative to theoretical ideals is inevitable. Founder culture is completely at odds with sophisticated cynicism. - Paul Graham
ilrwbwrkhv 4y ago
Nah. These are all dumb companies which people shouldn't have joined in the first place. You won't find companies like Valve doing this. Join a good company people, instead of dumb, boring ones run by another run of the mill CEO.
- okdood64 4y ago
  Can you elaborate on Valve? Why would Valve not do this? What makes it different?
  - ilrwbwrkhv 4y ago
    Cause it is a proper company run to solve problems and not make money out of selling vaporware. It also doesn't hire in bulk and has a culture which is a step away from all this madness.
  - cacois 4y ago
    Not that I agree with the above comment, but Valve is a private company. Hence, they would not be beholden to shareholder pressures. Perhaps the argument the posted intended was to never join a pubic company?
    - bob1029 4y ago
      > Hence, they would not be beholden to shareholder pressures. Private companies have shareholders & related interests/pressure as well.
      - mrtranscendence 4y ago
        True, but Gabe Newell owns over 50% of Valve so I'm guessing the pressure in this case is more limited.
        sahila 4y ago
        Even that wouldn’t explain google and meta as the founders own over 50% of voting shares.
pm90 4y ago
It seems unlikely. Something as large as this would require a lot of secrecy to be a coordinated effort and not get leaked. Like a sibling comment said, its overwhelmingly more likely that we’re seeing just how bad leadership really is at Tech.
debacle 4y ago
The office closings or the layoffs?
roarcher 4y ago
Just look at the market since COVID. We're coming out of a bubble. When stocks go way up, companies get drunk on their newfound riches and spend excessively, just like individuals. Then times get leaner and they cut back. Only difference is that individuals aren't usually putting other people out of jobs when they do it, at least not directly. This has happened many times before and will continue to happen cyclically as long as people are free to spend their money how they see fit. Why would this particular time be the result of some vast conspiracy?
tptacek 4y ago
I'm pretty sure you're allowed, as management, to notice what your competitors do and respond accordingly. It's, you know, the foundation of all price discovery. You just can't make actual agreements with them.
- sokoloff 4y ago
  Exactly. It's the reason that the gas prices near me aren't $3.49/gal, $3.55/gal, and $12.49/gal.
strangescript 4y ago
Tech companies know what some people are still pretending may or may not happen. The economy is going to get super rough this year and rates are not going to get cut any time soon.
louwrentius 4y ago
I think you are right but this site is mostly for the "Temporary Embarrassed Milionaires" crowd that identify more with those large companies than with the average worker. The irony is that many of them are actually part of this layoff reading this and still they don't agree with what is really happening. The inevitable periodic 'crash' that is part of the capitalist system is a feature, not a bug. It helps suppress wages, keeps workers in their place. So I think you are right on the money. So many more layoffs will be announced in the coming weeks. But remember: all companies will show (record) healthy profits none the less. Even the hacker news crowd that lives lavishly and is mostly unharmed by all of this should not feel save at all, you are just as expendable as the anonymous warehouse worker or fast food person. Speaking of which, the 100K+ tech worker has more in common with the average fast food or retail worker than the owning class: you are worker slaves that fear for their well-being if without work. Unfortunately I'm afraid the HN crowd is just too comfortable to realise that capitalism is destroying everything, from freedom and autonomy to democracy to the environment.
- andrew_ 4y ago
  Yeah that's bullshit. Came from a blue collar home, worked in the trades until I found my way into computers. Don't have a college education and carved myself out a nice career in tech being self taught and hustling for 20 years. From my perspective, this site is not for the "Temporary Embarrassed Millionaires," but unfortunately populated by too many from the "Sad I Missed The Bolshevik Revolution" crowd salivating whenever the opportunity to yell "You're oppressed brothers and sisters!" arises.
  - louwrentius 4y ago
    That's survivor bias: for you there are thousands who didn't make it for one reason or another and it seems that those are just to get fucked. 65%+ Americans don't have 500 bucks to their name. They are one car breakdown from deep shit. They call it the American Dream because you have to be asleep to believe it. -- George Carlin
    - orangecat 4y ago
downrightmike 4y ago
Any time labor makes headway against Capital, Capital Revolts. Which is why we saw a lot of unionization in the past, it was the only way to make any headway.
andrew_ 4y ago
Disagree. What we saw for the last 4-6 years was a 0% interest rate phenomenon. The bubble has popped, hiring as a measure of growth is over, and things are normalizing.
matwood 4y ago
No. They all knew they over hired and were simply waiting for the first one to make a move. And, if you look at the numbers relatively, these are barely a scratch with the numbers hired over the last few years.
xyzelement 4y ago
I am laughing at your "absolute certainty." You probably meant "I have a feeling that I can't support?" Would you call the previous few decades of tech employers bidding comp insanely high as they competed for talent "a coordinated effort to boost wages?" Why not?
kfarr 4y ago
It could be coordination but unlikely to be collusion, some of the FAANG already made that mistake
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

brink 4y ago

What evidence do you have if you're absolutely certain?

