[vj_torqueaddict]

Originally Posted by Samurai

https://www.businesstoday.in/technol...270-2023-03-14



These stories will make us look at folks with titles like ex-Google and ex-Meta with a new understanding. We don't have to wonder what cutting problem they were solving.

Sorry I did not understand what the guy was trying to convey. Looked like a viel dig at being someone who is against WFH. Also tried to promote his own company. I can assure you that getting into Meta or Google is not easy. Our company too has a very tough hiring process , not easy to get into. We tried to hire a lot too, but due to our processes we couldn't hire many. I alone took more than 100 interviews in a year and cleared may be max 10. That is just my round alone, they undergo further rounds. This is same in Google and Meta as well. It's not just tech round but culture fit rounds too which is as important as tech. Hence it's not clear to me what the person is trying to convey. People who were let go were unluckily in teams that were not profitable. It sucks!

P.S - i have worked in my pyjamas from home past 3 years. I hopefully get to do it for foreseeable future as I am super productive from home.

[Samurai]

Originally Posted by vj_torqueaddict

Sorry I did not understand what the guy was trying to convey. Looked like a viel dig at being someone who is against WFH.

I don't think it was a veiled dig, he was pretty direct about it. Plenty of management folks hate WFH, for various reasons.

Originally Posted by vj_torqueaddict

I can assure you that getting into Meta or Google is not easy.

I don't think anyone needed that assurance. It is quite well known that getting into FAANG companies is hard. There is a cottage industry out there training people to crack FAANG interviews.

But the point is, what do you do after getting in? Apart from collecting salaries and enjoying the perks. If these companies are collecting talent merely to deny them to the competitors, how does one put a number on the productivity of these folks?

I recall an old video, that mohansrides had posted here. It was about a fired Microsoft employee hustling about to milk the most out of her former employer. I had seen that video earlier, and was quite shocked at the amount of perks and the entitlement that went with it. I never had even 10% of that anytime in my 3+ decades of career.

Even people who are literally saving lives everyday don't get that kind of perks. But if you are in IT, somehow you deserve it all.

[am1m]

Originally Posted by Samurai

Even people who are literally saving lives everyday don't get that kind of perks. But if you are in IT, somehow you deserve it all.

Agreed, the salaries are outrageous sometimes. I've always been aware that there was something wrong about getting paid more than a judge at a certain level, a teacher, or a senior ranked officer in the armed forces, or most rural healthcare workers. What I do is nowhere, nowhere near as important as any of those jobs. And I've never even worked for any of the best IT companies (faang or maang or whatever).

But having said that, what do people who get such offers in such companies do? Refuse out of a clouded conscience?

Isn't it more a societal economic model construct/failing that we compensate our more vital roles less than these?

Like with most jobs, I think the IT workers are also just making the most of what they can.

[deehunk]

Originally Posted by am1m

Isn't it more a societal economic model construct/failing that we compensate our more vital roles less than these?

Like with most jobs, I think the IT workers are also just making the most of what they can.

If we think that people are earning more than their parents but don't have time to retire at 58 or 60 years, it becomes a different perception. Likewise investors too should suffer burns and not force for returns always, I agree with bhpian Samurai's predatory hiring concept, it exists in the system.

[Samurai]

Originally Posted by am1m

But having said that, what do people who get such offers in such companies do? Refuse out of a clouded conscience?

I never said refuse it. But IT folks should not fall into the illusion that you are getting what you truly deserve. Don't start feeling entitled, and then feel bitter when industry dumps you by the side when recession hits.

Because Big Tech makes completely lopsided wealth generation, it doesn't mean other essential professions become less important. Farmers produce food, they are lot more important than any IT worker. I am yet to see an IT worker who is not dependent on food.

[am1m]

Originally Posted by Samurai

Don't start feeling entitled, and then feel bitter when industry dumps you by the side when recession hits.

Absolutely. I learned that pretty early on, every single company I've worked at has had layoffs. Every single one. And during that time, there was no difference between good performers or bad. So learned at my first job itself how random it all was and to be prepared financially.

Originally Posted by Samurai

Farmers produce food, they are lot more important than any IT worker.

