Why have tech firms fired 200,000 people? | DW Business

The biggest names in tech are planning major layoffs as they shift their strategies to react to new realities. Since the start of 2023 alone, thousands of workers at Microsoft, Google and Amazon have been told they’re losing their jobs. Over 200,000 tech job losses have been announced since the start of 2022.
What’s behind the mass layoffs? Could they have been avoided? How are big tech firms changing their approaches in the wake of the pandemic? And who will win the race for AI domination? We answer all these questions and more with the help of Wall Street tech analyst Dan Ives in this DW Business Special.
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#business #bigtech #layoffs

[@JackIsNotInTheBox]

Imagine getting your dream job at Google, telling all your relatives, and receiving high praise. Then getting fired 1 month later.

[@randomguy4116]

good, those techbros need to get put in their place. We, high finance, will be back on top.

[@sammiller6631]

It's still on your resume.

[@Curling_Rack]

no such thing as job security lol

[@gugisagara4489]

@@randomguy4116 Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan etc also have laid off some employees.. it happens across different fields, maybe normalization after massive hiring during pandemic or some C-levels simply want to show investors that they have done something to compensate declining bottom lines

[@tibsyy895]

Those "dreamjobs“ are on average for a year cause they burn out! All of them!

[@wayneparker9331]

As someone who has practiced maritime, energy and corporate finance law for 18 years (and in the SF Bay Area for five years) with many, many friends in the tech sector, I found this news segment laughably off base and fully ignorant of how the tech sector companies were actually conducting their businesses these last fifteen years or so. Let me be blunt: the reason we're seeing the huge tech sector layoffs is best summed up as the result of poor management that could be hidden or ignored while the tech sector grew by leaps and bounds for 20 years. Senior executives at these tech companies were becoming multimillionaires and billionaires of companies in a "growth sector." The end result was a hubris I witnessed more times than I can count from people in the tech sector. I frequently poked fun at my tech sector friends that the easiest thing to sell in the SF Bay Area and other tech corridors was the idea that some company with a "new" idea was going to give investors a better than 1000% return on investment. Why? Because the Silicon Valley venture capitalists and other investors couldn't believe the tech sector would ever experience a serious slump. The result was that every small and medium tech sector company (and let me add that many of them were not really tech companies but companies calling themselves a "tech company" to garner investment and attention, e.g., Lyft) was viewed as a possible "unicorn" that could blow up to a market cap worth billions of dollars. FTX was a great example of this. Venture capitalists who actually engaged in negotiations and discussions with SBF and FTX senior management witnessed some odd and rather unprofessional behaviors. That should have put them on notice they were not dealing with business professionals and they should have known better than to give billions to senior executives whose very unprofessional behavior should have set off alarms. Instead, the VC people convinced themselves that SBF and others like him were nerdy geniuses with some "world changing" business concept or idea. This meant the potential investors could pretend all the evidence of problematic leadership and questionable financials wasn’t going to impact their investments, especially since so many of the smaller tech companies were run so shoddily and so this behavior seemed to be par for the course. VC and other tech sector investors also adopted the attitude that even if 9/10 investments failed, the one investment that paid off would more than make up for the losses. In short, the tech sector investor class all engaged in wishful thinking that everything would be good for the foreseeable future because tech had never suffered a truly serious slump. So, the tech and social media companies they invested in incurred massive overhead and human resources expenses they really didn't need to meet their customers' needs. Lots of expensive perks that no rational person could justify if they were really focused on creating value for customers and investors. Once you started seeing those TikTok and KZbin videos of 20-something employees going into what looked like "adult day care," you knew the wheels were coming off soon.

[@leme5639]

your comment is better than the entire video. 20 to 30% of tech employees don't deserve minimum wage...

[@karlineschrubberstiel]

Nailed it!

[@iwishiknewhowto1228]

@@leme5639 gonna be honest the minimum wage is literally pennies at this point no one deserves it.

[@mau5che]

Talking to one ceo with a little tech background, he told me that the business side of tech works on the assumption that the tech will "just work."

[@marczhu7473]

It's about trade war with china. Loss of market in chip mean chain reaction related in associated industries.

[@pascalrouen]

The biggest problem is inflation and the cost of living. The very minimum most people can afford to make is $20-25 per hour, with few jobs available in this pay scale. Food has nearly doubled in price in 2 short years, gas doubled in 2022. The cost is too high. Working for $15 an hour is no longer an option.

