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Originally Posted by Samurai But you haven't explained how this all justifies MAANGA+ hoarding bunch of talented engineers and letting them lay on bean bags sipping hot java watching their RSU vest. If someone is not working, I don't care how brilliant they are. Their productivity is still zero.
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We are not sure if all the people that were hired by Meta two years back were hired to do nothing. A couple of folks from my college were affected by these layoffs were definitely not. As I mentioned, some projects did not fly, and had to be scrapped. Doesn't mean the people working on it weren't productive, does it ?
I agree with the fact that this time around (2020-21) these companies hired mindlessly and this mismanagement is what cost some hard working employees as well. There were a lot of people who did nothing, but I will be cautious in not generalizing this. Some people genuinely were smart and intelligent, devoted and still were let go.
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Originally Posted by Samurai That risk is taken by the company, what risk is taken by the developers? |
Especially in product-based companies, the risk is that if whatever they are developing doesn't work out for various reasons, they might be asked to leave. As you rightly mentioned, if employee's productivity goes below a certain limit, that becomes a risk for him as well. I always tell my team and people around me to gauge your productivity every few months and leave the org if you go below a certain level after repeated reminders. In IT services company too this risk is always there, but the work is so diversified that one can take up some other task before being asked to leave. Example of risk: A friend of mine working in a very specific domain related to microchips says he will have a hard time getting a similar job profile elsewhere. He knows the risk, the company knows it as well, so he gets paid above average and is always getting himself trained on other stuff. It is not like he is leaving his current work on first opportunity.
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Originally Posted by Samurai No, that's not the case here. The news articles clearly mention that they were hired so that other companies can't get them. They also create artificial demand for engineers, forcing wages to increase across the industry. |
This definitely happened, but I don't think the entire hiring spree back in covid-19 time was based on this premise. Take an example: Zoom meetings usage soared to extreme levels during those days (despite most organizations having Microsoft Teams), while Whatsapp didn't even have desktop meetings until few days back, Google's meet app was crap (still is) compared to Zoom. Meta/Google/Microsoft would definitely hire more resources to get their software match with Zoom. Poaching happens when everyone is trying to get one product right (web meetings in our example). This might lead to genuine need for specific resources that might look like an artificial demand.
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Originally Posted by Samurai .... they would compete with other SBUs of Bell Labs. But we worked on interesting projects, we weren't hired to deny our talent to other companies. |
I agree with the sentiment here, but this is where times have changed

I have worked in one of the Big Fours and have seen them hire some people just because they are simply brilliant, even if they are not utilized a 100% I think it is still ok to do it for a few extraordinary resources, but, these MAANGA+ took it to extreme levels this time and grossly mismanaged resource allocation. Denying talent is unfair to other companies and such things affect overall industry, lets hope people have learnt the lesson this time around.
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Originally Posted by Samurai Tell me how they are better than Khan Academy which has been doing such stuff since 15 years, for free? Byjus is a scam primarily ripping off middle/lower income families. |
Not denying this. The idea that Byjus had was brilliant, hence the valuation too was high. As I mentioned earlier, some companies just get lost on their way and their brilliant ideas convert into scams. Specifically, the difference between Khan Academy and Byjus is that Byjus wanted to get into each and every field of education, and attempt to cover the world. That is going to need lot of resources. I don't think even Khan Academy can work at a scale as high as what Byjus aimed to, for free, though it will be the nicest thing to see.
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Originally Posted by Samurai After co-founding two companies over 2 decades, I have bit more nuanced opinion on this, which I have explained here. |
Agree with this 100% My knowledge on VC funding is limited and I can only cite example of my close friend's startup and the VC funding they are receiving.