That was my point. Why does society/the economic system we've built compensate these vital roles so badly? What will it take to correct that? (Not sure if schadenfreude at IT layoffs is the answer.)

[DigitalOne]

Originally Posted by Samurai

But the point is, what do you do after getting in? Apart from collecting salaries and enjoying the perks. If these companies are collecting talent merely to deny them to the competitors....

Proving Samurai's point, this is what one of the laid off Meta employee had said:

Meta employee laid off after 7 months of joining says company paid her to do nothing

Former Meta employee claims that Meta hoarded people like Pokemon cards, they were hired for the strangest roles and had no fixed or substantial job to do.....that the employees had to fight to find work.

Source

[GutsyGibbon]

Originally Posted by Samurai

But the point is, what do you do after getting in? Apart from collecting salaries and enjoying the perks. If these companies are collecting talent merely to deny them to the competitors, how does one put a number on the productivity of these folks?

Apple and Google silicon programs have been at this for a while, they have been poaching people from other fabless semiconductor vendors - Qualcomm, Marvell, NXP, Broadcom, & Intel for a few years now - without any set roles. The smart ones, lucky ones eventually carve out roles for themselves. Then there are others who are just fat cats that believe in rest and vest. Its an open secret that they are not being productive, they are waiting for the wave of work that will fall on them when they go commercial with their own chips for everything. Till then if you work for a chipset vendor, they may be very interested in hiring you. One of the motivations being that - they may slow down the roadmap of these vendors by a tiny little bit. Being cash rich they are throwing money at this prospect. I know some of the renowned duds from these vendors, who are living the life of fat cats with main expertise being that of flying under the radar.

In the case of Meta, I am not even sure if they have competitors, or why they would hire so many.

[DigitalOne]

Apple is delaying bonuses for some of its employees, according to a new report in Bloomberg.

Some teams were on a twice-a-year schedule with bonus payouts in April and October, according to the report, but now they'll receive the full amount in the fall. Apple is also more closely watching travel budgets and leaving some unfilled positions open, according to the report.

Source

[PreludeSH]

During 2000 bubble I was in Bell Labs. There were so many people hired to do not too much of work. Same kind of projects were done from multiple locations. Facilities like good laptops, telecommuting (WFH), everything was great. New product development launches happened in hotels with day long celebrations. When the bubble burst, it was the recent hires that lost their jobs first. Products which brought money and people working on it continued.

Companies go overboard when times are good. The stock market is also to blame. Lucent during those days was so good that they split stocks and within months reached the previous highs again. This repeated until it all came crashing down.

[EV NXT]

Originally Posted by Samurai

These stories will make us look at folks with titles like ex-Google and ex-Meta with a new understanding. We don't have to wonder what cutting problem they were solving.

Haven’t had experience with Google and Meta but have been associated with Apple (HQ in Cupertino) in an advisory capacity. The situation there is equally bad so you can add ex-Apple to the list too. Lack of quality (deterioration now apparent on each new release of iPhone / ipad / earpods / iOS ) office politics, customer commitment issues, lack of focus at various levels etc. Its shocking this is in the worlds most valuable company.

I have always maintained that companies that have a good product (iphone, search engine, Windows,) will have growing human resource inefficiencies. This is because the product does most of the work, sells on its own and brings in the money with relatively minimal human assist. When the bad times hit, companies become aware of the human inefficiencies and reset.

This reset isn’t required in small companies because they are always lean. Inefficiencies are immediately handled as they cannot afford to ignore them. And thats why one doesnt see too many layoffs there.

[OffRoadFun]

Originally Posted by Samurai

I never said refuse it. But IT folks should not fall into the illusion that you are getting what you truly deserve. Don't start feeling entitled, and then feel bitter when industry dumps you by the side when recession hits.

Because Big Tech makes completely lopsided wealth generation, it doesn't mean other essential professions become less important. Farmers produce food, they are lot more important than any IT worker. I am yet to see an IT worker who is not dependent on food.

The farmer fallacy is wrong. Yes, everyone needs food but it is commoditized and hence farmers don't get rich.