[@eugenedoronin5827]

Amazingly quickly the lay off cut the sound quality as well.

[@ZoeySaysTransRights]

It's interesting how when they are successful it's because of the CEOs being such geniuses, but when they lose money it's because of the workers. 🤔

[@Flielow]

The pain this guy is talking about that the tech industry has to go through is the pain implemented by the companies to appease investors. The pain this guy romantically refers to is the pain and suffering that the employees go through not the business nor the investors.

[@Joey-ct8bm]

Saudi Arabia is a investor of Microsoft, Amazon and Google.

[@Santiago-sh3cq]

@@Joey-ct8bm gross

[@sammiller6631]

@@Joey-ct8bm There are thousands of investors of Microsoft, Amazon and Google. So?

[@Joey-ct8bm]

@@sammiller6631 You need to know who is protected when you get fired.

[@brodriguez11000]

@@sammiller6631 People need to understand that "investors" aren't another species of homo sapiens. They are US. Every single person that's invested their money in companies, be it stocks, bonds, or other investment instrument. Saying how dare they appease US seems kind of silly.

[@jamesjackovich5886]

A lot of tech companies don't manufacture anything they provide a service and their profits are advertising

[@angelachanelhuang1651]

good to know

[@aliancemd]

We are also seeing a boom in B2B(Business-to-Business) job offerings for software developers, in an attempt to switch to a gig economy, where companies have less responsibilities and can hire/fire at will, in the style of Uber or food ordering services.

[@dioxideuniversal]

These companies definitely need fire at will if you catch my drift.

[@richarddietzen3137]

No surprise at this. CEO will get a raise next year, for “navigating a crisis”.

[@lowwastehighmelanin]

They're losing good people who will go on to other roles. But what they're also losing is reliability. A lot of services are being damaged by this. They risk losing everything at this rate.

[@scottdavis3571]

@@lowwastehighmelanin It's time NOT to buy.

[@MusaMecanica]

Depending on where you are, they can already do it. I live in an "employment at will" state. Which means they can indeed fire me whenever they feel like it, regardless of cause.

[@youcanhandlethetruth4695]

Tech People: "Oh let me invent this Program that can replace me." Also Tech People: "They took our Jobs "

[@adityaj950]

The ones who invent don't get replaced.

[@youcanhandlethetruth4695]

@@adityaj950 Not True. Most Google Artikels are A.I. Produkts. Copie and Paste, Never noticed? They post the 99% same stuff to every theme. So all Writers are not needed. The Programs are so Smart, that you do not need Millions of Code Writers anymore. Its not a Infinit Curve. Once Most Codes/ Programs are Perfect, all you need is a view to maintain them. The Inventors are Normaly the First gone. Like Musk and Zuckerberg Prove. They simply Buy the once really behind it out.

[@geanettepartington691]

I know, I used to be a medical transcriptionist. They were using us to "clean up" the work done by the new voice recognition software systems and electronic medical records. They also were programming their systems to understand the doctors better, using US as the experts going over the computer's work, word for word and line for line, cleaning up the computer's mistakes. Final analysis: We worked ourselves out of a job, cleaning up THEIR MESS. Then OUR jobs were eliminated.

[@sew_gal7340]

@@adityaj950 not to mention the inventor gets patent rights which ensure they are rich forever

[@lastnamehurt]

it doesn't work this way lol

[@EduardRoehrich]

The quote from Sundar Pichai at 5:22 is representative of the entire tech industry: They competed heavily for talent, hired at hugely inflated salaries in a time of massive growth, and radically increased the salaries of some veteran employees in an effort to not have them poached when they needed them the most. That's why these layoffs can appear quite random and across the board. They're not going to tell an employee that their salary is out of the designated company range and that they'll have to accept a 20% or 30% pay cut. They're correcting the situation and are normalizing their pay ranges with large layoff rounds.

[@lowwastehighmelanin]

That's a better analysis than this so called analyst offered

[@SavageStephen]

THANK YOU!

[@sterlinggrey1899]

They are slowly being replaced by AI. AI doesn't need spa treatment, billiards table, exercise machines and encouragement by an onsite psychologist.

[@SavageStephen]

@@sterlinggrey1899 no

[@daflipsideyo]

@@SavageStephen definitely yes.

