Everyone Is Laid Off - What Now?

[@username7763]

I've been laid off once in my career and I still have nightmares about it. But it taught me an important lesson. When your CEO stands up and tells everyone to work harder, be more efficient, make more money.... ignore it. Yes, work hard and do a good job. Take pride in what you do. But layoffs are beyond your control. We were doing well and had a good team but that wasn't factored into the decision at all. If you fail, your company might have layoffs. If you succeed, your company might have layoffs. If your CEO decides to buy another company, you might have layoffs. They goad you into free overtime saying it is important and then cut your job when you get it done.

[@HPkobold]

Sounds like a video from a “how money works”

[@Felale]

So drag out that project while your team is needed. Less efficiency is better.

[@markm0000]

@@Felale not even joking. Less efficiency is perfect. Constantly update your resume. Make a copy of literally everything you do into your portfolio. You should make a notable impression during an interview of having done so many projects and achieving goals and deadlines. Obv hide private information.

[@Sparticulous]

@@Felalethe japanese have learned this best

[@hopeseekr]

Just once?! Boy! Try being the highest paid developer at any medium sized corp! You'll be the first to be let go every time!!!

[@Hrzybs]

They lay off these people because they can rehire them later for much less money when they become desperate for a job.

[@simplicityd8703]

I have some doubts about that maybe its just getting rid of bloat that they can't handle anymore

[@LogicallyAnswered]

Quite a vicious cycle

[@alimfuzzy]

Kind of. They like to fire permanent employees only to rehire on contract. Usually at higher rates but at a lot less benefits and worker protections.

[@JohnWiku]

It's all about seniority, accumulated benefits that they would rather have for themselves than to pay their workers. Hire everyone on short contracts, no need to pay out of pocket for benefits!

[@toddfraser3353]

The more expected aspect would their competitors will hire them, and they would have knowledge of much of the internal IP. Even if they don't divulge company secrets. But just know not to try something they knew that failed. Would save other company the expense of making that mistake.

[@boblangill6209]

I recall a quote from several decades back "General Motors got in trouble when they started thinking that their shareholders were their real customers"

[@JmKrokY]

🤔

[@jeffreysnyder290]

That’s American capitalism in a nutshell. The competition isn’t for customers. The competition is for capital.

[@IFRYRCE]

Mary Barra is doing it again.

[@vulpixelful]

Yes, they discontinued a model that people actually liked, replaced it with an "affordable" one then yanked that affordable trim away, and cut corners with the tech in the models they kept. Makes no sense until you remember they are a publicly traded company

[@triadwarfare]

If companies think their real customers are their shareholders, customers should become shareholders too.

[@JacobSReeds]

"Gen Z is entering the work force watching mass layoffs and it will impact them forever." Same here, as an older millennial, I came into the work force in 2008 after college. If I can offer one tip it would be this: choose a direction and keep going no matter the context. Whether it's software engineering, accounting, medical, whatever. When the dust of the issues clears, you'll be ready to grab the opportunities that arise.

[@HPkobold]

Yeah I’ve seen a same comment where one guy wanted to go to social classes but they provided little to no benefits everyone went to some tech or programming stuff for the huge benefits, then he goes on how it was good for him because he stuck to what he wanted to do instead of conforming to the expectations, while his peers suffered, then he goes on how he loves his job and stuff. So the guy words above me checks out

[@Fourtune1]

There’s so many graduates each year and they have to compete with non American students also.

[@spidalack]

as a genx, all I can say is welcome to the club

[@pedromarques9267]

As a Genz I am on my 2nd lay off in less than 3 years. Life is great 🌞

[@somethingdrasticproduction7533]

Similar era here as well, I would add: screw loyalty. Job hop if you have a better option, do it again if that doesn't work out after a couple years. Loyalty to one company has not been rewarded in a long time - in fact some folks from FAANG were specifically laid off because they were with the company so long that they became very expensive.

[@greghelton4668]

None of those companies were financially stressed. Not one. Greed is the only reason behind these massive layoffs.

[@guruprabhu_39915]

That’s capitalism for you at peak

[@yehaa00]

Valuation is not equal to liquid cash lol

[@chrisanderson7820]

@@yehaa00Lol, these companies have eye-watering levels of liquid reserves. Apple alone has somewhere in the order of $160 billion sitting in their bank accounts doing nothing.

[@rishabhanand4973]

none of them were stressed. the issue is, once you've gotten enough market share, you can't really make more money by adding more customers as there might not be customers to add. So if you not only need to keep growing but increase the rate at which you grow, only way to do that is cut costs by firing employees

[@greghelton4668]

@@rishabhanand4973 or so they want you to believe. Silicon Valley business culture is full of greed.

