Hacker News Reader

The frustrating part of bad economic times is that bloated companies use it as an opportunity to clean house while projecting a positive signal to Wall Street.

This move probably would have been just as needed two years ago but would have tanked the stock at the time.

It’s sucks when real people get caught up in companies just virtue signaling to Wall Street

View on HN

Indeed, it sucks to be laid off. But how is company's reducing costs "virtue signaling"?

It's the timing. For the sake of the argument here I'll give Salesforce the benefit of the doubt that this is the "Smart" thing to do.

If Salesforce does a reduction in force when the economy is strong it get spun by Wall Street as a sign of weakness and their stock takes a hit.

Do it in a down economy and it's a sign of strength and Wall Street rewards them (stock is up 3% today).

Salesforce did fine through COVID, heck the stock price basically doubled from 2020 to 2021. So they hire like crazy knowing it's unsustainable. Now their stock is at pre-pandemic prices and they start letting all those folks go when they're most vulnerable.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com