Comment by tombert

> the stupid way to manage every year has to be x% exponential increase over the previous year, always forgetting that it is physically impossible when everyone goes for the same goal.

That's why we have this corporate ritual, which we carry out each year, or even each quarter - a solemn ceremony, where we divide everyone into two groups: the cost centers and the profit centers.

Everyone works in harmony for the same organizational goals, but the people of cost centers also bear an additional, sacred duty, the highest of callings: to give up their employment and prospects for the future, to have their due credit be taken by the people of profit centers and poured onto the altar of the all-powerful Board. It's through this sacrifice of the many, that the symmetry is broken, allowing the year-by-year metrics to continue growing, against all wisdom and the laws of thermodynamics.

> managing earnings to sustain equity valuations

That's an interesting take, so eventually they'll just run out of these tricks and at that point the valuations will burst?

I think it's a bit of both and perhaps 10% AI. Companies like Block are bloated for what they offer.

> the correction was largely complete over a year ago

We had tariffs and other disruptions since. So more correction is required.

Good point. What's interesting is that startups with solid remote infrastructure now have access to talent pools that were harder to tap before. Engineers in places like LATAM or Eastern Europe who might have held tight to their FAANG remote gigs are now reconsidering options. The timezone alignment with US companies makes this particularly interesting for early-stage teams that need real-time collaboration but can't afford Bay Area salaries.

I don’t know… If the company is so healthy and has some nice financial buffer, I would expect the increased productivity due to AI to be used for more revenue generation. So either they don’t know how to translate all the quality hires they got into (enough) revenue, they can’t afford it, or maybe they they hired too fast to maintain quality :shrug: That’s my read at least

Profitable, and yet missed their revenue targets in Q3, causing their stock to tumble. That's an emergency. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-11-06/dorsey-s-...

wow which company was this?

The Twitter layoffs being used as proof of _anything_ is misguided no matter what you're trying to say.

If success is losing half their revenue, reverting to revenue numbers from a decade ago, I gotta know what failure looks like. You might argue that the revenue losses aren't correlated to their headcount changes and probably make a good argument, but I mean... It's not a great one

> After the massive X/Twitter layoffs (60-70% headcount culled) with X/Twitter still standing, this assumption was clearly proven false.

Twitter at the same time removed features to have fewer things to support. And didn't implement anything new (or really fix much) for ages. It's not the same service that was standing afterwards. And the "still standing" ignores the part where they started serving empty timelines, repeated messages from broken paging, broke 2fa for days, messed up whole continent access, etc. etc. They survived (and still had fewer problems than I expected), but it wasn't smooth at all - hardly a success too.

This is the recommendation I have heard peers, both technical and managerial, echo for years in one form or another:

  4. Upskill professionally. We're not hiring code monkeys 
  for $200K-400K TC. We want Engineers who can communicate 
  business problems into technical requirements. This means 
  also understanding the industry your company is in, how to 
  manage up to leadership, and what are the revenue drivers 
  and cost centers of your employer. Learn how to make a 
  business case for technical issues. If you cannot 
  communicate why refactoring your codebase from Python to 
  Golang would positively impact topline metrics, no one will 
  prioritize it.

The above involves one thing people can possess which GenAI cannot; understanding stakeholder problems which need to be solved and then doing so.

> It's harder to layoff someone you have had beers or coffee with

Interesting, in my experience this hasn't mattered at all. Generally those close enough to an employee to have had beers with them aren't the ones making any decisions related to layoffs, and may themselves be on the chopping block.

This is right on all counts and matches what I've seen and heard. And to all the sibling comments arguing about Elon's Twitter shenanigans being a bad move, it doesn't matter. I know because that's exactly what I said to a senior executive who deals with even more senior executives, and those were his exact words: "It doesn't matter." (A bit more in this thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46750804)

I think their attitude could be summed up with this line by the Architect from the Matrix: "There are levels of survival we are prepared to accept."

I would only differ on one point: the situation was not this bad 2015-22. I would actually put the painful periods around the dot-com bust and the GFC. In fact, while not as great as the post-COVID heydays, things actually took off post 2010-ish. This timeline coincided with Meta starting a talent war at the same time that the Apple/Google no-poaching collusion lawsuit was filed.

I fully agree with everything you've said and think the Twitter one is a really good point that I haven't heard before.

That said, I think you've left out the impact of interest rates and the end of the Zero Interest Rate Policy (ZIRP) on this. So much of the "growth above all else", "revenue and user count matters more than profit" mindset companies had over the last 10 years was because ZIRP incentivizes them to invest in riskier assets. If safe investments pay 1% a year that's only a 10.4% return 10 years later. If safe investments pay 5% a year that's a 62.8% return 10 years later.

When rates are low, investors are more willing to focus on a company's potential because their money isn't making a lot while sitting in the bank. When rates went up (in addition to everything you said) investors all of a sudden wanted to see profit, not revenue or user base numbers which means a lot of these companies had to pivot their strategy fast. All the perks and crazy moonshot projects get cut and only things that are profitable or have a clear path to profitability are kept.

