Why make a profit when you can pay your employees >100% of your revenue and just go into debt instead?
It's not how business works.
You hire people if you need people, and you pay them the least you can get away with, so you maximize profits - because long ago, you raised money with the promise to the people you raised the money from that you would do this, and you have a Fiduciary obligation to do so...
That is what a lot of employees do. That is why these layoffs are probably happening, cutting 5% could have been done by freezing hiring and performance evals.
They're particular individuals who will take a stance like what you're outlining and sit in a limbo state outside of performance firing them. They bring down team moral, high performing employees feel cheated, etc.
I think it would be more accurate to say it exposes to the high performers that they are being cheated. Those employees are donating their time & effort to the company so that their bosses can drive fancy cars, fund yacht racing teams, take tourist trips to LEO, buy social media companies to use as toys, and pay off politicians to keep those same employees desperate. The owners want employees fighting amongst themselves for scraps because it keeps them distracted from their real enemy.
How many tech companies have never turned a profit? Uber didn’t until 2021. Investors sure didn’t care about fiduciary obligations built on profit when interest rates were low.
Have people gotten in trouble for breaking the fiduciary obligation by being nicer to workers? Has any one been in a serious chance for getting in trouble for being nicer to workers? I have always assumed this stuff is basically made up. It might be written somewhere, but no one is enforcing it. It appears to be greed and keeping the status quo.
Long ago capitalism and then neoliberalism infected our brains. There’s no rational reason why any of these promises were made in the first place while still having people without health care or a home.
It's not how business works.
You hire people if you need people, and you pay them the least you can get away with, so you maximize profits - because long ago, you raised money with the promise to the people you raised the money from that you would do this, and you have a Fiduciary obligation to do so...