Facebook, Google, et al

[Mjl]

Again, maybe try reading past the headline.

[ousdahl]

[ousdahl]

[ousdahl]

[zsn]

Elon Musk, Super Geenyus

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/01/17/twitter ... ggles.html

[Mjl]

Google laid off 12,000 today.
Tech companies just follow each other. Smaller companies are going to start doing this just because the giants did.

I think this was inevitable. 20 years ago software development was a bunch of typical geeks, who had solid jobs but everything was still very top down and pay wasn't super duper high and it didn't require that many non-technical folks.

Then came the age of outsourcing. Companies all followed seeing how cheap it was to just get developers in India and China.

Then companies saw how awful the results were, due to many reasons. They realized you get what you pay for. So they went back to hiring Americans. The results were much better, so everyone started hiring Americans.

Tooling and tech and architecture became wayyy more complex. They enabled amazing scalability and reliability, but at a tremendous cost in terms of people and expertise needed. Demand went through the roof and thus salaries did too. And the results were... mixed.

Companies that truly needed that level of reliability and scalability reaped the benefits. With that said, they have it now, and thus don't need as many people. So they're "right-sizing".

Companies that copied them without actually needing to are just saying, well, they're not saying anything because they don't realize their mistake. But they'll follow again without understanding why.

This is the first time since 2008 that I actually feel like my job is in danger, despite my employer being very profitable and growing. Just because we have a tendency to be the ones copying instead of, like, understanding our decisions. My father always says "There are two types of people in the corporate world - those who have been laid off and those who haven't been laid off yet." I'm in the latter... But eventually that's going to change.

[jhawks99]

I've been laid off several times. Last time was 2009. No rumors here yet.

[ousdahl]

[MICHHAWK]

everything you ever wanted to know about big tech can be found in the hbo show silicon valley. like they are looking in a mirror.

[pdub]

everything you ever wanted to know about big tech can be found in the hbo show silicon valley. like they are looking in a mirror.

everything you ever wanted to know about police can be found in the show brooklyn nine nine.
everything you ever wanted to know about the service industry can be found in the show always sunny in philadelphia.
everything you ever wanted to know about the justice system can be found in the show night court.
everything you ever wanted to know about space can be found in the show futurama.

[KUTradition]

lol

[jhawks99]

Everything I really needed to know, I learned in kindergarten.

[pdub]

I would mention that while it definitely sucks getting laid off, getting minimum of four months of severance ( + 2 weeks per year worked there ) and six months of health care coverage is a pretty sweet deal. So if you had worked there for 4 years, you are getting half a year of pay.

Many of these employees laid off have strong resumes to where they might be employed within the month, which means they will get double paid for an extended period.

[twocoach]

Google laid off 12,000 today.
Tech companies just follow each other. Smaller companies are going to start doing this just because the giants did.

I think this was inevitable. 20 years ago software development was a bunch of typical geeks, who had solid jobs but everything was still very top down and pay wasn't super duper high and it didn't require that many non-technical folks.

Then came the age of outsourcing. Companies all followed seeing how cheap it was to just get developers in India and China.

Then companies saw how awful the results were, due to many reasons. They realized you get what you pay for. So they went back to hiring Americans. The results were much better, so everyone started hiring Americans.

Tooling and tech and architecture became wayyy more complex. They enabled amazing scalability and reliability, but at a tremendous cost in terms of people and expertise needed. Demand went through the roof and thus salaries did too. And the results were... mixed.

Companies that truly needed that level of reliability and scalability reaped the benefits. With that said, they have it now, and thus don't need as many people. So they're "right-sizing".

Companies that copied them without actually needing to are just saying, well, they're not saying anything because they don't realize their mistake. But they'll follow again without understanding why.

This is the first time since 2008 that I actually feel like my job is in danger, despite my employer being very profitable and growing. Just because we have a tendency to be the ones copying instead of, like, understanding our decisions. My father always says "There are two types of people in the corporate world - those who have been laid off and those who haven't been laid off yet." I'm in the latter... But eventually that's going to change.

It has been interesting watching the investments in cloud computing start to fall off. Many tech companies vastly overestimated how many people would be interested in investing big money to have their data stored in the cloud where it is much more vulnerable.

Also, MJL, are you in IT? What do you do?

[Mjl]

I am, I'm a software engineer for a data analytics company

[Mjl]

Although I don't know if that's considered IT. I usually think of IT as more networks and hardware and infrastructure, not so much code. Though my friends in Omaha come to think of it also refer to me as being in IT, so maybe that's an Omaha thing

[twocoach]

Although I don't know if that's considered IT. I usually think of IT as more networks and hardware and infrastructure, not so much code. Though my friends in Omaha come to think of it also refer to me as being in IT, so maybe that's an Omaha thing

Didn't realize you were in Omaha, too. I'd count developers, engineers and analysts of computer systems as generally being in IT.

[pdub]

I usually think of IT as more networks and hardware and infrastructure, not so much code.

Same.

[twocoach]

I usually think of IT as more networks and hardware and infrastructure, not so much code.

Same.

Just depends on the team structure I suppose. I work in an org with nearly 400 people in the IT department. Some places only have a handful so you aren't really separated as IT. Who knows.

[Mjl]

Although I don't know if that's considered IT. I usually think of IT as more networks and hardware and infrastructure, not so much code. Though my friends in Omaha come to think of it also refer to me as being in IT, so maybe that's an Omaha thing

Didn't realize you were in Omaha, too. I'd count developers, engineers and analysts of computer systems as generally being in IT.

I'm not, but three of my four best friends are