Business Big Tech Layoffs Megathread - Techbros... we got too cocky...

Since my previous thread kinda-sorta turned into a soft megathread, and the tech layoffs will continue until morale improves, I think it's better to group them all together.

For those who want a QRD:

Just this week we've had these going on:

https://www.theverge.com/24048636/ebay-layoffs-1000-employees-january-2024

https://arstechnica.com/google/2024/01/google-ceo-sundar-pichai-promises-another-year-of-google-layoffs/

https://edition.cnn.com/2024/01/24/tech/sap-restructuring-ai-jobs-intl-hnk/index.html

But it's not just Big Tech, the vidya industry is also cleaning house bigly:

https://www.brokentoys.org/ludum-mortuus-est/

All in all, rough seas ahead for the techbros.

 

[Sinner's Sandwich]

it's just that in our industry companies regularly overhire people and then fire them 3-5years later.

But companies did overhire during Covid times. This isn't a secret.

 

[Disgruntled Pupper]

But companies did overhire during Covid times. This isn't a secret.

Okay I'm not disputing that. But this thread is two years old, YouTube and Reddit are full of former tech workers freaking out because they're still struggling to find a job months or years after they got fired, and people are abandoning their careers and years of education to pivot to cashier rolls or organic hydroponic weed-infused lettuce farming. No one else lives like this, bro, and to the rest of us looking in it's complete insanity. Your best case scenario is still a nightmare.

 

[Absolutego]

As someone not in tech, I just don't understand the tolerance for this position. "No, no, it's not that we're obsolete and being replaced by new technology, it's just that in our industry companies regularly overhire people and then fire them 3-5years later. It's not big deal, you just have to wait until the federal reserve changes interest rates and floods the market with more money, the capital investors will rehire us for another 5 year stint!" Bro WHAT

Keep in mind the people caught up in the old churn overwhelmingly worked email jobs and were probably hired for their DEI attributes to attract more investor capital. They were professional bureaucrats more than anything else, and while plenty of them preferred to stay in tech because it was the new shiny object/they had to do the least amount of work and could focus on their true passions, during the bust part of tech's usual boom/bust cycle they were able to write reports and policy files at any other white collar office locale in industries that weren't so overwhelmingly financialized.

There's a lot of cope that AI is just the latest excuse, but the fact that it's affecting mid-tier developers (the people actually attached to products) alongside all the bullshit gigs is a red flag in the other direction. I'm still bearish on that, though. I don't think American corporate culture can really be reformed, and they'll find a way to fuck up AI implementation and go back to throwing people at the problem.

 

[Ahriman]

A bit of humor.

 

[Cool Ghoul]

Late reply but my husband got fired from CISCO for unspecified reasons but by the time he was fired he was one of only two white men remaining, the other 27 people were all different flavors of Indian. We both knew his days were numbered when a new Indian would pop up in the group chat each month replacing another non-Indian co-worker.

I'm sorry that happened.

Every time I hear an H1B related story I think of this movie quote:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=meU2gAU7Xss