[@moomie1634]

This is one one the greatest problems with companies. We don't have leaders who have the spine or brain to stand up to investors and say "This is what's happening, this is how it's happening, if you don't like it get off the ship" Huang and Su have both been great CEO's because they put the business and product first, not the investor's short term feelings. You can't run a long term business on pure short term results.

[@LogicallyAnswered]

Completely agree. Jensen Huang is awesome!

[@AnDOnlineify]

I think most of them are perfectly happy with the golden parachute that they get. Also, I think the few times a ceo has tried that, the investors took them to court and won. It's actually crazy how far investors are willing to go if you look through history.

[@harikrishnanchandramohan4209]

The problem is, the investors won't get out of ship but rather throw the CEO out of the ship. Does Steve Jobs ring a bell.

[@moomie1634]

@@harikrishnanchandramohan4209 When steve got kicked out of apple, he quite literally said he deserved it, and that it was the best thing for him. Most stock structures nowadays give founders complete control of the company, as they give themselves 51+% of voting shares. I do agree, however, that investors are so close minded that they can't see that they might be killing their company for short term performance. As peter lynch put it, “In the short run, the market is a voting machine. In the long run, it is a weighing machine.”

[@Maelstromme]

@@AnDOnlineifyLaw needs to change.

[@robkennedy5906]

I worked at Klarna, Klarna hired me from my good job in a different continent. The company moved me to Stockholm Sweden and laid me off after 3 months.

[@missmia196]

I'm so sorry, that's fucked

[@Astrothunder_]

Damn that is so shitty.

[@zippyparakeet1074]

Thank you for naming and shaming, a lot of people don't. I'll keep that name in mind, so sorry that you had to go through this🙏

[@mr.gamewatch7547]

This is more of a reason to never be loyal to companies.

[@ChungusTheLarge]

Vanilla CEOs are the type of people to think they're playing 4d chess, while holding a deck of go-fish cards

[@orboakin8074]

I wish I understood gambling to get this reference.

[@dragonbane44]

These CEOs perfrctly know what they are doing. Dont be fooled.

[@Trials_By_Errors]

Robots may Replace you. But Androids don't buy Android phones😂😂😂. They buy nothing.

[@laalinib1761]

True. And also robots don’t pay income taxes to governments

[@kencolac2860]

True. But it doesn't happen over night. It is a slow process of wealth and value redistribution. Or maybe not so slow. It won't replace you, for now.

[@kristofnagy1373]

​@@kencolac2860Sure, but a +50% productivity boost means that you can lay off 1/3 of the workforce

[@AtheistfanGuava]

​@@kristofnagy1373if 1/3 of workforce is laid off in many companies, What do you think will the political class do, when there is high unemployed civil unrest ?

[@dblair1258]

Not yet...

[@eskutts]

Corporates try to please their investors by doing a layoff which in turn demotivates the remaining employees and creates huge anxiety among them and their dependents. This creates a negative outlook for the entire economy causing recession. Corporate greed for short term gains has been one of the reasons why some companies fail despite having good potential for growth. Hence it's high time corporates actually started fearing greed and instead focused on building good quality products and services which will eventually give long lasting success. Period.

[@codelinx]

This is a major issue... And this is a huge fact that some people bypass or glaze over

[@tgdm]

This is why I like Costco's former president. His attitude towards investors was "I make you money. If I don't make enough money quickly enough for you, then you can either cash out your shares, or you can suck my balls and let me do my job. My job just so happens to involve making you money."

[@onewizzard]

Humans are too greedy. Can't wait for that meteorite

[@kinesissado9636]

I don’t quite understand what you mean by negative outlook. The economy as a whole is dictated by the larger players (for example the shareholders). For example in the US due to financialization, the biggest part of our GDP is tied up in financial sector speculation. Things like layoffs although hurts the average worker, is actually beneficial for a shareholder. For instance layoffs can signal to shareholders that a company is cutting excess parts of their practices that are not necessary. This means a company has excess revenue onboard that they can use for stock buy backs (which will make the existing shares appreciate in value). In other cases (where a company is laying off workers because they’re failing), it can act as either a signal to investors that a company is pivoting (which could be promising) or can be a way of delaying the crashing of a company allowing certain shareholders to cash out before that happens. So in general, especially fiduciary-wise, lay offs are only ever good (just based on how our economic system is set up). Now should it be like this? No, however that would involve making changes to how the economy should run. Basically our economy is not set up for companies to make decisions that prioritize the longterm

[@eskutts]

Kinda agree with your points but the corporates and their investors desperate measures for quick short term profits puts immense pressure on companies and their employees which distracts their focus from building good quality products and services and instead they end up making low quality products and services, this causes the demand to fall and thereby not earn any income and revenue. Right now some companies and especially startups only focus on showing a profitable balance sheet, that's not ideally how any business should run in the long run. Wework collapse is the simplest example of this. Hence Investors must give ample time for a company to grow in a stable and healthy manner.

