Obviously everything I say is personal experience and opinion. I think the layoffs were long overdue and should've happened sooner. There was a general understanding between my coworkers and I that Uber definitely over hired in 2016. Thanks to that a lot of engineers ran out of things to do which led to political infighting over roadmap, ridiculous redundant resourcing - every single team had mobile/web, severe shortage on infra teams since head count was already taken by main Uber teams. We even started building and maintaining our own chat app. I disagree that all the cool eng project that we put out and share here is a waste of time or resources. Those project was initiated by real needs on Uber and only the best make it out into the rest of the world. Engineers that shipped those projects are still here and we would've done it regardless of whether the 435 people that were hired in the first spot. I fully realize that it's an insensitive thing to say but I think it's important that it's expressed somewhere.
I think the lesson here is to grow responsibily, and it's real people's lives that are being affected. Don't hire people to alleviate your current engineer's burnout and stress. Learn to plan better and to prioritize aggressively instead of just hiring and getting everything done.