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Most of the big companies are doing this. Really makes you wonder about the quality of their leadership when they follow trends like this.

IKantRead 3y ago
The problem is that as the market increasingly becomes removed from reality the only thing left for "leadership" to do is follow the trends that their biggest investors are following. What benefit would sound, thoughtful leadership provide in a world where the fundamentals have no connection with real world success? For years if you had made a profitable, viable and sustainable company investors would have scoffed at you. You would have been crushed by some investor hype fueled, unprofitable, impossible to sustain company chasing trends. Reality keeps threatening to rear it's ugly head, but then we find a way to keep it at bay for another round of delusion. We all know something is not quite right but as long as there's money on the table we all keep playing the game. I mean we all know by now that crypto is a scam and COIN has more than doubled it's opening price at the start of the year.
- iwant2endmyself 3y ago
  [dead]
- paleotrope 3y ago
  Watch Margin Call. Jeremy Irons character explains exactly what is happening.
throwawaysleep 3y ago
They have bosses/people with power over them like everyone else. CEO is day to day in charge, but they have a board to report to, investors who will gripe, banks that will want more collateral of the share price falls, etc. I’ve done all sorts of damaging things to keep people above me satisfied. And I will do it thousands of times more over my career.
- jacobr1 3y ago
  Right, even if they disagree with a particular trend, they probably have tremendous pressure to to conform. Going an independent path is very difficult and requires strong leadership skills and political capital.
- pixelatedindex 3y ago
  > I’ve done all sorts of damaging things to keep people above me satisfied. And I will do it thousands of times more over my career. Interesting. I understand why - your career matters more than another person’s career. But I can’t help but think nobody wants to work for someone who won’t have their team’s back. How do you strike a balance? Asking because I imagine I might face similar situations in the future if/when I go up the totem pole. Do you just say “it’s not personal, just business” and go on your way?
  - throwawaysleep 3y ago
    I will. I will work equally for someone who has my back as someone who does not. I’m too cynical to believe you do have my back, so having it does not matter. I am an IC, so most of my decisions have been about screwing customers. I’ve never had to directly deal with them as that is customer support’s problem. I’ve also hurt salespeople, but again, only had to hear about it through channels.
- red-iron-pine 3y ago
  > I’ve done all sorts of damaging things to keep people above me satisfied. I love the buck passing. you could just say no.
  - throwawaysleep 3y ago
    Not without consequences, as they have power over me. And I have no real stake in the outcomes of my department/company, so frankly even a 5 minute conversation is more expensive to me than frustrating someone I will never meet, even if it costs us sales.
frob 3y ago
Elon Musk starred a fad. The other tech leaders had to get in on the fad or seem out-of-date. The thing about fads is you don't do them because they're useful or because you thought it out; you do it because everyone else is and you don't want to look stupid for being left behind. Owners of tech companies aren't immune to the same foibles that drive all of us; they just have more money.
- DiggyJohnson 3y ago
  Blaming Elon for everything has reached a new level. I don't think you can be confident in this hypothesis, you would have to show that all these firms weren't reacting similarly because they had the same data and outlook. Twitter just went first.
- rchaud 3y ago
  It has nothing to do with Musk. Cisco, Verizon, HP etc have been slashing tens of thousands of jobs to please shareholders since before Musk knew what a 10-Q was. Mass layoffs have been a fact of bigco life for ages. Tech layoffs seem novel in comparison, possibly because in the old days companies didn't have thousands of developers on the payroll.
- tamimio 3y ago
  No they do have a use or benefits, not for the employees though but for the corps, it is all supply and demand, once those employees who are mostly living paycheck to paycheck are let go, on a scale, you will have a lot of supply to further reduce the compensations or at least have the leverage when it comes to negotiations, so no WFH and the likes. Corps are never your friends or in your interests, unions are.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
browningstreet 3y ago
I was part of a layoff this year. I was the highest performing member of the team — and awarded as such — but my skip level VP didn’t like me. So I’m gone. It was similar across the board.. lots of my coworkers, many of whom were good at their jobs, were selected-out not based on performance either. So yeah, sometimes you can cut the chaff this way, and sometimes it’s just a way for those in power to consolidate their crews. And sure… this is technically a management right, but some who were retained were kept because they were abusable more than they were useful.
- officialjunk 3y ago
  Do you know why that VP didn't like you?
  - pixelatedindex 3y ago
    Not OP, but I know my manager was let go because he didn’t agree with his manager (VP) in the new re-org structure. I’m glad he didn’t agree because we are customer facing engineers and under the new re-org, we would be under a person who had no desire to think about issues from an external client perspective. It would have made the entire team miserable and less efficient but the VP had an attitude of “why don’t you just do as you’re told”. Sometimes it’s just poor leadership, but leaders have power.
  - browningstreet 3y ago
    I could say that my project was orthogonal to his interests, but also not optional (from higher ups). I made it painless but I expect that as much as anything, he didn’t like my face. And, what was rough was that he oversaw our division for about 60 days. I know for a fact I wasn’t on the cut list from my manager or his manager. Is this capitalist-rational? It is what it is. Is it about optimal organizational outcomes? I don’t see how it could be. Layoffs are about something, but righting ships? I don’t accept that.
red-iron-pine 3y ago
Gotta push those salaries down somehow. Publicly traded means everyone lookin at that OpEx, and labor is a big part.
tamimio 3y ago
I had a discussion with one of the CEOs who did that around a year ago, it turns out, it is just the usual influence and bandwagon ride, he said that the hiring is easier these days and unlike during the pandemic, “so we will let go those and hire others later, it won’t be a challenge”, and why he did it? Apparently from reading all the news that big companies are doing it. Now that was a small company following the big boys in tech, but why big companies would do that in the first place? Well, personally, I think it revolves around what said by Tim Gurner, the CEO of Gurner Group (1) > We need to see pain in the economy, We need to remind people they work for the employer, not the other way around. Yes, obviously he was attacked and apologized later, but he was honest, he said out loud what most CEOs say behind closed doors. (1) https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/tim-gurner-property-developer-australia-b2411998.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/tim-gurner...