[@markdc1145]

I find it ironic that with all their incredible knowledge and data that these tech companies can’t see a change in trends coming. Much like older US industries, it’s either feast or famine.

[@uswwt]

It's all about CEOs' pay, which is strongly tied to the stock price. When demand was strong during pandemic, even though normal people should know that the trend shouldn't stay, the CEOs need to scale up to make their stories to jack up the stock prices. Now every CEO is in defensive mode and all acted in sync to save their pay.

[@JK-br1mu]

No it isn't. CEO pay is insignificant compared to the size of these companies, and the annual profits they make. Apple CEO Tim Cook controversially received 99 million in the last year, but his company made 99 billion in profits......he got 1/10th of 1 percent of the company's profit..........if you took away his entire salary and gave it to each of the 164,000 employees at Apple, they would each get a $600 raise.

[@uswwt]

@@JK-br1mu I never said CEO pay is a significant portion of a company's revenue. But there is no denying that majority of their pay is equity. That's also true for many executives too. So higher stock price means much higher pay. Google's CEO in particular is useless. A money could do that job better. They just blinding follow the steps of Meta.

[@eben3357]

@@uswwt Interesting that Meta started these lay-offs and then Musk sort of meme'd it.

[@frenchonion4595]

@@JK-br1mu So many people don't understand this

[@user-techkid]

That’s true, ceo estimate demand too much in the market. But I think there is another benefit of other industry, they can grab IT easily.

[@1337flite]

Tech firms arent being taken by surprise by AI. I work at the university where AIML is housed and there is no shortage of involvment by Google in AIML and even before AIML with Google in the univestiry's CompSci department. Prior to this I did a stint with DXC (OK not really big tech, but corporate IT) and similalry they were all over one of the other local unis trying to find talent and to a lesser extent tech applicable to their problem domain. Like many other STEM industries big tech is all over the Uni's tryimg to find an early edge and find the fresh talent - so they know what people are working on, what is being researched and who is looking for commercialisation opportunities.

[@lowwastehighmelanin]

Yeah the guy they're talking to doesn't know what he's talking about this was an irritating interview.

[@Jmike12345]

The tech companies borrowed “cheap” money and took easy capital but invested lavishly in perks and benefits that largely generate no return - expensive office space with breathtaking wasted space, and the truth is the cost of money is rising. This culture can’t be sustained and provide ROI and service that massive debt (or both). The real pain will be realized by employees won’t find jobs that pay their expected salaries and sustain their current lifestyles. This one is going to really hit hard, and most of these employees seem I’ll equipped to understand or deal with what is coming.

[@zhen86]

FAANG has no cash flow issue

[@juliusdv6657]

I'm getting controller manager boomer vibes from you..

[@bromanceme]

@@juliusdv6657 Better that than no rank Z vibes😴

[@jamesbest2221]

I never knew Danny Devito knew so much about tech!

[@yesterday1396]

😭

[@achmadmarendes]

It's Al Bundy

[@Stories4SaleMedia]

I came looking for this comment lmao 🤣

[@abdullahsajidcheema9165]

The new reality is, that these big tech companies have changed priorities now and the hirings of last decade has become a baggage for them in the newly emerged post-pandemic world.

[@jasontyler4119]

Talking about the largest companies, almost all of them have been posting record profits, and headcount growth was matched with growth in revenue. At flatline growth, almost all of them can afford the increased headcount going forward. It's bizarre to have companies have to layoff with something like 30% profit margins, and layoff before a potential recession as opposed to during a recession. There's never been anything like this, and it's disappointing to hear from these wall street "experts" who won't acknowledge the basic facts of the situation, and instead offer well used tropes.

[@macmcleod1188]

Save at least a third of what you make. After two years, you'll never be vulnerable again. After 20 years, you can retire. And by the time you're 50 to 55, you'll be well set for retirement. Many tech people get laid off in their 50s. I retired 51. There was no Financial magic. There was 20 years of saving from the time I was 30 until I was 50. Sure I had some successful Investments but they weren't the key. The key was saving in the first place and living on less than I made. Do not live at the edge of your income.

[@Leopardvixen369]

Some people don’t have a choice, though. Not everyone is making enough money to be able to save a third of every check.

