[bastardoperator]

The executive failed to ensure profitability which is their entire focus. They are the ones that should be laid off first. You're giving them a pass which is literally the crux of the problem, these people are allowed to fail up at others expense. I'm talking about the dropbox layoffs, you're talking about just cause termination which is again completely meaningless in California.

[anticensor]

For-cause and not-for-cause terminations have different legal consequences for involved parties even in at-will jurisdictions.

[pclmulqdq]

I am telling you that "layoffs" are the mechanism by which silicon valley makes just cause termination culturally acceptable. If a silicon valley firm decided to fire the bottom 5%, they would lose huge amounts of talent that doesn't want to work in a "competitive" environment. If the bottom 10-20% happen to get "laid off" every 3 years, that's just an "unfortunate oversight" and a "management oops" that they take "full responsibility" for.

These layoffs do not generally happen when executives and companies fail; they happen as a matter of course. They are, of course, accompanied by rhetoric about executive failure (again, a cultural cover), but nothing more. When executives actually fail, executives get fired.

[bastardoperator]

I'm telling you I disagree and I think your explanation is rather comical. Dropbox's slow growth in 2023 and 2024 is directly tied to an under performing executive team. Executive accountability is mostly gone and you're doing a great job furthering my point by trying your hardest to explain why poor leadership is culturally acceptable.

[pclmulqdq]

How is Dropbox's poor performance tied specifically to a poor executive team? The end of ZIRP and a bad core product are likely more to blame. This was likely the end of dropbox no matter what the execs did.

Also, can you explain the layoffs at Google this way? The layoffs at Meta? Microsoft? TikTok? Are all of these the result of underperforming executive teams? Are they even related at all to business trouble?

Or is it perhaps something closer to what I am suggesting?

Layoffs happen in waves at these companies. It really has nothing to do with performance. They do it every time they can, and the best explanation for that is that they are trimming the fat. Companies all say "we hit hard times" when they do this, but most of them really didn't. The issues with Dropbox's core business have likely been foreseen for 5-10 years.

[johnnyanmac]

>The end of ZIRP and a bad core product are likely more to blame. This was likely the end of dropbox no matter what the execs did.

Yeah, but we'll blame the workers anyway for "underperforming". nevermind that the only real change was that they got harder to get tax breaks on.

>Are they even related at all to business trouble?

I kinda agree with you, but also: yes they all had business troubles. Meta fumbles with VR hard and shuttered its in-house VR studio that otherwise put out well acclamed games. Microsoft is on shakey ground with OpenAI and their Xbox division is fumbling from the worst time to spend $70m on an aquisition. Tiktok may or may not be banned from the Unites States and that will take a hit (this one isn't really their fault, but alas).

[bastardoperator]

How is it not? They're steering the ship. They're in charge, they're the decision makers. If the company is failing, how could it not be the executives problem?

We used to live in an age where leadership meant something, when people took responsibility for their failures. Now executives make excuses, they even have people like you making excuses for them, and instead of forgoing a bonus or handing over the reigns to more qualified team, they play with peoples livelihoods and you think that's perfectly acceptable, even called it cultural.

Anyway, given the age we live in, I'm not surprised at all to see people kissing their asses.