Bilal_io 4y ago
Hence the need for an investigation. I don't think there is collusion, but I wouldn't be surprised. My conspiracy (let me put the tinfoil hat on) is that corporates and mega rich people wanted the recession badly because they can benefit from it. But it didn't happen so they're doing the layoffs and increasing prices to manufacture the recession despite their all-time high profits.
- it_citizen 4y ago
  Genuine question. How would the mega rich benefit more from the recession than from a stable or high growth environment? Seems easier to capture a bigger piece of the pie when the pie is growing for everybody no and nobody complains? Not to mention the social and political unrest which might be triggered by a recession. Recent and old history has shown times and times again that it is when people go hungry or desperate that they challenge the established social order.
  - willcipriano 4y ago
    Wages lag growth, have a high growth environment for a few years and then cut off the faucet once people start demanding higher wages. It may not be a conspiracy but that is what's happening.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
  - Bilal_io 4y ago
    Two things contribute to why I think that: History taught me that the rich benefit from piece and from unrest. Knowing human greed and that it's always greener on the other side. But as I said, it's just a conspiracy theory that the recession is being manufactured.

fullshark 4y ago

Was the pandemic hiring spree coordinated also? Just copycat behavior the whole way through imo.

Ekaros 4y ago
In the end it is all about what stock markets expect and want. Before they wanted hiring, now they want layoffs. There is really no collusion. In general I think the true leadership of many of these companies is overstated. Layoffs are way to appear to save money so they are doing just that. And the pandemic seem to have been growth in remote products, so they had to grow for that. Even if most of the new workforce might not have been needed.
webology 4y ago
It's mostly copycat behavior. https://news.stanford.edu/2022/12/05/explains-recent-tech-layoffs-worried/ https://news.stanford.edu/2022/12/05/explains-recent-tech-la... These companies are either setting all-time profit and revenue numbers or just missing last year's all-time records. Wall Street wasn't happy that they just missed their growth targets, but keep in mind that all growth is compounded. So they have never been more profitable, and yet here we are.
- Taurenking 4y ago
  [dead]
mcast 4y ago
ZIRP allowed companies to borrow infinite money at almost no cost
- roflyear 4y ago
  What mechanism allowed that? From what I recall corporate bond rates were low but not no cost low. Bank rates maybe were like a few percent but infinity money?
  - 4y ago

throwaway2214 4y ago

"Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon%27s_razor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon%27s_razor

1-more 4y ago
then nothing can ever be malice. This razor sucks.
- JoshCole 4y ago
  It can, you just need to point out in what ways a thing is not adequately explained by stupidity.
  - mshake2 4y ago
    Tell me the difference between stupid and illegal and I'll have my wife's brother arrested. -Jared Vennett, The Big Short
    - JoshCole 4y ago
      Adam McKay and Charles Randolph wrote a script. Therefore, Jared is wrong about what he is capable of doing and what is he capable of learning. However, Jared is based on a real person - Gregg Lippman. Despite this, after a brief search I found no public information about the arrest of this brother. So either Gregg didn't say this or he said it and it wasn't true, because people in his position would have been told the difference during the course of their life or maybe I didn't search hard enough - but I don't think I should search harder, so if you really feel this is strong support please provide evidence it is so. I'm more interested in building explanations on reality than supporting my positions with comedic fiction. I'll share some small part of my explanation. I apologize for my lack of brevity. In game playing we have the ability to calculate the time to calculate and store perfect play in various games. After around the complexity of chess we get to the point where it is physically impossible to store perfect play because the combinatorial explosion generates more states than we have atoms to work with in our universe. This forces approximation, which forces error, which means that for almost every task in this universe error is not only present but absolutely demanded. In multi-agent settings these issues only get worse, because not only is the state space very high due to the combinatorics, but in addition the optimal policy is a function of other policies. The connecting point here is that since our problems are a superset of things we know to be physically unrealizable it follows that error is inevitable and therefore the observance of stupidity relative to theoretical ideals is inevitable. Founder culture is completely at odds with sophisticated cynicism. - Paul Graham

ilrwbwrkhv 4y ago

Nah. These are all dumb companies which people shouldn't have joined in the first place. You won't find companies like Valve doing this. Join a good company people, instead of dumb, boring ones run by another run of the mill CEO.

