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Comment by big_chungus | Hacker News Reader

I hope everyone can take break from the we-work-bashing for a few minutes and agree that regardless of screwy business models, almost four thousand people being laid off is sad. I suppose everyone is partially responsible for understanding the viability of his company and taking that risk in an informed fashion, it's still not a good thing.

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> I suppose everyone is partially responsible for understanding the viability of his company and taking that risk in an informed fashion

Nah, I'd say leadership is clearly at fault. Layoffs are pretty much always failures of leadership.

That's the whole point of leadership according to Simon Sinek. Leaders are granted privileges and power and in return must stand by the decisions they have made. Without that they aren't leaders but merely authorities.

In reality though, leadership means creating Dutch Books out of your portfolio of projects and making sure any statements you make can be retroactively debated into alignment with whatever reality ended up producing. It’s a game to do this as long as you can before you get the hot potato resignation / layoff, spend 6 months relaxing on cushy severance, and then hire an expensive executive search firm to do PR and put you back on some interview circuit for the next leadership gig.

Very similar to professional sports coaching (and collegiate coaching in the US).

I think employees are at fault for empowering him and drinking the kool aid. Though I heard they pay really well, so maybe that's a sign a lot of people were passing on them because the business looked sketchy.

Or increase the WeWork bashing: the need for these layoffs is a sign of failure. I’ve said it before in a different situation, and someone took the time to find me on Twitter to tell me what they thought: layoffs in startups (or companies pretending to be a startup) indicates that maybe those seats shouldn’t have been warm to begin with.

>everyone is partially responsible for understanding the viability of his company and taking that risk in an informed fashion

Why?

I assume parent meant that if you work at a company, it is your responsibility to know whether the company will last for the time you intend to be there. Without knowing the risks involved, if the company goes under and it is clear that it's a scam, you losing your job is partially your responsibility.

When you join a company, especially a start-up, that is clearly and publicly losing a massive amount of money, there is some onus on you to be aware of the risk.

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