[@macmcleod1188]

@@Leopardvixen369 some people don't. But most people do. I was surrounded by people who always had Starbucks, ate out for lunch, had new cars, had new purse and shoes, went on expensive trips, had new computers, had *nice* big houses, and/or spent a few hours wages once a week at bars. If you want to live like that, then go for it but you'll never be free. You'll always be a wage slave. And you'll likely spend a couple decades in strong poverty in your old age. And there were many examples of people on minimum wage incomes who save substantial sums but they probably had to save really hard to do that. And in those context, simple dollar cost averaging of broad market mutual funds or ETFs or dividend reinvestment programs can be effective. But they won't let you get rich quick. They basically preserve the buying power of the money you saved. Always pay yourself first.

[@gsomethingsomething2658]

Agreed.

[@zadovrus1624]

Unless inflation eats all your savings. If you've worked in the west, you worked through golden era of economy. Nowadays things aren't looking as good

[@macmcleod1188]

@@zadovrus1624 that's a good point and a reason why you shouldn't sit on cash. But cautious Investments typically track inflation and preserve *purchasing power* . (I.e. $3 today will buy a cup of coffee and will turn into $9 in 30 years that will buy a cup of coffee.) As long as you don't try to get rich quick, you'll be okay. It's also a reason why you need to get into the home ownership game in some way at some point. Renting is also a recipe for being a wage slave. Right now homeownership in major cities is not a good deal. But there are usually good opportunities once every decade or so. Just be ready for them. I'm not saying don't live your life. Because you could get cancer. You could be killed in a car accident. Heck, you could even have a stroke in your 40s. But too many people spend tens of thousands of dollars on coffee, cable TV, updating computers too often, having a new car every few years. Etc. The worst thing I see in my experience is eating out food that isn't even memorable. Instead of spending $200 a month eating out food that you won't remember next month, eat cheap home made food and save $150 and then once a month go eat something for $50 you'll remember for years or maybe even the rest of your life. Or even better, take the $50 and have a small party for yourself and friends with really nice food and wine.

[@foxooo]

The thing is they are cutting 10k jobs but hired 80k new jobs the year before. The tech lay off is overstated.

[@zen1647]

Yeah, absolutely. Tech is still growing sector, but if it's not growing every quarter some amateur journalists panic.

[@oldmoney1022]

@@zen1647 So DW are amateur journalists?

[@frenchonion4595]

Let 2023 play out some more. This was all propped up by covid stimulus that's wearing off now leaving everyone over leveraged. 40% increase in the money supply made it look like there was massive profits being made when there wasn't. It was just inflation.

[@zen1647]

@@oldmoney1022 Overall definitely not. Just the research for this story.

[@angelasoWA]

I just want to say that there’s a difference between “fired” and “laid off”. One is due to poor performance and the later is to reduce costs. Also all these companies hired almost a million employees over the pandemic.

[@nadasou]

Language art, no difference at all, just being unemployed!

[@chiyerano]

@@nadasou The difference is if a person is laid off, the person can qualify for unemployment benefits while a person who is fired due to poor performance can't qualify for unemployment benefits.

[@matrixexposer6217]

@@chiyerano In Germany everybody gets unemployment benefits. Capitalism sucks.

[@chiyerano]

@@matrixexposer6217 I don't think what we have in America is capitalism. I don't consider it capitalism if the government can seize your land or property for not paying property taxes even if your land and property are paid for.

[@matrixexposer6217]

@@chiyerano The little nuances.

[@Fehr270]

This might have been coming anyway. They hired a lot of people to build profitable businesses and now they need much smaller staffing to keep them running. They can even automate coding now working themselves out of a job. Imagine opening a hotel. It takes a large number of skilled trades to build it and a smaller number of less skilled workers to keep it running.

[@ayoCC]

going into maintenance mode

[@scarface8975]

Correct

[@prasadsawant7399]

Its interesting how layoffs are done at big companies. In small companies there is usually a period that you get notified of. But big tech seem to do a hard stop. Its like knowing that you have cancer and will die, or getting a sudden heart attack.

[@lexprontera8325]

In most countries it would be against the law to terminate employment suddenly... but I'm guessing either a) the US is NOT such a country because the rich wrote the law, or b) they're big enough to be above the law.

[@chrissahar2014]

I love how business people use so many words to describe a simple problem right now - inflation is up, borrowing is up so people and businesses have less to spend. Add in a stock market that has been volatile and stagnant with people chasing dubious investment vehicles, you have a recipe for a contraction in job market. That's it.