IKantRead 3y ago

The problem is that as the market increasingly becomes removed from reality the only thing left for "leadership" to do is follow the trends that their biggest investors are following. What benefit would sound, thoughtful leadership provide in a world where the fundamentals have no connection with real world success? For years if you had made a profitable, viable and sustainable company investors would have scoffed at you. You would have been crushed by some investor hype fueled, unprofitable, impossible to sustain company chasing trends. Reality keeps threatening to rear it's ugly head, but then we find a way to keep it at bay for another round of delusion. We all know something is not quite right but as long as there's money on the table we all keep playing the game. I mean we all know by now that crypto is a scam and COIN has more than doubled it's opening price at the start of the year.

iwant2endmyself 3y ago
[dead]
paleotrope 3y ago
Watch Margin Call. Jeremy Irons character explains exactly what is happening.

throwawaysleep 3y ago

They have bosses/people with power over them like everyone else. CEO is day to day in charge, but they have a board to report to, investors who will gripe, banks that will want more collateral of the share price falls, etc. I’ve done all sorts of damaging things to keep people above me satisfied. And I will do it thousands of times more over my career.

jacobr1 3y ago
Right, even if they disagree with a particular trend, they probably have tremendous pressure to to conform. Going an independent path is very difficult and requires strong leadership skills and political capital.
pixelatedindex 3y ago
> I’ve done all sorts of damaging things to keep people above me satisfied. And I will do it thousands of times more over my career. Interesting. I understand why - your career matters more than another person’s career. But I can’t help but think nobody wants to work for someone who won’t have their team’s back. How do you strike a balance? Asking because I imagine I might face similar situations in the future if/when I go up the totem pole. Do you just say “it’s not personal, just business” and go on your way?
- throwawaysleep 3y ago
  I will. I will work equally for someone who has my back as someone who does not. I’m too cynical to believe you do have my back, so having it does not matter. I am an IC, so most of my decisions have been about screwing customers. I’ve never had to directly deal with them as that is customer support’s problem. I’ve also hurt salespeople, but again, only had to hear about it through channels.
red-iron-pine 3y ago
> I’ve done all sorts of damaging things to keep people above me satisfied. I love the buck passing. you could just say no.
- throwawaysleep 3y ago
  Not without consequences, as they have power over me. And I have no real stake in the outcomes of my department/company, so frankly even a 5 minute conversation is more expensive to me than frustrating someone I will never meet, even if it costs us sales.

