[filmgirlcw]

The framing here is off. I understand the impulse, but it's different business decisions and conflating them just isn't reasonable. It is certainly reasonable for employees to question why one area of business was prioritized over others, but framing this as "paying someone $10m to sit around vs 8,000 people who did real work" is still disingenuous.

I'm not defending the layoffs -- though I think all of us have known that the ever-increasing TC wars amongst big companies was unsustainable and that tech companies over-hired. And none of that is the people who were laid off's fault. At all. These were bad decisions on the part of management. But framing it as "chose to layoff X people instead of paying out a contract to Matthew McConaughey" is misguided.

The bottom line is that Matthew McConaughey did a better job of negotiating his contract than rank and file employees did and that's why he still has a contract. Obviously, he is in a position to argue better terms than rank and file engineers, but that's how this works. If his contract was renewed or reupped on, that would be one thing (and ultimately, that would be something for the board or shareholders to weigh in on), but we don't know the details about how long the contract was for and what the deliverables are, or what the ROI is.

Framing this in "this versus that" terms just doesn't make sense.

[ravivooda]

> though I think all of us have known that the ever-increasing TC wars amongst big companies was unsustainable

Just wow! What about ever increasing stocks? ever increasing returns on VC funds? You've gotta be kidding.

[ravivooda]

Okay, I understand that came across pointing, but I hope you know I'm not pointing at you. I'm pointing at "Market Rate" salary fixing, etc.

[filmgirlcw]

And I don't disagree with that! My point is that the increase we saw went beyond salary fixing. I'm talking seeing TC offers that were more than just stock, and often a cash component, in many cases double for the same job/level at the same company over two years. Where you saw people with no experience hired in at rates significantly higher than high-performers who had worked at a company for a number of years.

Do I personally regret not taking some of those insane offers when I had the chance (prioritizing pay over working in a position I know I wouldn't have enjoyed)? Yes, I do. But I also knew in 2021 and even mid-2022 that none of the offers that were going out were sustainable long-term.

[filmgirlcw]

Watching FAANG offers nearly double over two years was not sustainable and anyone who thought that it was is delusional.