4 ms·
Not sure of your familiarity with FAANG pre-2022, but this is absolutely not the norm.
by refulgentis 9mo ago
Not sure of your familiarity with FAANG pre-2022, but this is absolutely not the norm.
- joe_mamba 9mo agoZIRP was also not the norm. Times change though.
- mupuff1234 9mo agoBut these are profitable companies, now their cash on hand can actually earn interest.
- deleted 9mo ago[deleted]
- joe_mamba 9mo ago>But these are profitable companies Q: You know what investors and shareholders love more than having 1 billion dollars? A: Having 2 billion dollars. And with all the money being burned on AI, having 2 billion is better than 1. If mass layoffs causes the stock to go from 1 to 2, then guess what's gonna happen? In the ZIRP era companies would hire needlessly to get the stock up because that signaled growth to investors. Now it's the opposite, you trim because that gets the stock up, not because they conspire together to lay off people.
- loeg 9mo agoWhy is the highest and best use of a company's free cash paying the least productive employees, instead of returning cash to shareholders or investing it in something more productive?
- loeg 9mo agoCan you elaborate? I've been working in tech for 15 years and FAANG for 5. We've always had layoffs.
- WalterBright 9mo agoI've been in the tech industry for 45 years. Layoffs happen regularly. Well, not regularly, what it is is a chaotic system. There will be good times and bad times. The best way to deal with it is to immediately save, at a minimum, 6 months of runway. Preferably a year. When you're in between jobs, work on: 1. improving your job skills 2. network 3. build your resume by contributing to open source 4. start your own business
- refulgentis 9mo agoI don't intend to be dismissive by sharing a bunch, I ate a bunch of downvotes so I should share something. But, there's no singular, like, Wikipedia article for "tech layoffs spiked significantly in 2022 and have stayed elevated" - so this is a mix of informal and formal and academic and business news that treats that knowledge as implicit while discussing it. (I am deeply curious what valhalla you are at that skipped this so much that it was a foreign idea! N or A, it must be one of those two) https://www.nerdwallet.com/finance/learn/tech-layoffs https://www.nerdwallet.com/finance/learn/tech-layoffs https://www.reddit.com/r/Layoffs/comments/1ljvpr4/where_all_the_tech_workers_are_going/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Layoffs/comments/1ljvpr4/where_all_... https://progresschamber.org/insights/tech-has-shed-nearly-200k-jobs-since-january-2022/ https://progresschamber.org/insights/tech-has-shed-nearly-20... https://www.washington.edu/news/2025/05/14/tech-industry-layoffs/ https://www.washington.edu/news/2025/05/14/tech-industry-lay... https://www.cnbc.com/2022/11/09/tech-layoffs-2022.html https://www.cnbc.com/2022/11/09/tech-layoffs-2022.html
- loeg 9mo agoSure, it waxes and wanes. 2022-2023 were probably above average layoff years, while 2020-2021 before that were probably below average years. I think layoffs have fallen since 2023 rather than staying elevated, but I haven't attempted to quantify that.
- refulgentis 9mo agoYou’re sort of airily dismissing it repeatedly. It wasn’t small or a wax and wane thing.
- darth_avocado 9mo agoPre 2022 also did not have this many employees in FAANG.