[@RogerDodger-fv6yr]

Genius was definitely way too strong of a word here. CEOs are just the face of all work done by the many people under them.

[@LeonidasRaghav]

If these CEOs are so braindead they're ironically quite ripe for automation. I don't think it's that difficult to put together some LLMs that can read company reports and news for the day, then output decisions to be made with the sole objective of pleasing shareholders. In fact you might not even need AI at all.

[@dashmeetsingh9679]

There is a very old spoof in my country, where they hire “Parrot” instead of CEO.

[@basecamp.santoshwhowrites]

And that actually will be the last positions where there will be humans, even with tech assistant to do the job, for sure

[@MeepChangeling]

This system allready exists. It was created in 2015 and is already in place at many companies. Not to replace CEOs, but to replace middle managers who crunch the numbers from daily reports and direct low level employees. It would be thereoticaly possible to retool one to work for the whole company and dispatch orders to other AIs, who in turn command employees, creating a company with entirely digital management. It would be interesting to see how that would work out.

[@dashmeetsingh9679]

@@MeepChangeling For this, requirement has to be clear. That will never happen, not because of tech. But because of user expectation. AI is not a magic wand.

[@mr.boomguy]

I think I've heard a company making a Chat GPT their CEO and saw good growth because of that

[@PapiJack]

I never understood why these companies lay off engineers when they can cut bonuses for high executives instead.

[@anon3118]

Because the executives are the ones making the decisions. Most believe they deserve the bonus over others

[@spectre3492]

Narcissism, greed

[@margaretzhang1107]

Probably because They are the one making decisions , they are not going to lay themself off.

[@Erowens98]

Its an issue of scale. A 1 million dollar bonus spread out across 10 000 workers is about 100$ each. The bonus of the CEO really just isn't significant at this scale.

[@spectre3492]

@@Erowens98 doesn't matter. if your company is laying off workers no executive should be getting bonuses. doesn't matter if it equats to "only" $100 for each worker. its disgusting

[@Vednier]

"Intel CEO is salesman" - oh, NOW i undertsand why you have to completely replace motherboard for each new CPU.

[@insederec]

Any built in, integrated solution is a solution for their pockets, not yours.

[@JonasBergling]

When they realized they were starting to get in trouble they finally put an engineer in charge again, the current CEO Pat Gelsinger has a master's degree in electrical engineering and computer science from Stanford, and was the lead architect for the 80486 CPU and later CTO for a while. I'm guessing when he left Intel (in 2009?) it was because he was fed up with the direction they were taking under the salesman CEO.

[@TheFinalIllusion]

Dated take

[@turolretar]

Jensen is coming to save us all

[@brianisbrined9255]

I've been part of 4 layoffs. I just see jobs as temporary. I never expect them to last more than a couple of years.

[@g3user1usa]

Do you consider your skills as being good? Or are you in a naturally high turnover type of job?

[@brianisbrined9255]

@@g3user1usa I've had a variety of jobs. I do consider my skills good, and I've seen less turnover since I got into tech.

[@pareshsaini255]

Layoff is management failure Not employees failure But unfortunately employees are Layoff 😢😢

[@drrodopszin]

Exactly! With the right laws these companies would reconsider. But with Republicans about to win that is less likely to happen. Democrats are also boring centrists when it comes to worker rights. We trusted companies when hiring was easy and layoffs were the sign of doing things wrong. We have to unionize.

[@danielvasquez3758]

People aren’t hiring either!! These employers aren’t making the most sense!! Hoping everyone has some source of income.

[@paulwhite8879]

boycott these companies, bro

[@user-nu8in3ey8c]

This is why companies should use dividends to compensate shareholders, instead of share price. Placing importance upon dividends provides an incentive to maintain long term profitability. Unfortunately the tax system punishes a dividend based compensation scheme harder than capital gains.

[@robertbeisert3315]

You also can't take out low-interest loans to distribute dividends effectively.

[@metaltyphoon]

@@robertbeisert3315which is a good thing. Why should anyone be able to take a loan against a unrealized stocks?

