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My philosophy on multiple rounds (which I'm not attributing to big techs): 1) Any business can tolerate a 5-20% layoff without loss to business continuity. 2)

by blagie 4y ago

My philosophy on multiple rounds (which I'm not attributing to big techs): 1) Any business can tolerate a 5-20% layoff without loss to business continuity. 2) A 50% layoff results in losing critical knowledge about how to keep the business working. 3) Therefore, if you want to lose 50% of your employees, it makes sense to do it in rounds. I can give similar logic for larger layoffs too, mostly having to do with impact on employee perception. If I'm in a business who has layoffs every 3 months, I will be sending out resumes to more stable places, to the extent they exist.

marcosdumay 4y ago
> Any business can tolerate a 5-20% layoff without loss to business continuity. Does adding 2 months between your 5-20% rounds recover that continuity? I can't make my mind. It still looks like an incredibly stupid thing to do, but it will spread enough knowledge to keep your lights on. The problem is that "keep your lights on" is the only thing people will care about while overworked looking for another job.
- blagie 4y ago
  > Does adding 2 months between your 5-20% rounds recover that continuity? Yes. The knowledge is consolidated in fewer people that way. > It still looks like an incredibly stupid thing to do, but it will spread enough knowledge to keep your lights on. The problem is that "keep your lights on" is the only thing people will care about while overworked looking for another job Agreed. However, if a business is bleeding $1M per month and has $10M in savings, "keeping the lights on" for a while is considered success. I will mention: I'm not advocating for a specific course of action. I'm merely trying to explain one way of reasoning. Personally, I think there are usually out-of-the-box solutions which avoid layoffs, especially in situations similar to big tech. Google could, for example, spin up a consulting arm and (1) Get dead-weight people out of core operations (2) Likely, make a mint.

by blagie 4y ago

marcosdumay 4y ago

> Any business can tolerate a 5-20% layoff without loss to business continuity. Does adding 2 months between your 5-20% rounds recover that continuity? I can't make my mind. It still looks like an incredibly stupid thing to do, but it will spread enough knowledge to keep your lights on. The problem is that "keep your lights on" is the only thing people will care about while overworked looking for another job.

blagie 4y ago
> Does adding 2 months between your 5-20% rounds recover that continuity? Yes. The knowledge is consolidated in fewer people that way. > It still looks like an incredibly stupid thing to do, but it will spread enough knowledge to keep your lights on. The problem is that "keep your lights on" is the only thing people will care about while overworked looking for another job Agreed. However, if a business is bleeding $1M per month and has $10M in savings, "keeping the lights on" for a while is considered success. I will mention: I'm not advocating for a specific course of action. I'm merely trying to explain one way of reasoning. Personally, I think there are usually out-of-the-box solutions which avoid layoffs, especially in situations similar to big tech. Google could, for example, spin up a consulting arm and (1) Get dead-weight people out of core operations (2) Likely, make a mint.