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by rkk3
1491 days ago
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> Funny thing is I’ve seen this exact advice destroy a company. In March 2020 they did deep layoffs and cited the need to be “default alive.” Then their main market surprisingly quickly grew in the rest of 2020 , they wanted to capitalize on that, but they had laid off too many engineers who knew their infra and had enough outages and slow product development that they lost to their competitors and are now way underwater on their valuation. It sounds like it was an unhealthy company and just didn't realize it till the tide went out. Seems doubtful that a quarter or two of fewer engineers slinging code was the root of its inability to attract & retain customers in a growing market. |
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This "70%" advice was getting thrown around by every two-bit "thought leader" back at the start of COVID. I could totally see how following that advice would result in your competitors scooping up all of your former employees. And then you would be stuck in long and expensive rebuilding process just to get back to where you were, but now you would be stuck with more junior employees making higher salaries to boot. Oh and let's not forget that the 30% of the employees that you so graciously let stick around all probably dusted off their resumes, resulting at least a handful of defections. Accounting for those circumstances, I could absolutely see how a deep layoff in early 2020 would sink a company. COVID was a once in a generation opportunity for certain businesses as the entire world moved from IRL to online. Even some of the biggest tech companies struggled to keep up with the sudden demand.