> There are no employment contracts and you can be fired for any reason without notice.
You can also leave the job at any time, which as a frequent HN user I'm sure you know and may have used it to your advantage.
> There really should be though especially when the company in question was able to afford $1 billion in stock buybacks just 2 years ago, and when the CEO has a $3 billion net worth
They were also in a hiring spree 2 years ago, like many tech companies. Many of the current employees wouldn't have a job otherwise.
The CEO is also the founder of the company, who built it over time from scratch. There have been many ups and downs during their 17 year history. 10,000 jobs didn't appear overnight. We hardly hear when company hire, only when they let people go.
> and when they are well known for not paying their suppliers (the artists) a fair price for the content they create.
Apparently they don't make big fat profit given this layoff
The employer/employee relationship is imbalanced. The ability to leave jobs instantly is not equivalently powerful as the ability to fire people instantly. A corporation that loses an employee suddenly is typically disrupted in a very minor way. A person that loses their job instantly might not make rent next month.
That may be true in aggregate, but for tech workers over the past 20 years the scales have been as heavily in their favor as any industry's employer/employee relationship potentially ever.
You can also leave the job at any time, which as a frequent HN user I'm sure you know and may have used it to your advantage.
> There really should be though especially when the company in question was able to afford $1 billion in stock buybacks just 2 years ago, and when the CEO has a $3 billion net worth
They were also in a hiring spree 2 years ago, like many tech companies. Many of the current employees wouldn't have a job otherwise.
The CEO is also the founder of the company, who built it over time from scratch. There have been many ups and downs during their 17 year history. 10,000 jobs didn't appear overnight. We hardly hear when company hire, only when they let people go.
> and when they are well known for not paying their suppliers (the artists) a fair price for the content they create.
Apparently they don't make big fat profit given this layoff