5 ms·

Every tech company of appreciable size and bureaucracy is carried by 20% of employees, while the other 80% are some level of checked out / coasting. Every quart

Every tech company of appreciable size and bureaucracy is carried by 20% of employees, while the other 80% are some level of checked out / coasting. Every quarter that interest rates remain high, more of that 80% is identified and excised. Yes the lazies do some amount of work, but usually the 20% of high performers can automate the terminated people’s jobs enough to carry that load as well. My advice is to not rest on your laurels. If you are concerned you could be seen in the 80% of lazies, maybe put some extra effort in, work some late nights and weekends, at least as performance reviews come up. Life isn’t fair. Sometimes you need to work a real 40 hour week, even in tech.

gnicholas 3y ago
Sounds like most government offices I’ve worked in. Except you can’t fire bureaucrats, no matter how lazy they are.
- monero-xmr 3y ago
  The government is a special case. In terms of private sector work, tech companies were able to carry a huge number of barnacles, not just in “what does this person even do?” orgs like DEI and HR but also in engineering and product. This was because of zero-percent interest rates, never ending labor shortages of tech workers, and a growth story that somehow made sense if you squinted. I think only AI still can portray that level of cognitive dissonance with future promises of unlimited growth. For the rest, Musk showed how bloated tech companies can get rid of 70% of staff and operate even better than before. Private equity is licking its lips and big tech is trying to fend off the barbarians at the gate. We shall see…
  - qwytw 3y ago
    > operate even better than before Right... Except the interest on the debt Musk offloaded to Twitter during his acquisition is enough to fund 1000-2000 employees so he didn't really have a choice. I guess the operating better than before part is debatable, since the most idiotic decisions like the rebranding are not that related.
  - dragonwriter 3y ago
    > tech companies were able to carry a huge number of barnacles [...] in engineering and product. This was because of [...] never ending labor shortages of tech workers Everything else aside, that part...doesn't make even a little sense. Labor shortages of tech workers, if they existed, would make it impossible, not more possible, to "carry a huge number of barnacles" in engineering and product. > Musk showed how bloated tech companies can get rid of 70% of staff and operate even better than before. Well, except for the "operate even better than before" part, which Musk has done nothing whatsoever to show.
    - monero-xmr 3y ago
      It’s strange but it was a never ending race to hire, fear of losing anyone, hints of weakness causing talent to quit. With profit king and future growth discounted, the leverage labor had has been rapidly eroded.
      - dragonwriter 3y ago
        That wasn't becauase of a shortage of labor. Yes, hiring happened at high levels because money was cheap, but not because employees were in short supply. If anything, the cheap money caused the hiring caused employees to be in short supply. And, yes, the (for now) end of cheap money for means less hiring based on high-risk, high-reward, long-payoff-window efforts, which were common in tech.
  - no_wizard 3y ago
    X (formerly Twitter) has network effect lock in. Mastodon etc. never penetrated fully enough into the public consciousness for the bulk of Twitter users to move. If anything, some maintain dual profiles, but major movement from one side to the other never happened. In some ways, Twitter was the perfect business to buy. It takes alot for users to move on, even with all its failures, flakiness etc. because at the end of the day, where else are people going to fill the need Twitter does? You can mess up all day long, do really dumb things, and keep the bulk of your users still, because honestly, where else they gonna go? Now, it remains to be seen if Musk can turn it into a real, viable business with legs, as it where. His skeleton crew makes them vulnerable to upstarts IMO. Eventually, someone or something will become a good enough competitor that X starts losing users
saagarjha 3y ago
> Every quarter that interest rates remain high, more of that 80% is identified and excised. Tell me you’ve never actually gone through a layoff without telling me you’ve never actually gone through a layoff…
- monero-xmr 3y ago
  I’m the guy laying all of you off!
  - dboreham 3y ago
    The laying off is done by a spreadsheet.
    - cosmie 3y ago
      And that spreadsheet likely has an obligatory off by one row reference tucked away starting halfway down the employee lookup table in a hidden sheet, nonchalantly adding it's own wtf factor for who is and isn't included in the laying off in a subtle enough fashion to go unnoticed and accepted as is.
- _huayra_ 3y ago
  Yep exactly, so many of the key employees are never identified by the metrics used by bean counters to decide who to cut. I would love to help out all the people in my org who want me to look at their PR and help them learn C++ a bit better, but unfortunately I would doom myself in the internal metrics for performance reviews. I saw too many of the people who were truly valuable in how they basically helped everyone else do the actual quantifiable work get RIFed in prior cycles.
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 3y ago
  We had layoffs that seemed random. We lost lousy people (do nothing) and also highly skilled people (too expensive?).
sharts 3y ago
In my experience generally the grifters and connected/political have been retained during layoffs. That is to say, people that did not work late nights or weekends or more than 40 hours a week. Perhaps this is the opposite for massive companies like FAANG. But I doubt it. I'll venture to guess you are far more lazy than you let on but do not realize it.
- monero-xmr 3y ago
  I’ve been working a solid 60-70 hour week since I was 12 and got my first job on top of school. Can’t stop won’t stop!
  - great_psy 3y ago
    Working 60-70 hours is not something you should be proud of. Talk about 1.5-2x output, and that’s something you should be proud of. In Japan people “work” 80 hours a week, but a lot of that time is just keeping busy.
  - afpx 3y ago
    Are you really efficient, too? When I see teams starting to work 60-70 hour weeks, I start looking for the underlying causes. Often, the system is just broken and people have to put in double effort to keep up. The data suggests that a typical person has diminishing effectiveness after 40 or so hours a week.

