Hacker News Reader

It's to put pressure on people to perform and sacrifice themselves, their personal lives, their family etc. It's the same reason so many tech companies start to do quarterly reviews, so every 3 months your manager will hold over your head the threat of 'not meeting expectations' and putting you on a performance improvement plan.

View on HN

Mark lays it out pretty simply in the letter. People don't want surprise layoffs. They'd rather know ahead of time what leadership's planning. It's a tough pill to swallow but this is what a lot of people asked for.

its quite depressing but it applies to much of corporate structure and incentives.

how much more performance can you squeeze from an individual that:

i) is not intrinsic to who they are (hence visible when you hire them - if its not the right profile just don't hire them)

ii) is not tied to your own bloated structure, toxic culture and messed up processes and hence none of their fault

is that 10%, 20% extra performance? is that sufficient to satisfy the "markets"? when its your vision and business model is what is really the problem.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com