[oars]

Question from someone who was not yet in the industry during the 2000 and 2008 crashes: during that time, were there companies which took advantage of this situation and picked up all of the available talent?

I'm surprised that Google and Amazon aren't jumping in and poaching all of these talented engineers from Meta, Stripe and Twitter.

[mberning]

It’s a big assumption that they are turning out top talent. In my experience these type of cuts usually impact a small number of top performers, but most of the people cut would be considered average performers (by definition) and from teams which do not provide an outsized value.

[acdha]

One big exception can be things like R&D or internal support (i.e. toolmakers and mentors) where the work doesn’t have the prospect of becoming cash flow positive in the near term. If your skills don’t transfer well to the core business, it might not matter how strong they are.

For example, Facebook has some great people working on VR. If they get spooked about profitability, someone with a neuroscience Ph.D probably isn’t going to pivot to ad sales.

[mberning]

Thats a very tough call on the part of the business. Another example would be turning out your security or internal audit teams. Sure, it will help the bottom line now, but it may not seem so bright in the near future.

[acdha]

Definitely - and I don’t think it has turned out so well in many cases but I understand why it looks appealing.

[devoutsalsa]

Yes. I was a tech recruiter in San Francisco from 2005 to 2013. Recruiting from 2008 to about 2012 was much easier. 2009 was super easy. There were many applicants applying to jobs.

[FartyMcFarter]

> I'm surprised that Google and Amazon aren't jumping in and poaching all of these talented engineers from Meta, Stripe and Twitter.

My hunch is they might be doing exactly that, even if they don't want to grow a lot at the moment since their profits and share price are lower than they have been. Poaching top experienced people can be done almost quietly, as it doesn't result in significant headcount expansion by itself.

[pjmlp]

During the 2000 days most startups were dying left and right, I got friends what were fired multiple times, when joining companies that they thought to be on the safe side.

Myself I took the opportunity to just improve my degree with an internship at CERN.

Later in 2008 while not being fired, I enjoyed the merge that Nokia went through with Siemens, and a few side effects from that, as they tried to keep going in a market with uncertainties.

[treespace8]

The dot com crash was epic. Keep in mind it was also aligned with post Y2K. The growth in the late 90's was extreme. Both in new tech (Web, Java) and legacy systems (Y2K).

Almost all companies cut IT spending to the bone for about 24 months. The rebound in hiring was pretty quick, but wages where suppressed until the later 2000s.

[acdha]

Cut to the bone varied from industry to industry: there was definitely some bargain hunting from e.g. brick and mortar stores buying erstwhile competitors at a fire sale and I knew some places like academia were able to hire staff because they were no longer massively under-paying.

This does make me wonder if we’ll see some quiet reform in large companies as they hire people who have worked at major tech companies and can better make the case for areas to modernize.

[kmac_]

There were a lot of canceled, freezed or postponed projects in 2008. Our industry isn't driven by FAANG/MAMAA as much as many think, but other industries like automotive, healthcare, telecom, etc. Less work to do means less hands are needed. Current layoffs aren't just a trimming of low performers.

[ghaff]

>Current layoffs aren't just a trimming of low performers.

Big layoffs never are. Projects and groups get cut and, while there may be some nominal effort to hold onto people who are particularly valued on the basis of perceived ability, connections, or or something else, there is a whole lot of randomness built into the process.

[dsq]

The point is that no one knows the future. In the depths of the bust its hard to see when the market will pick up again. So, even companies with money are cautious about hiring at the bottom.

[Manjuuu]

> during the 2000

Google itself in that case afaik. Times are different now.

[alex_young]

Google had ~300 employees in 2001: http://web.archive.org/web/20011212085049/http://www.google....

[Manjuuu]

And they kept hiring from there during the years right after the dotcom boom, already 3000 in 2004: https://www.globaldata.com/data-insights/technology--media-a...

[thrown_22]

The people being laid off in the first rounds are not the best and brightest. You get those people in the 10th round before a hostile restructuring.

[bushbaba]

By the 10th round the best and brightest already left for greener pastures

[thrown_22]

In normal times yes. In a recession there are no greener pastures.

[cudgy]

For the best and brightest, there are always green pastures.