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>For example, not hiring extra is also a gamble, it means you gamble on the market not growing and you would lose a ton of money if the market didn't stall Thi

>For example, not hiring extra is also a gamble, it means you gamble on the market not growing and you would lose a ton of money if the market didn't stall This assumes hiring is the only way to grow the company. More specifically, it assumes ramped up hiring is the only way. There are balances that can be struck, for example, instead of hiring 100 people, maybe hire 20 and see how onboarding and growth pans out? Perhaps evaluate business inefficiencies that serve to slow people down like bad process etc. so people can focus more time on what matters. Automated onboarding, group sales calls and other tactics let you make more with the same amount of people. There are other things you can do, not just hire. And I'm never going to say don't hire people, but what executives did was irresponsible and I knew it even at the time. IMO, this stuff happens because executives know they won't be held responsible if it can't be sustained, and that is really the core issue. Proportions are what matters. I like many am tired of seeing a world that favors oscillation in the extremes like this, and its the average person who takes the brunt when it goes south and the higher ups rake in the brunt of it when things are going well. For what its worth, if we had European style safety nets, this would be a moot point in a way, because we have so much of American society tied to having a job (be it health insurance, ability to afford rent etc)

Jensson 3y ago
You assume they were fired due to inefficiencies, but they were fired since the market went down and the US government made software engineers more expensive short term by changing how those investments were taxed. That means they can no longer maintain as many software engineers. > but what executives did was irresponsible and I knew it even at the time. Lots of people said this during the entire hiring spree from 2010 to 2020, but most of those people are still there paid and working. If they listened to people like you most of us here would be out of a job since the job market wouldn't have grown that fast.
- no_wizard 3y ago
  >Lots of people said this during the entire hiring spree from 2010 to 2020, but most of those people are still there paid and working. If they listened to people like you most of us here would be out of a job since the job market wouldn't have grown that fast. That assumes I'm taking an absolutist position like you shouldn't hire or hire rarely, and I'm not. There needs to be successive indicators and re-evaluation of conditions that need to be balanced. In many (most?) cases, they simply weren't. I would say the accurate time to call this out would have been 2021, not 2009, and that is the timeframe in which I looked at everything and thought to myself "this won't last more than 5 years at best". By late 2020 to early 2021 I created a thesis that we crossed into artificial growth rate and too much "free" money being pumped into everything around us, to be clear about this. The steady growth from 2009-2019 in tech was relatively organic by comparison, and far more moderate for most of the industry if you compute only non FAANG companies (FAANG companies, and those near that acronym, simply had outsized growth by comparison, by many multiples) All this is to say, that I think if people listened to me, it would have nothing to do with 2010 to the start of 2020.

Jensson 3y ago

You assume they were fired due to inefficiencies, but they were fired since the market went down and the US government made software engineers more expensive short term by changing how those investments were taxed. That means they can no longer maintain as many software engineers. > but what executives did was irresponsible and I knew it even at the time. Lots of people said this during the entire hiring spree from 2010 to 2020, but most of those people are still there paid and working. If they listened to people like you most of us here would be out of a job since the job market wouldn't have grown that fast.

no_wizard 3y ago
>Lots of people said this during the entire hiring spree from 2010 to 2020, but most of those people are still there paid and working. If they listened to people like you most of us here would be out of a job since the job market wouldn't have grown that fast. That assumes I'm taking an absolutist position like you shouldn't hire or hire rarely, and I'm not. There needs to be successive indicators and re-evaluation of conditions that need to be balanced. In many (most?) cases, they simply weren't. I would say the accurate time to call this out would have been 2021, not 2009, and that is the timeframe in which I looked at everything and thought to myself "this won't last more than 5 years at best". By late 2020 to early 2021 I created a thesis that we crossed into artificial growth rate and too much "free" money being pumped into everything around us, to be clear about this. The steady growth from 2009-2019 in tech was relatively organic by comparison, and far more moderate for most of the industry if you compute only non FAANG companies (FAANG companies, and those near that acronym, simply had outsized growth by comparison, by many multiples) All this is to say, that I think if people listened to me, it would have nothing to do with 2010 to the start of 2020.