[aantix]

Growth through savings is limited.

Greed is sustainable.

When there's enough money on the sidelines, the pendulum swings, and big bets come back in fashion.

Downsizing is not a big bet.

Nobody leads tech to save billions and have money sit on the sidelines. It's a weak, shallow bet that should be reserved for discount retail and commodity markets.

The savings will be spent on engineering, eventually.

[candiddevmike]

How does this jive with all of the big tech cos sitting on a Smaug's cave level of dollars? There's rainy day funds, but having billions in cash and cash equivalents seems odd.

[weard_beard]

I hope you are right, but my understanding is that the high headcount in engineering could, in large part, be offset by American tax exemptions for engineering salaries and that this exemption is being actively sunset.

See: https://www.corumgroup.com/insights/major-tax-changes-us-sof...

https://technical.ly/startups/r-d-tax-change-reversal-startu...

[selimthegrim]

This was reverted in the big beautiful bill.

[teeray]

However, I wonder how long it takes company policies to catch up with the reality of that reversion. How many are still operating as though it was never reverted?

[aantix]

This was reverted.

[Fade_Dance]

It's not uncommon at all to see the cash spent on buyback...

And many CEOs lead because they like the fact that they get paid millions in stock options that are neutralized through buybacks.