okdood64 4y ago
Can you elaborate on Valve? Why would Valve not do this? What makes it different?
- ilrwbwrkhv 4y ago
  Cause it is a proper company run to solve problems and not make money out of selling vaporware. It also doesn't hire in bulk and has a culture which is a step away from all this madness.
- cacois 4y ago
  Not that I agree with the above comment, but Valve is a private company. Hence, they would not be beholden to shareholder pressures. Perhaps the argument the posted intended was to never join a pubic company?
  - bob1029 4y ago
    > Hence, they would not be beholden to shareholder pressures. Private companies have shareholders & related interests/pressure as well.
    - mrtranscendence 4y ago
      True, but Gabe Newell owns over 50% of Valve so I'm guessing the pressure in this case is more limited.
      - sahila 4y ago
        Even that wouldn’t explain google and meta as the founders own over 50% of voting shares.

pm90 4y ago

It seems unlikely. Something as large as this would require a lot of secrecy to be a coordinated effort and not get leaked. Like a sibling comment said, its overwhelmingly more likely that we’re seeing just how bad leadership really is at Tech.

debacle 4y ago

The office closings or the layoffs?

roarcher 4y ago

Just look at the market since COVID. We're coming out of a bubble. When stocks go way up, companies get drunk on their newfound riches and spend excessively, just like individuals. Then times get leaner and they cut back. Only difference is that individuals aren't usually putting other people out of jobs when they do it, at least not directly. This has happened many times before and will continue to happen cyclically as long as people are free to spend their money how they see fit. Why would this particular time be the result of some vast conspiracy?

tptacek 4y ago

I'm pretty sure you're allowed, as management, to notice what your competitors do and respond accordingly. It's, you know, the foundation of all price discovery. You just can't make actual agreements with them.

sokoloff 4y ago
Exactly. It's the reason that the gas prices near me aren't $3.49/gal, $3.55/gal, and $12.49/gal.

strangescript 4y ago

Tech companies know what some people are still pretending may or may not happen. The economy is going to get super rough this year and rates are not going to get cut any time soon.

louwrentius 4y ago

I think you are right but this site is mostly for the "Temporary Embarrassed Milionaires" crowd that identify more with those large companies than with the average worker. The irony is that many of them are actually part of this layoff reading this and still they don't agree with what is really happening. The inevitable periodic 'crash' that is part of the capitalist system is a feature, not a bug. It helps suppress wages, keeps workers in their place. So I think you are right on the money. So many more layoffs will be announced in the coming weeks. But remember: all companies will show (record) healthy profits none the less. Even the hacker news crowd that lives lavishly and is mostly unharmed by all of this should not feel save at all, you are just as expendable as the anonymous warehouse worker or fast food person. Speaking of which, the 100K+ tech worker has more in common with the average fast food or retail worker than the owning class: you are worker slaves that fear for their well-being if without work. Unfortunately I'm afraid the HN crowd is just too comfortable to realise that capitalism is destroying everything, from freedom and autonomy to democracy to the environment.

andrew_ 4y ago
Yeah that's bullshit. Came from a blue collar home, worked in the trades until I found my way into computers. Don't have a college education and carved myself out a nice career in tech being self taught and hustling for 20 years. From my perspective, this site is not for the "Temporary Embarrassed Millionaires," but unfortunately populated by too many from the "Sad I Missed The Bolshevik Revolution" crowd salivating whenever the opportunity to yell "You're oppressed brothers and sisters!" arises.
- louwrentius 4y ago
  That's survivor bias: for you there are thousands who didn't make it for one reason or another and it seems that those are just to get fucked. 65%+ Americans don't have 500 bucks to their name. They are one car breakdown from deep shit. They call it the American Dream because you have to be asleep to believe it. -- George Carlin
  - orangecat 4y ago

downrightmike 4y ago

Any time labor makes headway against Capital, Capital Revolts. Which is why we saw a lot of unionization in the past, it was the only way to make any headway.

andrew_ 4y ago

Disagree. What we saw for the last 4-6 years was a 0% interest rate phenomenon. The bubble has popped, hiring as a measure of growth is over, and things are normalizing.

matwood 4y ago

No. They all knew they over hired and were simply waiting for the first one to make a move. And, if you look at the numbers relatively, these are barely a scratch with the numbers hired over the last few years.

xyzelement 4y ago

I am laughing at your "absolute certainty." You probably meant "I have a feeling that I can't support?" Would you call the previous few decades of tech employers bidding comp insanely high as they competed for talent "a coordinated effort to boost wages?" Why not?

kfarr 4y ago

It could be coordination but unlikely to be collusion, some of the FAANG already made that mistake

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]