1. Farming requires no special skill, even semi-literates can be good farmers. Same can't be said for IT.
2. Contrary to what one might believe, the world is full of grains and food. Asia is rich in rice (India exports), US/Canada/Argentina in wheat/corn/soya etc. There is NO dearth of food as such, distribution is another matter.
3. All rich advanced countries have agriculture as less than 3% of GDP indicating agriculture is a low tech and hence not as high paying unless you have 500 acre plus holding (with which one can make $100k in USA in a good year growing corn).

Technology has commoditized food production and it sits lowest in value chain and hence lowest margins will continue to be there.

Agriculture revolution < manufacturing revolution << IT revolution when it comes to wealth generation.

Originally Posted by EV NXT

Haven’t had experience with Google and Meta but have been associated with Apple (HQ in Cupertino) in an advisory capacity. The situation there is equally bad so you can add ex-Apple to the list too. Lack of quality (deterioration now apparent on each new release of iPhone / ipad / earpods / iOS ) office politics, customer commitment issues, lack of focus at various levels etc. Its shocking this is in the worlds most valuable company.

I have always maintained that companies that have a good product (iphone, search engine, Windows,) will have growing human resource inefficiencies. This is because the product does most of the work, sells on its own and brings in the money with relatively minimal human assist. When the bad times hit, companies become aware of the human inefficiencies and reset.

This reset isn’t required in small companies because they are always lean. Inefficiencies are immediately handled as they cannot afford to ignore them. And that's why one doesn't see too many layoffs there.

I have another perspective. These companies make more than $1M -$2M in revenue and a profit of $500k minimum AFTER salaries and expenses PER EMPLOYEE. They hire the best and brightest and though may not ALWAYS have enough work for them. Work comes in cycles.

What's wrong in sharing this wealth with the employees? Any day better than an Indian Lala company. It opens up real chance for people to accumulate unthinkable wealth via legal means and hard work and education!

TBH, when I see some of these techies with 7-8 of experience earning well north of a crore, I feel good for them and part of me even feels jealous but overall I think it's a good thing.

[brownbatman]

The following is an amazing lecture by Peter Thiel on competition and he emphasizes that Tech companies that don't end up as monopoly are eventually going to die. If we look at the B2C sector with tech it is obvious that mostly there are just one or two companies that exist in a product / service category.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Fx5Q8xGU8k

Food Ordering /Delivery : Swiggy , Zomato

Cab Hailing- Uber/ Ola

Mobile OS - Android / IOS .

Online Retail - Flipkart/Amazon

With this hypothesis almost every tech org is running this race of becoming a monopoly in the product areas they invest in some times when it does not come good they abandon the race and focus on the next . People who get hired and run part of this product get affected when things go south.

The other thing with big orgs is that they create these huge structures like having multiple levels of management . Once these structures are in place they are like elephants that needed to be constantly feed and once the elephant becomes a burden they wake up one morning and say we are done with it and move on. This again affects people who are hired and they suffer. Lots of the organizations look at filling the headcount when they have it and then think of what to do with them. The reason they fill the headcount is because they need more people to feed the structure else the structure breaks.

[theabstractmind]

I think in general this greed to create Monopoly which is largely a form of feudalism is an important from the West. I didn't listen to Peter Thiel's speech but people like him who profess such ideologies are a part of the problem.

While we have had a share of such companies who made every effort to monopolize, India had a more mutually respecting system. There were many localized players catering to products and markets. The heavy capitalism while making someone else's life good, spoilt an entire eco system consisting of small players who were happy playing their roles. The result is the increasing economic inequality. Services sector just made it worse.

It was a handful of people like and including Peter Thiel who created the panic in the US resulting in the dramatic collapse of SVB. I'm one of those adversely affected by the collapse. Can't agree with such monopolistic ideology. Even in an internal setup, I haven't appreciated that intense competition which often creates hostility among team members. Some managers thrive, rather intentionally create such hostility for their benefits. The monopolistic attitudes of companies is something similar.

[SnS_12]

Originally Posted by tsk1979

BTW FDIC decided all deposits are insured, not just 250K/account

So no bloodbath.

FDIC as per their own website has only a reserve ratio of 1.26% or $125 billion. This is not enough even to save SVB bank, which had assets under management of over $200 billion.

But still the SVB bank was bailed out and the govt says its not from tax payers money. So where is the money coming from?