[@zohramartini9425]

Except that those companies have their treasury full of cash that could compensate for a contracted market. Not only seeing people in numbers but as people who have made your success

[@yannip2083]

Just thinking ... is this time to get rid of dead weights, quit quitters and bullshitters?

[@RIXRADvidz]

it's business, you cut your expenses and rehire at a lower wage, refer to it as downsizing and cost cutting to streamline the business. it happened in the mutual fund house I was working in, long time expensive employees were let go to make room for temp to hires that could be dismissed without warning. or wage packages.

[@sammiller6631]

It's not business. If you want cut costs, cut back CEO and other executive pay first. If they're getting paid 1000x more than average worker, that's the bigger cost cut with smallest impact.

[@containedhurricane]

This is the most logical explanation. One junior engineer's salary is around $105,000 annually and those companies have thousands of senior engineers, so replacing them with new graduates will benefit them in the current economic situation

[@jneff6456]

If only CEOs and executives gave up their third private jet, those employees could have been kept.

[@twostop6895]

@@sammiller6631 lol

[@spugelo359]

@@jneff6456 Nah the golden toilet still needs more cleaning, back to work!

[@yuriisamoliuc]

learn how to weld bro , or install solar pannels 😏😏😏 I remmember when they cut the manufacture and oil jobs they used to say learn how to code, ahh how the times have turned

[@anmnou]

Hey Rob Watts, I love your Language and Etymology channel here on KZbin!! I have learned so much and you make the history of the English language fun and interesting...Nice to "see" you here too!

[@manonamission2000]

Certain tech bros likely hired friends and family thru referral programs and those hired likely did not deliver results

[@peterfmodel]

There are two basic types of IT companies, there is the Meta or Google which are dependent on advertising and service the consumer segment. At the other end we have Oracle or IBM which service the commercial world. Both are suffering, with one reason being common, which is the reduction in margin; however the other driver is a reduction in advertising which is driven by a decline in the consumer market. The core reason is the global recession, trigged by the global lockdowns but mainly caused by excessive borrowing since 2010. This will probably continue until the end of this CY, so I expect any pain will increase before it gets better.

[@kaikai9542]

While the salary and fringe benefit of the CEO's are still insane. They get a huge paid by minute. 😂😂😂

[@hoperanker8395]

Did this Dan Ives expert guy actually say anything concrete? It sounded like 100% jargon and talking around the questions without actually saying anything meaningful.

[@gluteusmaximus1657]

Most folks own a ton of tech gadgets. Not much groundbreaking new development. Slowly we get bored by all of the toys. Beep-beep here - Alexa there. Tech firms cannot achieve the enormous and skyrocketing profits from the past. I think they want to keep their money and not seeing it dripping away. Massive layoffs and closures of large production sites. China took over the low and middle price market. Now the western big players will concentrate on luxury items only. There are still big profits to make.

[@sammiller6631]

Yet folks keep buying $2000 graphics cards. China can't take over the low and middle price market if they can't keep up supply.

[@sonnyjohnson8887]

I maxed all credit cards .. you can count me out in acquiring luxury goods / services

[@loveheals3173]

I agree. AI is the next best thing they said. But as for now most of the AI software available is not used by us the commoners in our everyday routines. It is somewhat though everytime we use a search engine or these social media platforms. But it's not to the point where we are using "neurorobots" or whatever. So in that way we are still using software that was first implemented somewhere in the 80's or 90's. It's just that it got improved and/or upgraded. Most of the "things" we use today are not new.

[@CorazonMexica]

If they are so interested in AI to replace as many jobs as possible, when will we get an AI to replace CEOs and consumers?

[@tonygilbert5256]

Wow, I didn't know Rob was on a news channel. Love his RobWords channel!

[@s.z.9579]

What a surprise! I just thought I were hallucinating when I saw you, Rob Watts, on DW's channel ...Congrats to the new job! I was always waiting for you to explain the origins of some English words ... :-)

[@bvkronenberg6786]

The Big Tech Companies will hire more H1b and foreign temp workers because they are much cheaper labor.

[@rajkoner]

Can't be right..?they are showing lines of H1bs running pillar to post for new jobs ....

[@thepearlswirl]

I do see this happening. I saw it done last year, under my nose.

