[ath3nd]

It's about appearing efficient to the investors and therefore bumping the stock price and giving a payout to the few big stockholdets, rather than real efficiency. They go through a round of this routinely now, it seems, the letter is more or less the same as what he sent during last year, only percentages of laid off are different. That new version that ChatGPT generated made it more fluffy than last time.

If they were worried about efficiency, they would not have grossly over hired during covid. That's why we need unions.

[toboche]

That's exactly why I'm wondering about the overall improvement these layoffs will make for the business as a whole. From what this blog post is saying, it could be just applying the tactics most of the industry is following at the moment, no to stay behind the others.

[ath3nd]

It's one of the many strategies to bump up their stock price.

- Harsh RTO -> people leaving, better spreadsheet at the end of fiscal quarter, BOOM, the stock is up!

- Overhire again and make sure to make a lot of fuss about hiring and growing-> ah, company is growing, BOOM the stock is up!

- End of the year incoming, layoffs again -> ah, the company is more efficient, BOOM stock the goes up again!

Managing a company that way: stock value over efficiency, also disconnects the stock value with the actual financials of the company and creates investment bubbles. The C-level and their major shareholders can also massively profit from knowing when the bubble itself is going to pop or even cause a strategic pop themselves by dumping stocks or making public announcements about specific comapny details at the right time.

They win either way, is my point, while at the end, to them people's livelihoods are just a number on a spreadsheet. The answer to that kind of management is:

- strong unions

- strong government control over business and better labor protection laws

- use financial instruments and restrictive laws to tie the stock value of a publicly traded company to its actual current financial performance and its current assets. This one won't happen for many reasons :)

[1letterunixname]

Yep. Business theater. It's about stepping on the necks of working people to suppress wages and "teach them a lesson" they probably won't learn.

[matchbok]

That's.... not how things work. (Maybe on DSA Twitter, but not in the real world lol)

[ath3nd]

This is, to an extent, exactly what is happening now, specifically to the group of people what Musk refers to as 'the laptop class'.

The high salaries and good benefits we enjoyed in the industry could only last so long. The pandemic came and it was then when the behemoths overhired and boosted their stock prices, and were happy that we managed to make them money remotely.

Now that the pandemic is over, they seized the opportunity to crack down on remote work, reduce their headcount, and one more time boost their stock price, while at the same time showing the pesky engineers who is boss. Oh, and when Twitter started with the layoffs, suddenly all of them were overstaffed, AWS, Microsoft, Spotify, you name it... The layoffs then suddenly meant a market that was hot and starving for engineers, was flooded with good and highly qualified people. And poof, went out bargaining power. The tech giants collectively benefitted from their collective actions, while we were left to compete with each other in a very difficult market.

I know that for many of the US based folks this is natural and somewhat acceptable, but things don't have to be that way, this is avoidable and preventable.

Strong unions world-wide, and good labor protection laws is the antidote to corporate greed, which, if left unchecked, will throw everything and everyone under the bus, just so they can temporarily squeeze out a point or two in their stock price before the whole world burns.

[matchbok]

Well, the US has the best companies and most innovative tech for a reason. Spotify is an outlier - Europe just doesn't compare.

[ath3nd]

Workers in the US are routinely and in large numbers thrown under the bus by their corporations in search of profit. Many don't have paid paternal/maternal leave, low or no vacation days, not all employers cover medical costs, and you can be fired more or less on the spot. Now this treatment simply is getting extended to the previously privileged "laptop class". Spotify is an example of the rare EU "unicorn", it's just sad to see that it is managed the American way.

In Europe even fast food workers or servers/waiters are paid a reasonable salary and have vacation days and their medical costs covered by their employer. Also, labor laws in Europe are much stricter and it's harder for a company to fire their workers so easily. Just see what the unionized Tesla workers are doing in Sweden. In terms of worker rights and job security, US simply doesn't compare to Europe.

It's good that at the very least the laid off workers in Sweden will get unemployment benefits from the government, in addition to the severance Spotify pays them. I believe it's something that amounts to monthly payments equal to 70-80% of their salary for at least 400 days. That, hopefully, will ensure that they have plenty of time and opportunity to find something else.