[speby]

Seriously? What 'fairness' exactly is it people want when companies do layoffs?

"Hey, we are laying off 3,000 people. Because of that, I am firing myself and the company will no longer have a CEO and will have to find someone else, starting immediately. In addition, I plan to donate all of my life's savings and file for unemployment like everyone else and, if needed, live in my van down by the river. I hope this makes everyone feel vindicated and that the scales of justice remain balanced. God Bless."

[lkrubner]

"Because of that, I am firing myself"

A team does terrible for awhile -- should the coach be removed? A company does terrible -- should the CEO be removed? This is what accountability means. Just this year I was hired by a Board Of Directors, of a startup with 150 people, to do an evaluation of the technology and code, and I found epic levels of tech debt and irresponsible decision making. When I gave my report to the Board Of Directors, the Board responded by firing both the CTO and the CEO. This seems normal to me.

[colinmorelli]

I don't know who needs to hear this, but laying people off _does not mean the company is doing terrible_ and this narrative is the reason why you get vastly different opinions about handling this scenario.

All laying people off means is that there are items that the company will not be executing against in the future. It may or may not mean that they're in a bad spot, but very often - and the case with many of the current tech giants laying off that we're seeing - it simply means they grew more than they needed for the road ahead.

Whether or not that's good or bad is a fair question. It was asked on a previous thread whether we as a society should be comfortable with companies gabling with the jobs of their employees, and I think that's a worthwhile question. But it most certainly does not mean that a company is "doing terrible."

[EdwardDiego]

It doesn't mean that they're doing terrible as a going concern, but it does mean that they're a terrible company to work for.

If you're hiring in bulk to tie up talent your competitors might want during a boom, and then promptly firing thousands in the bust, you're bad people and should feel bad.

But then, to paraphrase Upton Sinclair, it is difficult to get an executive to understand the impacts of their decision when their compensation package depends upon them not understanding it.

[karaterobot]

It's not that Zoom has done terrible for a while, in fact the opposite is true. Yuan is the founder, and the company went from nothing to being pretty huge under his leadership. On the other hand, he signed off on hiring a lot of people because the company grew really fast during the pandemic — too many, as it turns out. What do you make of that? Should the CEO be considered a failure because too many people were hired, or a success because the company's revenue grew by like 1000% in the last three years? Both are really responses to the pandemic, and it may be that neither are really his fault, even if they are on his plate to deal with.

[speby]

You answered your own question. Yes. Who removes a CEO? The Board. If the Board does their job (correctly), then they will make the right decision to release or retain the right CEO.

If the Board fails to do its job? What, then? Yep, shareholders have to intervene.

Which leads to what happens if the shareholders themselves don't figure out what to do or the right-decision to be made? Well, they lose a bunch of value as the company's value [eventually] plummets.

[yellow_postit]

The board likely signed off on the hiring plan. Layoffs are hard but as other commenters have pointed out are not inherently a sign the company is doing poorly. In many cases a board may choose to reward a ceo for identifying cuts and charting and executing a path forward.

[bcrosby95]

I'm sure you can't speak about it, but now I'm very curious what levels of technical debt it takes for the board to fire a CTO.

I have to assume it goes beyond just not following best practices, and perhaps into deep levels of pointless "not invented here syndrome" or some other massive waste of resources.

[frellus]

That seems like the call of the board, no? Certainly, CEOs at any substantial level are accountable to a group of people. Everyone answers to someone.

[blobbers]

Can you comment on how you got that job?

[kcplate]

> I was hired by a Board Of Directors, of a startup with 150 people, to do an evaluation of the technology and code, and I found epic levels of tech debt and irresponsible decision making

A BOD doesn’t hire someone to do this without there being some suspicion within the board that there is an issue. That board was likely divided on keeping one or both of those individuals and your results were used to sway votes.

[nsonha]

This is some sort of blame game? Why stop there? Why don’t we fire the whole chain of management, including the top guy, AND let all these people that were laid of KEEP their jobs instead. It wasn’t their fault after all and we are making decision on the basis of blames, right? Let’s see how that turns out.

[hnbad]

"Clearly this failure demonstrates that a centralized system can not work and I have initiated a transition to turn this corporation into a worker-owned cooperative."

I'm kidding, of course. Layoffs rarely represent failure, they're usually just a cost cutting measure to increase profitability and make shareholders happy. They're just framed as failure every time because people take more kindly to "we had to lay 15% of employees off because of the economy" than "we had to lay 15% of employees off to meet our quarterly growth goals".

[EdwardDiego]

If you reduced the comp of the C-suite by 50%, you could probably lay off only 2500 people to achieve the same cost savings.

[wahnfrieden]

zoom is profitable despite layoffs. workers want some of that profit rather than a layoff, contracts be damned.

[memonkey]

Who is saying that?

[riceart]

Implied in the second sentence of the comment being replied to.

[nickpeterson]

This feels ok, but they should also sell all their gold fillings.

[fijiaarone]

If you have to lay off 3000 people because of your bad leadership, you should absolutely be fired too.

For the bad PR you’ve created, if for nothing else.

[joegahona]

This warrants maximum punishment and humiliation:

1. Yuan should immediately terminate himself as CEO, and his salary/bonus should be divvied up among those who were [IMPACTED]. In fact, all 1,300 people should be named co-CEOs and together they shall lead the company to prosperity and avoid such a boneheaded misstep in the future.

2. He should have to give his life savings to those 1,300 people. His family should live in squalor going forward, effective immediately.

3. He should be imprisoned for fraud, for no fewer than 25 years —- or ideally sent to a North Korean prison camp, if such arrangements with DPRK can be secured.

That’s what true accountability looks like.

[bruce511]

Clearly being laid off is painful. I'm sensing some of that pain in your reply. I have a lot of sympathy for those who have been laid off.

However your solution, as seen from outside that pain, is "worse than the disease".

Firstly it's worth pointing out that most (but not all) layoffs right now are a result of over-hiring during the pandemic. Now, granted, those jobs didn't last forever, but they did last a while and kept a lot of people working during a time when a lot of people couldn't work. It would likely have been very profitable to not make those hires in the first place.

Secondly, you are proposing penalties out of proportion to the mistake. Or put another way you are strongly disincentiving hiring in the first place.

The more penalties there are for failure, the lower the chance that people will try at all. Your suggestion that over-hiring leads to criminal fraud, or personal destitution, has out outcome - no one will ever hire anyone.

In a private company the decision makers are typically the owners. They're taking risks everyday, spending "their money" and working hard to keep everyone employed. It's a weighty responsibility. But life happens and things don't always work out as planned. Management-via-hindsight is easy.

[uxcolumbo]

Parent’s post has an invisible /s.

[bruce511]

ahh - a visible /s would have been helpful :)

[kcplate]

It wasn’t obvious from the North Korean prison camp mention?

The comment literal dripped sarcasm

[bruce511]

This is the internet, it's hard to tell where some opinions end and where sarcasm starts these days. :)

[midoridensha]

I wonder if any country has ever thought of attempting to dump unwanted prisoners in North Korea. I wonder how NK would respond to that.

[speby]

Lol. Now that’s taking it to the next level.