[@pratronald]

Apple and Nvidia can never hire employees left and right like Google and Amazon for 2 reasons: 1. Google and Amazon are data(& software) companies and they need to to constantly build products to meets market demands. Apple and Nvidia are into very specific products lines. 2. There aren't as many People who go into hardware(and system software) as they go into (high-level)software. So Apple and Nvidia can only hire whats available but Google and Amazon can go on hiring and there will still be software engineers left in the market.

[@drogonfly2659]

Agreed ! Find me a hardware engineer designing GPUs with 15 years of experience in some domain. There will be few.

[@Leo-pd8ww]

VHDL, Verilog, and low-level programming win yet again.

[@dashmeetsingh9679]

Apple is hardware and software company. Their mobiles, tabs, smart watch, desktops all have operating systems. Then there are supporting apps and streaming service. It can hitlre if they want to. Nvidia : apart from low level language has also started offering libraries for high level programmers. Thats why the boom in GPU usage, though there high level software is very limited.

[@pankaj3746]

I have 10 years experience and I feel that it's totally worthless to be in a corporate, and fighting for pennies with your colleagues and those small promotions! The juice isn't worth the squeeze! I am working on my product idea and it's almost done deal! Hope everything goes well so that I can pack my bags and leave the corporate world forever as an employee!

[@animeanime6609]

Sending you wishes man , hope things go well 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻

[@pankaj3746]

@Sick_Pencil No need actually! Talk to people more! Try to grasp ideas from the surrounding, follow KZbinrs! Many of them give great advice! Listen to podcasts of famous businessman!

[@animeanime6609]

@Sick_Pencil good question man

[@turolretar]

What are you building?

[@SuperMBARutgers2013]

This is why corporations need to be regulated. No responsible citizen creates unemployment without repercussions while still profitable!

[@kuritheking]

Precisely

[@Erowens98]

Yup. Trying to out hire any competitors to create a monopoly, only the later fire all your overhired employees once the competition is a non-issue. Just should not be allowed as a business strategy. It only harms society.

[@Redox9406]

Software once written does business worth of thousands of people doing it physically. The problem is people who write software aren’t the ones who own the business. Whatever is happening is nothing new but the same old issue of worker owner dilemma of economics. Its not a bad thing or a good thing but an inevitable thing. Ever since I started doing software development, I had a cognisance of this. I wrote payment gateways, built loan management systems, insurance inspection workflows, flight booking workflows. I’ve worked on creating low code solutions too. Those too generate money for business. Code writing code. Those are still serving people and earning money for the business whereas I’m now working somewhere else. Building something more that will in future wont need me or not other software developers.

[@ashokstrm]

What languages you mostly used for these, please. What skill, language you will recommend for the near future where AI will mostly dominate things in another 3 years.

[@Redox9406]

@@ashokstrm I started out as a UI engineer and worked in React Angular and backbonejs. Then I moved to backend where I used Java spring, golang and Python. Now I am working as a fullstack engineer. All this time I never really felt like I have been doing actual engineering. Most coding work is comparable to work of a mason who picks code online and modifies it and sticks it to correct places. With the advent of AI for writing code, it's good opportunity for every developer to promote them to actual engineering work. I would recommend learning the core concepts of programming. How different runtimes behave. Limitations of machines. Not focusing on specific programming language. Especially focus on how large systems are built from small components and their interaction.

[@yurichtube1162]

​@@ashokstrmwhat will it dominate?

[@asdasddas100]

A world where Google and MS are like GE and Cisco seems insane

[@robertbeisert3315]

The tech monopolies have benefited from government backing since their inception. It's why they got such great loans and venture capital out of the various money printing operations.

[@vulpixelful]

Microsoft is getting there fast

[@commentinglife6175]

The only disagreement I'll have with this video is that the term "shareholders" doesn't mean what we would think it does. These companies are not looking out for the interests of the everyday investor. Instead, they are focused on the big money folks - who actually are generally using OUR MONEY via retirement savings that we can't control - and those folks are not only heavily interested in the company but on the board as well. Thus, any CEO who DOES go off-script will be quickly let go unless they are a founder with enough stock to fight it off. (Even then, it is still possible, as Larry Page proved.)

[@millax-ev6yz]

I'm an older worker and I'm just not spending money waiting for the day I get the ax. I'm spending only on what I need to survive. I'm super conservative with money because I'm so fearful of how I will survive come the inevitable layoff.

[@drrodopszin]

It's time for political change for the better of working rights. It's a topic I haven't heard from a politician for a long time.