[@1337flite]

Tech companies didn't over invest in staff. Staff are not really investments. Tech companies used the flexbility of the labour market to burst their workforces and now they don't need the staff they are shedding them. The corporates were right sizing when they hired people they needed and they are right sizing again now they don't need them. That's the world we collectively voted for over the past 50 years or so. Disposable staff or as they like to say "flexible labour force" or "mobile labour market".

[@philipkoene5345]

You must add the addendum "in the US" to all of that. I am a German working in German tech - it is very different here.

[@1337flite]

@@philipkoene5345 - fair point.

[@mamba101]

@@philipkoene5345 I wish we had some large tech companies in Europe to rival the big US ones

[@arbnsn923]

Great guest, Great questions 👍

[@d.s.2016]

The pendulum will soon swing back the other way and these tech firms will be begging for new and former workers to come back. Reputation and trust will give them their answer.

[@maalat]

An investing influencer reported that one way of decreasing high inflation if to crease the employment… restraining the buying power of people with money… very obvious they are not laying off teachers, retail sales, custodian. The impact on putting a dent on the buying power would fall on employees with high salaries and bonuses. So the formula of taking away monetary resources from high earners will stabilize the economy.

[@pnwadventurist]

It's obviously not normal, especially when these fresh out of college kids start off well into 6 figures. The writing was on the walls and this was going to happen sooner or later

[@lyfechain]

Wondering what the effect of A.I. will have on the tech industry down the line. I've been seeing people start to do coding on things like chat gpt, that stuff is literally getting better every second.

[@sh856531]

Microsoft spent 10 billion dollars on chat GPT at the same time as firing 10k militant WFH hipsters. Who didn't see that one coming....

[@sparty837]

20yrs you saw the exact thing in the PC industry. You are going to see massive benefits cuts like stock options and workplace amenities. It is now a mature industry and growth is slowing. You are going to see many of the jobs go overseas where labor costs are much lower.

[@nrusimha11]

Do we know if specific types of tech jobs are going, or are they proportional across the board - developers, testers, business analysts, MBAs?

[@doords]

Those human truth specialists fired are marketing and analysts people, not the MBA guys. But I think the MBA product managers will have to go when their team gets fired.

[@aliancemd]

In our company, up to this point, only developers have been fired, usually newer developers that were hired during the pandemic. Also, more companies are moving to B2B(Business-to-Business) hiring of developers, to switch to a gig economy where they have less responsibilities and can hire/fire at will.

[@nrusimha11]

@@aliancemd Are there any signs if this is early effect of chatGPT? I saw some reports that BuzzFeed (news co) is firing people and relying on chatGPT.

[@valentinnegrutiu5756]

don't ask smart questions in an idiotic show

[@lowwastehighmelanin]

Hey there, all my friends are in tech and the small portion of that we have at my company impacted us negatively too (health insurance): it's across the board. Developers, UI, UX, Managers, DevOps, Project Management, Admin, Customer care, cleaning staff, cafeteria and other food service. It's brutal.

[@abbyarnold4477]

Greed will eventually catch up and big tech companies will begin to disappear and only the greedy CEOs and top employees will survive . Its all down hill in 2023 and beyond .

[@BrutusPalmeira]

Lay offs doesn’t necessarily imply all are developer or engineering jobs. There are a lot of overhead managerial or other collar type of jobs.

[@Olden2610]

So should i look for job as i don't know, cook or electrician?

[@ensalzado]

Microsoft CEO mentioned something important: these jobs are probably not going away, it is just that they would be in FANG. All other industries need more and more development teams to deploy and maintain their products. For sure, what’s is going to happen is that they probably won’t get USD 200-300 k in middle career positions, rather a fraction of that. It is important to acknowledged these jobs are way over the normal range of non-tech firms.

[@angelachanelhuang1651]

cool

[@Louisianish]

Rob Watts got a job with DW News?!?! That’s awesome!! I love his KZbin channel. Had no idea he worked for DW News.

[@magatism]

It's all about maximizing profits and the silion vally market share is dwindling...

[@peacenow42]

Greed. Definitely greed.

[@Ziggyswimsalot]

The guest seems so smart, nice, and humble. Loved the interview!

[@siddheshshivraj3534]

You can't be paying people at 340K/700K and this is like bringing balance to the tech world. This is eventually what will happen to real estate, when no can afford to buy prices are bound to crash.

