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by troelsSteegin 1321 days ago
Across the executive mea culpas, there is this theme of "I over estimated demand". But, one could take the perspective that they correctly hired to extract value during peak demand, because on average each new resource is profitable, and are now are reducing resources because there is less value there to extract. An investor could argue that it is irresponsible not to hire for peaks and thus leave value inthe market. Tech jobs are always tied to the ups and downs of economic cycles. Perhaps the mea culpas are really "this cycle ended before I expected it to". Some roles and some firms are more buffered than others. It would be nice to know how volatile your value is.
2 comments

I don't think the mea culpa is at all honest—I think he hired up when demand was high, knowing that he'd just shed the extra load when demand dropped. I don't think this course of action was a surprise, I think it was the expected course of action internally when they hired.
Alternate take: The NYT wants to blame tech bros for inflation caused by bad policy. It’s as simple as that.