frob 3y ago

Elon Musk starred a fad. The other tech leaders had to get in on the fad or seem out-of-date. The thing about fads is you don't do them because they're useful or because you thought it out; you do it because everyone else is and you don't want to look stupid for being left behind. Owners of tech companies aren't immune to the same foibles that drive all of us; they just have more money.

DiggyJohnson 3y ago
Blaming Elon for everything has reached a new level. I don't think you can be confident in this hypothesis, you would have to show that all these firms weren't reacting similarly because they had the same data and outlook. Twitter just went first.
rchaud 3y ago
It has nothing to do with Musk. Cisco, Verizon, HP etc have been slashing tens of thousands of jobs to please shareholders since before Musk knew what a 10-Q was. Mass layoffs have been a fact of bigco life for ages. Tech layoffs seem novel in comparison, possibly because in the old days companies didn't have thousands of developers on the payroll.
tamimio 3y ago
No they do have a use or benefits, not for the employees though but for the corps, it is all supply and demand, once those employees who are mostly living paycheck to paycheck are let go, on a scale, you will have a lot of supply to further reduce the compensations or at least have the leverage when it comes to negotiations, so no WFH and the likes. Corps are never your friends or in your interests, unions are.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

browningstreet 3y ago

I was part of a layoff this year. I was the highest performing member of the team — and awarded as such — but my skip level VP didn’t like me. So I’m gone. It was similar across the board.. lots of my coworkers, many of whom were good at their jobs, were selected-out not based on performance either. So yeah, sometimes you can cut the chaff this way, and sometimes it’s just a way for those in power to consolidate their crews. And sure… this is technically a management right, but some who were retained were kept because they were abusable more than they were useful.

officialjunk 3y ago
Do you know why that VP didn't like you?
- pixelatedindex 3y ago
  Not OP, but I know my manager was let go because he didn’t agree with his manager (VP) in the new re-org structure. I’m glad he didn’t agree because we are customer facing engineers and under the new re-org, we would be under a person who had no desire to think about issues from an external client perspective. It would have made the entire team miserable and less efficient but the VP had an attitude of “why don’t you just do as you’re told”. Sometimes it’s just poor leadership, but leaders have power.
- browningstreet 3y ago
  I could say that my project was orthogonal to his interests, but also not optional (from higher ups). I made it painless but I expect that as much as anything, he didn’t like my face. And, what was rough was that he oversaw our division for about 60 days. I know for a fact I wasn’t on the cut list from my manager or his manager. Is this capitalist-rational? It is what it is. Is it about optimal organizational outcomes? I don’t see how it could be. Layoffs are about something, but righting ships? I don’t accept that.

red-iron-pine 3y ago

Gotta push those salaries down somehow. Publicly traded means everyone lookin at that OpEx, and labor is a big part.

tamimio 3y ago

I had a discussion with one of the CEOs who did that around a year ago, it turns out, it is just the usual influence and bandwagon ride, he said that the hiring is easier these days and unlike during the pandemic, “so we will let go those and hire others later, it won’t be a challenge”, and why he did it? Apparently from reading all the news that big companies are doing it. Now that was a small company following the big boys in tech, but why big companies would do that in the first place? Well, personally, I think it revolves around what said by Tim Gurner, the CEO of Gurner Group (1) > We need to see pain in the economy, We need to remind people they work for the employer, not the other way around. Yes, obviously he was attacked and apologized later, but he was honest, he said out loud what most CEOs say behind closed doors. (1) https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/tim-gurner-property-developer-australia-b2411998.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/tim-gurner...