gnicholas 3y ago

Sounds like most government offices I’ve worked in. Except you can’t fire bureaucrats, no matter how lazy they are.

monero-xmr 3y ago
The government is a special case. In terms of private sector work, tech companies were able to carry a huge number of barnacles, not just in “what does this person even do?” orgs like DEI and HR but also in engineering and product. This was because of zero-percent interest rates, never ending labor shortages of tech workers, and a growth story that somehow made sense if you squinted. I think only AI still can portray that level of cognitive dissonance with future promises of unlimited growth. For the rest, Musk showed how bloated tech companies can get rid of 70% of staff and operate even better than before. Private equity is licking its lips and big tech is trying to fend off the barbarians at the gate. We shall see…
- qwytw 3y ago
  > operate even better than before Right... Except the interest on the debt Musk offloaded to Twitter during his acquisition is enough to fund 1000-2000 employees so he didn't really have a choice. I guess the operating better than before part is debatable, since the most idiotic decisions like the rebranding are not that related.
- dragonwriter 3y ago
  > tech companies were able to carry a huge number of barnacles [...] in engineering and product. This was because of [...] never ending labor shortages of tech workers Everything else aside, that part...doesn't make even a little sense. Labor shortages of tech workers, if they existed, would make it impossible, not more possible, to "carry a huge number of barnacles" in engineering and product. > Musk showed how bloated tech companies can get rid of 70% of staff and operate even better than before. Well, except for the "operate even better than before" part, which Musk has done nothing whatsoever to show.
  - monero-xmr 3y ago
    It’s strange but it was a never ending race to hire, fear of losing anyone, hints of weakness causing talent to quit. With profit king and future growth discounted, the leverage labor had has been rapidly eroded.
    - dragonwriter 3y ago
      That wasn't becauase of a shortage of labor. Yes, hiring happened at high levels because money was cheap, but not because employees were in short supply. If anything, the cheap money caused the hiring caused employees to be in short supply. And, yes, the (for now) end of cheap money for means less hiring based on high-risk, high-reward, long-payoff-window efforts, which were common in tech.
- no_wizard 3y ago
  X (formerly Twitter) has network effect lock in. Mastodon etc. never penetrated fully enough into the public consciousness for the bulk of Twitter users to move. If anything, some maintain dual profiles, but major movement from one side to the other never happened. In some ways, Twitter was the perfect business to buy. It takes alot for users to move on, even with all its failures, flakiness etc. because at the end of the day, where else are people going to fill the need Twitter does? You can mess up all day long, do really dumb things, and keep the bulk of your users still, because honestly, where else they gonna go? Now, it remains to be seen if Musk can turn it into a real, viable business with legs, as it where. His skeleton crew makes them vulnerable to upstarts IMO. Eventually, someone or something will become a good enough competitor that X starts losing users

saagarjha 3y ago

> Every quarter that interest rates remain high, more of that 80% is identified and excised. Tell me you’ve never actually gone through a layoff without telling me you’ve never actually gone through a layoff…

monero-xmr 3y ago
I’m the guy laying all of you off!
- dboreham 3y ago
  The laying off is done by a spreadsheet.
  - cosmie 3y ago
    And that spreadsheet likely has an obligatory off by one row reference tucked away starting halfway down the employee lookup table in a hidden sheet, nonchalantly adding it's own wtf factor for who is and isn't included in the laying off in a subtle enough fashion to go unnoticed and accepted as is.
_huayra_ 3y ago
Yep exactly, so many of the key employees are never identified by the metrics used by bean counters to decide who to cut. I would love to help out all the people in my org who want me to look at their PR and help them learn C++ a bit better, but unfortunately I would doom myself in the internal metrics for performance reviews. I saw too many of the people who were truly valuable in how they basically helped everyone else do the actual quantifiable work get RIFed in prior cycles.
2OEH8eoCRo0 3y ago
We had layoffs that seemed random. We lost lousy people (do nothing) and also highly skilled people (too expensive?).

sharts 3y ago

In my experience generally the grifters and connected/political have been retained during layoffs. That is to say, people that did not work late nights or weekends or more than 40 hours a week. Perhaps this is the opposite for massive companies like FAANG. But I doubt it. I'll venture to guess you are far more lazy than you let on but do not realize it.

monero-xmr 3y ago
I’ve been working a solid 60-70 hour week since I was 12 and got my first job on top of school. Can’t stop won’t stop!
- great_psy 3y ago
  Working 60-70 hours is not something you should be proud of. Talk about 1.5-2x output, and that’s something you should be proud of. In Japan people “work” 80 hours a week, but a lot of that time is just keeping busy.
- afpx 3y ago
  Are you really efficient, too? When I see teams starting to work 60-70 hour weeks, I start looking for the underlying causes. Often, the system is just broken and people have to put in double effort to keep up. The data suggests that a typical person has diminishing effectiveness after 40 or so hours a week.