Hacker News Reader

Comment by tdb7893 | Hacker News Reader

They are making over a billion a week in profits (and still growing). Layoffs can be justified but it's a bit of a head scratcher to be doing them when the company seems to be doing generally well

View on HN

I feel like this has been a theme for the last year - big tech companies with big profits doing mass layoffs. We've seen Microsoft, Facebook, Goggle, Spotify etc all do this. It's this whole obsession with the word "efficiency" and the phrase "doing more with less." It really makes you think these CEOs are all a bunch of sheep. See:

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/05/11/techs-new-business-model-do-...

The craziest thing to me is that the employees at these companies are some of the most sought after people yet when push comes to shove they seem to have all just rolled over and not raised a fuss with layoffs. These companies are some of the most profitable companies of all time. It's not like I think everyone needs to run out and join a union but the seeming complete lack of torches and pitchforks internally is a huge shock to me.

My dad was in a different field and when the company he worked for did layoffs the company was in a serious financial state and in danger of just folding entirely and also the employees had a say in how layoffs were implemented. Until I started working in tech I had assumed that was the norm but now I realize that that amount of respect for the employees from leadership was the exception (at least at large companies).

You answered this yourself. These people got new jobs. What's to raise a fuss about?

These are some pretty luxurious layoffs by comparison, I think. Generally the benefits packages are excellent.

IMHO Google's a hot mess top-to-bottom at the moment.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com