[@millax-ev6yz]

@@drrodopszin I appreciate the optimism that it would be possible to change, although I have my doubts. The unsteady direction of employment and rights has so much economic, capitalistic, political, and societal momentum opposing change....well....it just doesn't seem possible. Pacs run elections which are funded by special interests and corps wanting things the way they are going. That big machine is not going to stop easily

[@robertbeisert3315]

​@drrodopszin the government creates these conditions because it boosts GDP and guarantees kickbacks. We have over 100 years of legislation and policies built around this corruption.

[@ashokstrm]

Keep upskilling. Learn a new language, german or japanese. Try creating your own content using AI. Create your own site. Be passionate for yourself. No loans. Be frugal. Stay fit, spend on food, protein, fruits, veg, vitamins, berries, eat healrhy, never give up. God bless you.

[@millax-ev6yz]

@@ashokstrm amen bruh! Just going through a lull for now. I appreciate the encouragement!

[@RealParadox85]

Just got laid off my tech job Wednesday. And competition for jobs is insanely fierce, gotta love it.

[@arturogonzalez6232]

Google looks like they are in trouble. Even like the most superficial stuff like ads are in bad shape right now

[@ragreenburg]

This statement couldn't be any less true. Just look up Google's revenue and you'll see that Q4 of 2023 had the most revenue they've ever had. On top of that, their profits last year are almost double of what they were in 2020 and it has risen every year since. Do a bit of research before talking about companies being in trouble.

[@Troy_Built]

That was the whole point of this entire video. They are in the stage where they are chasing revenue and stock price above all else. Doing that led to the demise of all the companies he talking about. Will it happen to Google? I don't know but even Bezos is saying there is no avoiding it.@nburg

[@DroisKargva]

@@ragreenburgjust look at google search. ITS TRASH

[@Blessed_91]

@@ragreenburg good point, but profit != product quality. do you think they still have high quality product that will sustain their growth?

[@ragreenburg]

@@Blessed_91Honestly, the only Google products I use are KZbin, gmail and a limited amount of Android. So I genuinely can't speak to their product quality. In you opinion, what are products they have that have low quality? Honestly, I think KZbin has gone to shit and I spend much less time here now than I did a few years ago. That being said, gmail is fine and Android is definitely better than it was before.

[@233kosta]

This is the end result of building a business on hot air and venture capital alone. Sooner or later the free money dries up and you're left scrambling to become profitable. This was never a sustainable business strategy.

[@simplicityd8703]

Seems like it needs a (actual) psychopath to run a company that lays off hundreds most people would just feel so horrible (not saying its bad just psychopaths see numbers and dont feel remorse if it saves the company)

[@LogicallyAnswered]

It doesn’t even save the company though 😂 Just produces more profits.

[@khanch.6807]

Played a lot of RTS games. My first miners and traders felt very special. I took extra care to keep them safe to build my economy. As my empire got bigger throwing hundreds of ships at the enemy becomes a norm.

[@dmitripogosian5084]

Must people don't make it to be a CEO

[@improvisedchaos8904]

A good captain goes down with his ship. These captains send their crew to Davey Jones locker.

[@josecipriano3048]

There's been some research done on this topic, and yes, the percentage of psychopathic individuals in positions of power (CEOs, bankers, politicians) is several times higher than in the rest of the population. Something about being a mean mf seems to drive this people up in the ranks of our societies. We humans are a f up kind of animal.

[@henryzx900ruly2]

me when you've been working the same job for 9 years but then Facebook says "Ight lil bro ur done"

[@falsul96]

Just wait until an alternative option appears for all these talented people

[@LogicallyAnswered]

The new FAANG haha

[@vanhuvanhuvese2738]

who do you think is trading bitcoin? each layoff = bitcoin higher price dont forget you heard it from me

[@franciscogerardohernandezr4788]

Calling it "Tech" is too indulgent. Most of these companies haven't solved a fundamental problem of humanity, just shiny apps and buggy operative systems/tools.

[@jayakumar9976]

CEO are paid mainly in stocks. So they are incentived to keep making record breaking profit and keep stock price high. Only then they will get an fat pay check.

[@mrparkerdan]

plus, the CEOs retire once their bank balance reaches their predetermined "fuck you" level

[@camgere]

Which neatly aligns senior management with stockholders.

[@nyankers]

correction: they're incentivized to raise the stock price, not to keep it high. they can only profit off of stock price growth once, after all

[@96ethanh]

Being a "vanilla CEO" is required of a publicly traded company trying to maximize profits. Stock market rewards bad behavior. Please, don't get me started on how this benefits everyone else (spoiler: it doesn't!)

[@khanch.6807]

Why not Short the companies long term?

