Hacker News

points by paxy 3 days ago | 0 comments

Just because the offer is made to 25% of the workforce doesn’t mean they will all accept. These are generally very well paid jobs and the prospect of entering the job market right now isn’t going to appeal to everyone. Especially not when you have upcoming RSU vests after a recent 50% stock rally. If say a third of the employees accept then it’ll be an ~8% reduction, which is in line with a regular company-wide layoff.

[–] mirmor23 3 days ago

There is a difference this time though. There has never been a time in last 40 years where being laid off seemed terrifying for knowledge workers in tech. It's speculative what's ahead, but man, does it LOOK bleak. Many would still come out OK, but it's not a given.

[–] compiler-guy 3 days ago

Things during dotcom crash looked at least this bleak. Easily. It felt like every company on earth (at least in tech) was crashing and firing people. Even high-flyers like Google absolutely stopped hiring.

If you were lucky, you got laid off with a severance. If you weren't, you showed up to work one day and the doors were locked with no notice.

[–] qwytw 2 days ago

> Things during dotcom crash looked at least this bleak

And we're still technically in the boom part of the cycle. I wonder how bad it will be after the actual crash.

[–] toast0 3 days ago

> There has never been a time in last 40 years where being laid off seemed terrifying for knowledge workers in tech.

How about the last several times all of big tech was laying off tons of people at the same time?

I'm not going to disagree with "this time it's different", but I've seen this fear several times before. This time it's AI that's going to take our jobs, and maybe that will happen, but it's not the first threat.

[–] shawabawa3 3 days ago

It's incomparable the difference now compared with say layoffs in 2022

Back then, you might think the market was a bit cooler, but talented engineers were still in massive demand. Growth in tech was stalling but a massive reduction in demand was very unlikely

This time there's a real chance that in 10 years we have 50% or less the number of software engineers today, if the job title still even exists as we know it

[–] Yamata 3 days ago

Of course if you only go back as far as 2022 it’s massive right now. Consider dotcom bubble burst or 2008 and it’s actually still not as bad (although I believe it will soon become so).

[–] mirmor23 3 days ago

> How about the last several times all of big tech was laying off tons of people at the same time?

I meant the layoffs due to AI, not the typical tech tech layoffs that are as old as tech itself.

[–] IAmBroom 3 days ago

You literally said: "There has never been a time in last 40 years..."

So now you are claiming that AI has been causing tech layoffs for 40 years now?

[–] K3UL 3 days ago

But there are not that many layoffs clearly due to Ai, this one sure is not

[–] paxy 3 days ago

Not sure I understand. If getting laid off in the current environment is extra terrifying then why will people volunteer to get laid off?

[–] fuzzfactor 2 days ago

As indicated, they don't expect a very big portion of the 25% to accept at this time. Probably about one third, as it was before.

Considering that the offer seems to be familiar and not more lucrative than ordinary separation, I would estimate the target is a 20000 headcount rapid reduction by December. If that's not accomplished this time then I would expect further action until that short-term target is met as early in 2027 as possible. Probably by offering to many who were not included this time.

This is actually pretty drastic, enough to be considered overkill adequate enough to weather economic downturns extending for quite some time, it would be much more foolish to err on the side of inadequate.

After 20000 is hit, I would expect no further cutbacks for well more than a year unless things turn miserably worse faster and steeper than their top people could imagine based on what they know now.