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Comment by darkwizard42 | Hacker News Reader

I think I respect that at least one of the executives whose responsibility it was to NOT let this happen is being exited out. Google and others have babbled on about executives taking full responsibility for the layoffs, but I don't see any of the key SVPs or VPs taking hits on failing in their leadership.

Also I understand they say to pursue other opportunities, but I think the reason for the CRO departure feels transparent enough here.

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I think that is because it still unclear if executives actually failed in their responsibilities to shareholders and the bottom line.

I think you can make a strong argument that they failed some sort of responsibility to the employee expectations by over hiring, but that is different.

Are boards and shareholders even dissatisfied with executives right now?

> I think you can make a strong argument that they failed some sort of responsibility to the employee expectations by over hiring, but that is different.

on the other hand, the alternative to "over hiring" is jobless people. At least they were job providers for some time.

That's not necessarily true, those people could have gone to work for smaller companies and startups. Those companies also would not have had their resources stretched in a wage bidding war against FAANG and unicorns. Maybe there'd be more companies and more roles to apply for.

I didn't want to get into the pros and cons of over-hiring. but there are definitely some of each. Big con is people don't like getting laid off, and some would not have joined, taken other jobs had they known. A pro is that it really cranked up salaries for most people hired during a labor shortage, including those who aren't laid off.

That said, I think it is all beside my main question: Are shareholders unhappy with executive leadership. If I were an executive, I would be making the case (privately) that my over-hiring and subsequent layoffs were in fact GOOD for the company.

> Are boards and shareholders even dissatisfied with executives right now?

Not with prior actions, but they are with current margins. Which is why you see both layoffs and other cost-cutting measures that get less press.

Maybe those other shops don't throw people under the bus so publicly. Wondering if following up 6-12 months later to see who left to "pursue other opportunities".

I don’t have any special sympathy to execs, but aren’t these tech layoffs driven by the abrupt increase in interest rates? Even if execs could have seen this coming 6 months before the rate increases, there probably still would have been significant layoffs and of course not even a quorum of top economists were predicting these impacts on tech at that time.

If the idea is “exec heads should role out of solidarity/catharsis/whatever” then that’s a different question than “someone failed to prevent this from happening”. Apologies if I’m misunderstanding the root causes of these layoffs.

If no other execs are axed for cuts, it's not likely that this exec was either. It's a pleasant narrative for everyone involved, though.

I don't think you axe the execs for opex cut, you axe the execs for failing to perform. It seems they get significantly more favorable terms in these sort of layoffs than rank+file employees.

It’s an extraordinary claim that the big tech cos aren’t cutting the VPs in charge of the units being cut. Is this actually true?

I don't know, sales have been great at PD and the exec leaving is the head of sales.

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