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Not to mention, companies announcing major acquisitions (Uber acquiring Postmates), or share buybacks (Apple) right afterwards. If a company really did mismanag
by hackernewds 3y ago
Not to mention, companies announcing major acquisitions (Uber acquiring Postmates), or share buybacks (Apple) right afterwards. If a company really did mismanage their workforce the CEO would be fired for it, not rewarded.
- HDThoreaun 3y agoLayoffs are not seen as mismanaging your workforce by investors. They're generally seen as a gamble that didn't pay off. Especially with tech companies, taking gambles is a good thing, investors want to see that management is taking risks.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- sam0x17 3y agoThough sometimes the gamble _is_ the layoff (see Twitter atm)
- 6D794163636F756 3y agoTwitter's layoffs are because Elon Musk has no idea how to manage a company, not because of actual business or market pressures
- sam0x17 3y agoRight. He's gambling
- passing_by_and 3y agoIn what reality do you live in? He is the most successful and transformative figure of his generation.
- coffeefirst 3y agoYes, but I am not obliged to entertain this fantasy.
- twelve40 3y agoholding up people's wages to get the company through a bump or two would be another bold gamble and a savvy business move until it was made illegal (luckily for all of us non-sociopaths)
- np- 3y agoA gamble? But who’s paying off the “gambling loss” during a layoff? Because it’s certainly not the person making the bet.
- onlyrealcuzzo 3y agoWhen did Apple do layoffs?
- ares1 3y agoIn ‘97 they layed off 4100 people - close to A third of their workforce at the time https://money.cnn.com/1997/03/14/technology/apple/ https://money.cnn.com/1997/03/14/technology/apple/
- paulryanrogers 3y agoApple's return to office in 2022 may have been partially meant to serve as a stealth layoff.
- hsbauauvhabzb 3y agoNah ceos get fired for mismanaging profit margins, not people.
- no_wizard 3y agoNot that I'm quibbling, however I don't think Apple had any meaningful sized layoffs? I know there was some shake up in the retail division, but its unclear from the outside what the motivation was. I've heard through 2nd hand sources that there's been alot of churn and issues in the retail division really spanning back to Ron Johnson's retirement Only mentioning this as I'm not sure it categorizes the same as these huge 10%+ layoffs the rest of tech have participated in, sometimes multiple times by the same company.
- 6D794163636F756 3y agoThey may have meant meta? Meta announced a 40B stock buyback the day after it announced it was laying off 10,000 people. 4,000,000 per employee fired
- wepple 3y agoWhy are share buybacks seen so negatively? Isn't it somewhat to offset the fact that a lot of shares are issued as comp, so dilute the pool?
- ImPostingOnHN 3y agobecause it uses free cash to increase share price in order to increase executive compensation based on said share price, instead of using said free cash flow to compensate actual workers/employees
- jetpackjoe 3y agoor for R&D, improving operations, or anything else that benefits the company.
- ryandrake 3y agoExactly. When your company buys shares back (or issue a dividend) you're basically telling shareholders "We have all this cash but we have no idea what to do with it that will provide a return greater than our Hurdle Rate, so we're just going to give it back to you." It doesn't exactly inspire confidence to me as an investor that the company is creative and forward-looking, but apparently most investors love this signal.
- Eisenstein 3y agoIsn't a company supposed to make a profit though? At some point aren't a lot of companies pretty much at their functional maximum? Investing in 'growth' isn't always practical. Example: All-Clad makes great cookware, but they last a long time and the number of people who need new pans are finite -- why should they invest more money into the company when they are operating optimallly?
- ryandrake 3y agoAbsolutely. If you're the water utility or an energy company or some other company not positioned as a "growth" company, sure, hand back your extra cash to investors. But if you're a tech company, a stock buyback just says "we're out of ideas but still want the stock price to go up".