[@biguattipoptropica]

@@khanch.6807too expensive, however they are targeting Tesla and were targeting Meta at some point

[@mayankraj2763]

It's not just about the C-team which causes the demise. The main issue is during their rapid expansion phase, middle managers come into the picture. 80% of these MMs are technically dull and repeat the leadership's message without understanding the bottomline/context. The overall culture becomes less about innovation and more about keeping MMs happy. I would avoid attributing everything to the C-team as done in the video with a very few examples.

[@LogicallyAnswered]

Indeed, I have a video about just that coming up soon haha

[@shadowninja6689]

Steve Jobs did an interview a long time ago where he said something similar, that essentially salespeople and marketers will inevitably destroy any innovative tech companies. Because early on in the day it's the brilliant engineers who are innovating who make the big profits and get promoted into the senior leadership. But overtime as the company grows marketing becomes more important, and more and more marketers start to fill the leadership at the top, until eventually they seize control of the company and it stops innovating, and some new innovative competitor comes along and topples them.

[@Monsuco]

This is basically the "Dilbert principal" Scott Adams outlined years ago. He observed that companies systematically move their least competent employees to the location within the company where they will do the least damage: mid-level management. Your least competent employees can't be the engineers who actually design your products because then you'll release garbage products. They also can't be CEO or CFO because your company would go out of business pretty quickly. However if the company is full of mid-level managers who force the engineers into endless training that has no relevance to their jobs or team building exercises or completely pointless meetings that could have been an email the company doesn't really suffer that much in consequences. There's a little loss of productivity, some resources are wasted and the employees get annoyed but nothing that really actually hurts.

[@robertzabinski6083]

@@Monsuco The "Petra" principal

[@Keenok]

I "might" work for a tech company named in this video and even though we were profitable the last two quarters, it was profitable enough for the street - so we just had a 5% layoff. Thanks XXXXX!

[@phriend2spin]

Man Google is not what it used to be. They are slowly becoming the next IBM.

[@bigdaddy7729]

Hire Indian ceo, get Indian economic results

[@bluesteel1]

Companies(like my own) have resorted to PIPs for employees who they can find (any) dirt on and blatantly overloading employees they cant find any dirt on, so they quit voluntarily. I've been working close to 10 - 12 hours everyday ~60hrs per week. My wlb has gone into the toilet along with my health.

[@amorosogombe9650]

Once the MBA's take over. It's over.

[@MTSP-pe2fn]

What are MBAs?

[@amorosogombe9650]

@@MTSP-pe2fn Masters of Business Administration. B-School types.

[@danielj.rodriguez8621]

More BS than Answers.

[@cherubin7th]

When your business enters the stock exchange, it must become as evil as possible, this is the point of the stock exchange after all.

[@Dlstufguy2]

I wonder what would happen if you have say, 40+ years in a system where the bulk of employees of any company can have their lives upended if not destroyed because some sociopathic nepo baby needs anothe gold plated ivory back scratcher.

[@hikotee]

Interesting time to watch this video after Google laid off the unionizing subcontractors working on KZbin Music yesterday.

[@VelcorHF]

Companies take the profits, employees take the losses. This is what happens when grey market behavior is ok. Crime is extremely profitable, almost crime is profitable.

[@AcuraAddicted]

Typical corporate BS - they do not actually think long term, it's just improving their bottom line.

[@shadeblackwolf1508]

The line god demands more sacrifices, every quarter must show growth!

[@ToiletPlugger]

For anyone struggling, with whatever or even a terminal illness and you feel like going out like a hero...could use many volunteers. Messages must be sent.

[@queenbey6678]

These tech companies are working together. They lay off at the same time to force wages down. It should be illegal.

[@josecipriano3048]

Technically it's called a cartel. It is illegal, unless you are a rich corporation, in which case the law doesn't exist to you.

[@RATsnak3]

The issue isn’t “vanilla CEOs.” the issue is capitalism itself.

[@quantaluxvision]

I think this video summed up what I've been seeing over the last couple years, very very well! This was a great, well made video!

[@Jinchuricki27]

What we are seeing is a concentrated effort by corporations and the fed to bend the labor market to their will for their benefit.

[@zionen01]

The big tech companies have had a longer than expected lifespan due to hiring talent they didn't need (yet). Give passionate self-driven young people a big fat paycheck and they will stay stuck in a position doing mundane tasks because it is easy enough and pay is good. Fire a bunch of a people and suddenly you have hungry smart and talented individuals creating startups that will make today Google into the next Yahoo.

[@danielvasquez3758]

Great video brother!! Thank you!!

[@LogicallyAnswered]

Thank you as always Daniel!

[@Achin_Jain]

Brilliant analysis mate. I randomly stumbled on this video and I'm definitely subscribing to your channel (along with notifications) 😅

[@brentlichtenberg]

We tech workers need to unionize. I'd join a union for SDET's and Testers.

