> Have you ever laid someone off or fired them? Was it so easy?
I've heard this sentiment from people who have laid those off and it always falls flat to me.
Laying off 1 or 100 people compared to being laid off - especially when the person doing the firing, usually a Director or above, is making 3-4x at least what the line employees are - is like comparing pricking your finger with a needle to cutting it off with a dull knife.
It should be difficult if you're not a sociopath, but they're so incomparable it's not even a statement worth making or considering.
I’m not arguing that laying people off is nearly as hard as getting laid off.
I’m arguing against the idea that if you’re a manager or have money, that moments like this are easy or that there’s no empathy. i’m not saying that anyone should feel bad for directors, CEOs, or whoever, but they shouldn’t paint a ridiculous straw man either.
You could even argue that in Zuck’s position, money is a non-factor. He has more than enough money. What he doesn’t have is a beloved and future-proof company, and these layoffs only push him further from that.
Billionaires are that because they have exploited the surplus value of their underlings. To say that they “care” about them is clearly a contradiction.
To be sure, laying off employees would be not be easy. Imagine if these were people you had lunch with, chatted with in the office every day, knew their husbands, wives....
Do you think Zuck was that close with any of the 11,000 people who were laid off?
If it was a small startup (been there done that) then yeah, when you see people day-to-day, and get to know them and their lives outside of work? Really hard to fire people, knowing how it will affect the other people in their lives.
A multi-national, multi-billion dollar company with 80,000+ employees? I'm not so sure.
I've heard this sentiment from people who have laid those off and it always falls flat to me.
Laying off 1 or 100 people compared to being laid off - especially when the person doing the firing, usually a Director or above, is making 3-4x at least what the line employees are - is like comparing pricking your finger with a needle to cutting it off with a dull knife.
It should be difficult if you're not a sociopath, but they're so incomparable it's not even a statement worth making or considering.