[@thepearlswirl]

💯 exactly I remember one guy laughing at any offers lower than $350k.. I wonder where he is now💀

[@richardandersen5813]

To force a recession of course.

[@sammiller6631]

force a recession? LOL that's not how it works

[@richardandersen5813]

@@sammiller6631 think negative thoughts and negative things happen. Fire a load of staff because they might be a recession then suddenly you have a load of people who now can’t buy products so bang you have a recession.

[@FrankensteinDIYkayak]

how many will move to the huge chip fabs outside of silicon valley?

[@thepearlswirl]

2:45 I definitely saw it coming but wasn’t expecting nov.. I thought Jan but I’m glad it happened to me early😮‍💨💯

[@MaverickMo]

Nice. Giving it straight.

[@The_Savage_Wombat]

It's seems all the tech breakthroughs occur in small companies.

[@user-ms4ef8xz9t]

Interesting, no one mentioned how many people have been replaced by automation.

[@chairforce0ne]

cause automation is a colossal failure, look at self driving car and all the sell offs of technology companies that developed driving AI

[@icaruscarinae]

200k is only the full time workers. Doesn't include the massive numbers of contract workers.

[@chillxxx241]

The EU and US started levying fines on many of these companies. I’m sure investors now want to pull back and take profits before it gets too bad.

[@liang8255]

They put out toooo many gadgets unnecessary and overlapping simple squeezing more money out. Now, people don't buy them anymore, in a period when people only buy necessities they go belly up.

[@bigdlamz]

The layoffs can be attributed to a couple of reasons. Uncertainty around Ukrain-Russia conflict. Gloabal Economic slowdown. Increasing Inflation & rising costs. Productivity gains from AI.

[@kdub3892]

Or all the censorship they were involved in and the impending lawsuits.

[@e.a.p3174]

all I have to do is look at their stock values. Stock values tanked sometimes 80% or more because the profits are not coming in, so what do CEO's have to do? become lean

[@victorcretu7741]

Truth be told if you focus only on some worthy projects as a company, you can easily lay off 20% of the workforce. In the last decade, many managers were proud of the large variety of projects they are involved with. The more, the better they thought. If a project does not yield results maybe another one will and overall we are OK. It does not work this way. You have to choose the right project from the start and focus.on it. Everything else put the company in jeopardy.

[@Alexa-uk8lj]

Long ago these companies over hired to signify growth to shareholders to encourage more investment and to hoard talent. That's it. It has little to do with retail customers. The output value was never there to begin with.

[@easymac79]

I have a good idea of what those employees were doing: content moderation. Post Twitter Files, they have to "clean house" before they get caught. We already know they do it, it's just a matter of destroying the evidence before the house of cards collapses.

[@darkmater4tm]

These capabilities aren't actually new for AI. What's new is Microsoft's decision to move from research to product, putting pressure on everyone to show what they already have.

[@macdonaldonuoha3385]

And here i am thinking the layoffs are AI related 🤦‍♂️

[@fanbutton]

I got a feeling that a lot of Amazon packages will be getting lost in the shuffle.

[@neiltropolis]

We need a new system. Sadly, probably wont happen

[@fabiantombers4966]

we need to organize...

[@phil3038]

I assume because growth in the tech industry has started to plateu or at least slow significantly in growth comparable to the last 20 years of boom. Forget the pandemic, this was always going to happen. Nothing lasts forever Combine that with the ability to automise many jobs with advanced software and AI, sort of makes sense that less man power is needed

[@zen1647]

Ummm, who do you think builds, maintains, and improves AI? Plumbers? The growth of AI will increase the number of tech workers required.

[@Karuska22ps]

@@zen1647 software is oversaturated

[@dimicdragan5922]

Because they overhired... simple

[@maalat]

Innovation may not be related to firing IT employees. It’s about the economy which is inflationary. It’s reported that letting go of employees will help lower inflation - less money circulating and demanding for goods and services.

[@christianfaust5141]

Good analyses

[@theaouch4749]

Cooperate greed #1.

[@valtervalente5302]

Pure greed.. Google had 17 billion in profit!