If you look back, that's exactly why we saw things like companies throwing crazy money at things like the metaverse and crypto and then practically over night pull the plug on them.

The charts below are the fed funds rate and the number of SWE jobs from Indeed, both from the fed and you can see how they align.

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/IHLIDXUSTPSOFTDEVE

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/FEDFUNDS

> 1. Move to a Tier 1 tech hub like the Bay and NYC. If you get laid off, you will probably find another job in a couple of weeks due to the density of employers.

> 5. Live lean, save for a rainy day, and keep your family and friends close. If you're not in a financial position to say "f##k you" you will get f##ked, and strong relationships help you build the support system you need for independence.

All you have to do is move you and your family to the most expensive places in the world. But also live lean and save for a rainy day.

> And finally, COVID proved to a large number of companies and industries that 100% WFH and Async for white collar roles does work. But wait, if I can hire Joe in Cary to work async, why can't I hire Jan in Karlin, Prague or Jagmeet in Koramangla, Bangalore? This means I can also enhance FCF positivity while not impacting delivery.

Cultural differences. Things like "saving face" / not being able to admit a lack of knowledge in Asian cultures, Americans that need to be coddled (the higher up, the more dumbed down execs want information because they insist on micromanaging - they try to have their cake and eat it at the same time), Germans being blunt and direct to the point it offends Americans, Americans unable to comprehend Europe has labor regulations including on overtime and on letting go of staff... if you just say, you hire a bunch of bodies somewhere else and expect that to work out, you end up screwed - and many did end up screwed. In both ways, by the way.

Twitter is just a misinformation machine now. They got rid of anyone that made it a decent place. No more pesky moderation, sales and ad teams, etc. as long as it’s up and the sock puppets can foment dived, it’s serving its purpose.

Sure it is not a smoking crater in the ground but outages are frequent, multi-media content loads about 50% of the time and search is basically non-functional at this point.

Let us never forget the "tweet reading limit" incident

>After the massive X/Twitter layoffs (60-70% headcount culled) with X/Twitter still standing, this assumption was clearly proven false.

I agree with your sentiment, but this example is awful. Twitter cut engineering staffed, pissed off advertisers that caused an exodus, had its stock steadily declining under Musk, and eventually decided to go private again. Only to be "aquired" by Musk's AI wing. Maybe there was a large cut that can happen, but Musk explicitly mentions how his plan was always to "over fire" and rehire later. Clearly 60% was too far, and he overestimated his charisma to get people back.

It'd be a stretch to call Twitter a "well oiled machine", but clearly these moves proceeded to chug the gears down to a near halt. It hasn't seen a major collapse only because Musk is playing Hollywood accounting with all his businesses these days.

>1. Move to a Tier 1 tech hub like the Bay and NYC. If you get laid off, you will probably find another job in a couple of weeks due to the density of employers.

I think I'm just screwed in that case. At least for my industry. There's "some" games scene in SF, but not much more than some other hubs like LA, Austin, nor Seattle. That's not really where gaming startups pop up these days, either.

>We live in a competitive world and complaining on HN does nothing to help your material condition.

Waiting to hear on job apps gives plenty of time to vent, though.

I'm doing portfolio projects, but it feels like that only gets you so far unless you have a very specific domain in mine you want to showcase. Especially for someone who already has professional experience to point to.

I don't know that I agree with most of what you wrote but others have already addressed that.

> The reality is the current set of layoffs and work stresses were the norm in the tech industry until 2015-22. We live in a competitive world and complaining on HN does nothing to help your material condition.

I really fucking hate when people post this. It's one of those things that sounds substantive but it actually isn't. This is a social media forum, people express their opinions. Sometimes those opinions are negative about corporations or businesses. It's weird to tell people "STFU with your discussion on a discussion forum".

Twitter is a strange example given it has experienced a massive drop in valuation and ad revenue as well as struggled with user acquisition since Musk bought it. By all metrics it has declined in value except it where it serves as a powerful megaphone for the US right.

You are VC. Your opinion literally doesn't matter, you're high on your own supply. I go to lunches and dinners with people like yourself frequently and every VC and finance guy wont stop talking about their idiotic delusions of having an AI workforce (slaves). You people yearn for the days of slavery again, but without humans.

Have fun during the neo-French Revolution Mr. VC, hope you made enough to fill your safe room with treats!

>Stoping trying to cope that AI/LLM augmented automation isn't to blame here.

It's not cope. The math just isn't mathing. the efficiencies advertiesed don't match the layoff proportions. The earning call employment counts don't match with the idea that they are "downsizing" as a company (meanwhile, what semblence of truth we have left in the job numbers DO suggest that we lost a lot of white collar jobs in 2024/5). The output error of deployed products don't match the sentiment that AI is leading to equal/higher quality software. The volume of litigation doesn't match this sentiment that "AI is here to stay".

This is less about whatever I personally think of AI (and especially its future) and more acknowledging that this is simply an irrational market. Yes, the market can indeed remain irrational longer than I can stay solvent. But that irrationality also has a time limit. I'm sure people in 1928 can point to how high its stocks were too.