[@aidanm5578]

I knew I wasn’t crazy for liking my CEO’s modded. Great vid.

[@choksheak2lau697]

This is well-said. Many corporate politicians only care about gaming the stock price, and don't give a hoot about product quality or employee well-being.

[@reel_man]

No company is your company till it is yours. No job is yours till you are working for your business..

[@MSportsEngineering]

Fire video. Great insight on the real reason for the layoffs.

[@Sirfrummel]

Wow this was an excellent take down of the current market and economics of big tech, thanks for your work on this.

[@igorlarionov1910]

Man, what a great insight into macro business processes! Really helps to put together all the employment fluctuations in big tech industry and what it means in terms of their strategic directions of development. Immediate like and subscription, thanks!

[@raven_glass]

My company took out millions in PPE loans during 2020, yet still laid off 20% of employees. I was only given 1 week warning I was being permanently laid off. Companies in America used to focus on sustainability and quality. Now they focus on profits and cost cutting. This is why American products have gone down hill, everything is made of plastic and jobs have moved overseas.

[@TheNefastor]

These CEO have completely killed employee loyalty. Bold move; let's see how it pays-off in the long term.

[@Extrikit]

Great video, thank you.

[@space_brain]

these latest layoffs seem to have a purpose of replacing remote workers with in-office workers who are paid less. They didn’t even give the remote workers the option of coming back to the office. I don’t see how big tech companies can thrive without caring at all about institutional knowledge or their engineers.

[@Tate525]

Das Kapital is starting to make more and more sense after mass layoffs everywhere. Only difference being we need to get it absolutely right this time.

[@squid84202]

When consumer spending slows even more and these giants miss one quarter of their projected earnings, the house of cards will collapse.. which is crazy because they're still great companies, but that's the nature of a shareholder-driven system. Maybe a reset is for the best though.

[@cubertmiso]

Agree, resets are healthy. Correction in the market is a natural part of the healthy economic cycle. Sometimes we need a great fush for the ecosystem to stay more aligned and balanced. BTW, do you have ideas for more efficient system than this shareholder-driven that we now have?

[@sofianikiforova7790]

Can’t wait for consumer spending to slow down though, seems like everyone else has unlimited savings that they’re burning through…

[@josecipriano3048]

​@@cubertmisoall of them? The only efficiency this system seeks is in "making the rich more rich ever more ever faster" game. Efficiencies are encouraged if it makes more money to the company. Laying off workers is encouraged because you can make the rest do all the work and save on wages which will go do directly to the accounts of the shareholders. That's the efficiency this system achieves.

[@_3xpl0its_]

THiS^^^ is a good analysis, most don't understand what is going on inside this companies... (things get ugly inside and good people leave )

[@not_building_the_ark]

Lay off taught me to learn more life skills, farming, driving, mechanical works, hustle in your own terms. Corporates are like cheating GFs, don't, never trust them again.

[@TrampyPulsar]

The illusion of growth at all costs has been dispelled and most companies realized they have hundreds of workers who are only there to make the company look more productive on the books when in reality their output of a useful product or service is nothing at best, and actively hurting said products and services at worse, one simply has to look at what is happening to the AAA games industry when you have flop after flop after flop with a massive consumer backlash, you can only lie to investors so many times before the money stops coming in.

[@josecipriano3048]

The problem of AAA games isn't having too many workers, it's bs corporate decisions meddling in every step of the game creation process. Everything must be about monetization, loot boxes and that kind of crap and the quality of the games suffers from it.

[@norincurcan8827]

How else can a CEO justify his/hers massive bonuses????

[@lawrencemanning]

Geoff: “Companies come and go”. And so it should be. As Bob sang: “The first one’s now will later be last”

[@williamhewitt7791]

As a software architect at a company where mass layoffs happened, it's primarily the "support" staff that is laid off and people who are coasting. Scrum masters, product owners, product managers, and especially, recruiters. None of these positions are necessary or that productive. It's not some huge scheme or conspiracy warping market forces.

[@02nupe]

This was really good content and framework

[@apc9714]

I think that companies are doing this not only to appease investors, but also because it's harder to focus when you are big. Google for example has disappointed in many areas, (AI, selfdriving, glass, pixel phone...) but definately not because of a lack of resources. Ultimately I think this is for the best and talented people will create more value in startups than they ever could within those giants.