[@flavio4923]

Companies and businesses are like algorithms. At some point the best ones for the problems we have will already be out there, and there will be longer intervals between new big companies and technologies. So maybe we can count on innovation to drive the job market forever

[@eben3357]

The intervals are getting shorter. In the past, whole economies would stagnate and do 'cultural' stuff for generations, recycling myths in order to add value... I'd wager after the vaccines (biotech) we'll be fitted with microchips in order to buttress AI for the colonisation of Mars. This is potentially 3 waves of Capitalism in the next 25-30 years or so. But, it's all speculation. We could experience a break down of the Pax Americana and 'regionalisation' of the world which could hold things back a century or worse.

[@YouTubeCensorsEverything]

How many of these workers were unionized?

[@oreosandsoymilk5435]

Getting fired is VERY DIFFERENT than getting laid off. It's extremely important for people to make the distinction here

[@nicksanta]

Has adaptive machine intelligence come into play?

[@maranac10]

In geophysics, we had modeling, then we had AI, and now we have hybrid. Hybrid requires a lot on tweaking and expertise, this is where manpower is going these days.

[@pointblank0020]

why are news outlets still doing the whole "film the computer monitor" thing. "we don't have computers, but we found one and we filmed it in action!"

[@skodateam]

Artificial Intelligence! There you have it. Everyone will be a manager, yeah right.. it is designed to terminate as many jobs as possible, so the question becomes: what will happen to those who have lost their jobs ?? Are they still needed ? We know the answer to that one, don't we?

[@yongchen8204]

they cant afford paying their employees with over $200,000 and plus perks.

[@davefoster2962]

Difference between fired and laid off is only technicality. It don't matter for the gov't to decide your EI eligibilty. So I call both of them as terminated. If you are terminated with cause, you won't receive a dime from EI. Surprisingly, termination due to poor performace is without a cause meaning that you'll receive EI

[@peterfmodel]

The IT industry is simply repeating what occurred with aircraft manufacturing. From high margin products it has moved into a low margin business model which requires a different structure.

[@user-wn4qp3lw6s]

what is the meaning behind this?

[@RideAcrossTheRiver]

Why would a 'technology firm' put human beings out of pay and health benefits?

[@user-fn3vy4ug2n]

"Unsustainable spending" on the employees that are the backbone of the last ten years of unprecedented growth in profits?? What a joke 🤣🤣🤣🖕🤡🤡🤡

[@fearElohim34]

They all wanted a recession (didn't get one), so now the layoffs look suspicious. [edit] The layoffs are only to put money into the c-suite pockets and shareholders.

[@renscience]

Same as aerospace in the early 90’s. Too much, no more needed, played out.

[@liamjohnson2474]

What's Behind record layoffs? RECORD PROFITS.

[@LoyaltyIsEverything91]

Each company that forced employees to get the vax shot eugenics shot... got kick backs. So makes sense to hire as many people as possible. Force as many and threaten them all to get the jab and get as many kickbacks as you can. Then give the ones who deserve severance the paycheck and let them go. .. sickening. Wayfair fired 2500 in 6 months

[@barto1231]

tell this tech guy to buy himself microphone, this will help

[@tringuyen7519]

OpenAI has 375 employees created ChatGPT for students and professionals. Google has 100,000 employees and is catching up to OpenAI?

[@JianZhouVA]

The two entities have different problem scopes. You can't compare their achievements just by the number of employees they have.

[@zesky6654]

Google is way ahead in terms of AI. ChatGPT isn't all that impressive tech-wise, there have been similar apps available for a while now. Microsoft released Co-Pilot (like chatGPT but useful) a couple of years ago and didn't really cause much change.

[@benjamindover4033]

I’m mystified by your attempt to suggest that companies are “to blame” due to over-hiring. People had jobs for a few years to a decade and now need to find another employer. This is something that many do routinely even when employed. There is no “blame” here. This is a natural cycle and this employment gave people experience and a good income.

[@Placebo201]

Good. These tech employees are overpaid. Nice to know that some of their salaries were cut from $300k a year to $175k a year. Lets pay our nurses and firemen $300k a year instead.

[@cp1011986]

Prices are through the roof, people want to buy at 2019 prices, companies put prices up. Apple m2 cost less, price higher. Nvidia doubled all prices etc

[@brkerch8449]

It's actually waaay more than that, but you're not paying attention.

[@chriscarrol9373]

There are huge job opportunities in the labour market for tech employees. With many openings rite now that can't be outsourced. "Would you like fries with that?" comes with perks like free meal.