[@josecipriano3048]

For the best? I can tell you're not one of these people that have been treated like broken toys

[@veccio]

Very well put. I think another important factor is upcoming legislation that may impact FAANG’s oligopoly stranglehold on the marketplace. It’s not healthy when wealth and value is too concentrated in one area. The trouble is enshittification is here to stay because institutional shareholders have too much sway on these companies.

[@daledouglas5900]

Elder GenX in tech here: I’ve been laid off four times in my career. The first time can be traumatic, but it’s no big deal by the third time. Make sure what the exit package is when you sign onto a new job.

[@harsha1306]

Agree with most of the things said here. But I think calling them vanilla CEOs is doing a disservice, maybe run of the mill CEOs or dirtbag CEOs would have been better

[@hoi-polloi1863]

Just a thought about "vanilla CEOs" chasing the stock price above all. Isn't that what you kind of expect when you go public? You're selling the company to the general populace; they and the investors don't care how special the company is, or how much difference it makes; that's not why people invest.

[@Saltatory_]

Would be interesting to hear you develop the thesis "one a company matures out of the innovation phase, they enter the value extraction phase during which they minimize innovation and maximize profits"

[@AutMouseLabs]

This video calls big tech CEO's geniuses and then spends 10 minutes pointing out how they are impacted by the same greed and methods that every other CEO does. It's something to consider. Maybe capitalism has a predictable path that attracts a certain kind of person at the top and leads to a near certain consequence of collapse, cannibalizing, and entropy. Great video, but CEO's are not geniuses, just people playing a role for a while.

[@josecipriano3048]

Judging by recent studies, they're of the sociopathic kind.

[@almdrs]

With so many people losing their jobs, how is the economy going to work? Is AI going to buy stuff from itself?

[@mr.gamewatch7547]

These elitists a ssholes are too arrogant and self-centered to think about the future like you just did. It will ultimately come back to haunt them

[@bac0nknight691]

That is apparently not gonna be the problem of the rich

[@josecipriano3048]

Each company only cares for itself. Google is like "it's a just fee thousand people, there are still plenty out there to buy my shit". But when every corporation is playing the same game, no one can afford anything and these morons are left wondering why.

[@gimbur6921]

Could all the layoffs stop, please?!

[@rajeshr436]

You are absolutely right

[@richardmattocks]

A company should only hire when there is a business need for an extra person, not on a whim. It’s called organic growth and works well.

[@everystack]

Note to younger self: “The more you work, the more work will be delegated to you.” The corporation ladder is a scam; work on yourself instead

[@saurabhgalinde779]

I think the same things happened with Boeing. Once the passionate people were out, company started going down over a period of time.

[@altonmckenzie8587]

That is exactly why they over hired... To avoid competition.... Sad

[@chinocalbes867]

This is what I've learned: --- the change in company direction (innovation VS stock valuation) --- leads to change in leadership (engineers VS salesmen) --- this leads to a change in the company culture --- which leads to a change in the type of employee that would be attracted to work in the company --- which leads to the company stagnating in the long run

[@mobiusinversion]

Massively insightful as always, thank you Hari! 😎

[@laaaliiiluuu]

Shareholder is a euphemism for slave owner.

[@magiclandcartoons]

Many of the laid off people will start something, unimaginable and still profitable businesses.

[@muddy-one]

The "nice" bonus for the shareholders is that all the people laid off won't be working there long enough for their stock compensation to become vested, so the outstanding share count drops. Now that's a win-win for the CEO and investors.

[@Swedish__]

From being in this arena for 30 years, it seems to me the behaviors haven’t changed, just the scale has increased and interval shortened.

[@devsen71]

It is not even the stock price, it is the "bland" culture of the bandwagon. If one person orders return to office (may be 10 years ago). Every tom dick and harry ordered return to office and no remote without even an iota of thought as to why it was ordered. Everybody was pursuing paper less office once, then cliche after cliche for every season, now in recent memory is Big Data, then cloud, then AI, now damn it is Generative AI, some got bored with Generative AI are not yapping about Ethical AI or Responsible AI.

[@leyrua]

It was a chilling moment when Google changed their motto from "Don't be evil" to "do the right thing".

[@rulabula2259]

You can tell who a Vanilla CEO is by his presentations and quotes. They are mostly unremarkable, copycats of their predecessors and banal comments that no one remembers. These folks remind me of the tax collectors during the time of the British Raj.

[@InfoSoup]

One of the best reasoning that makes sense

[@honorekiza]

Lay off then start hiring a week later i don't get it

[@LogicallyAnswered]

Weird right?

[@KBTadieh]

Living in America is very interesting to be honest. People often worship these huge companies who then turn around and lay them off…after posting record profits. And YET Americans still worship these companies same companies . I don’t get it. Why??