"Bloomberg News is laying off nearly 100 journalists as it restructures its newsroom"
Not really a tech layoff. Many more similar examples. Also counting companies rather than jobs doesn't make sense. And the job data is likely centrally collected on FRED.
Tech is a broad field. In news reporting, use of ML is ubiquitous at this point and many roles require strong technical background and development experience. Journalists are only a small part of the newsroom
Bloomberg relies on a lot of tech and engineers. Maybe not the News arm, but it’s related enough to Bloomberg that it’s worth calling it a “tech layoff”
Tech companies are like lewdness, we know them when we see them. I’m sure Maersk and Walmart rely a lot on tech and engineers, but no one is calling them tech companies.
On 20 October 1949, Woodland and Silver filed a patent application for "Classifying Apparatus and Method", in which they described both the linear and bull's eye printing patterns, as well as the mechanical and electronic systems needed to read the code. The patent was issued on 7 October 1952 as US Patent 2,612,994.[1] In 1951, Woodland moved to IBM and continually tried to interest IBM in developing the system. The company eventually commissioned a report on the idea, which concluded that it was both feasible and interesting, but that processing the resulting information would require equipment that was some time off in the future.
IBM offered to buy the patent, but the offer was not accepted. Philco purchased the patent in 1962 and then sold it to RCA sometime later.
I regularly make new friends. Traveling a lot helps. Avoid talking excessiviely about work or your kids if you want to make new friends. Those topics are generally not interesting to anybody but you.
I should also say I finished college a looooong time ago.
There is plenty of refining and export capacity in Texas. It would have an enormous impact on investment in oil production and therefore future oil prices in North America. Pipelines are much cheaper and safer than rail and would lower the cost of production and therefore the cost of the final product.
> Pipelines are much cheaper and safer than rail and would lower the cost of production and therefore the cost of the final product.
Would it?
Oil is a commodity with a huge market. Isn't that oil going to fetch the same price no matter how it actually gets to the market? Lowering production costs for any given small producer should simply mean more profit for them rather than lower prices for buyers of the commodity.
Is your argument that the pipeline would reduce cost of the oil sands? Because yes, it would. But that would lead to even more US wells shutting off at these price levels. I was talking specifically about natgas terminals and processing.
I've bounced between AWS, Azure, and GCP. Once they get entrenched enough the credits stop but right now it's GCP with the best incentives.
Also, don't sleep on Oracle. Their cloud platform is stupidly competitive price-wise but limited feature-wise. If you're just looking for basic compute and storage they can't be beat, sans credits.
My main focus used be purposeful work as well. Now I'm more focused on doing things that make me feel good such as traveling, socializing and exercising. Since work is no longer my main focus, I work a lot less and enjoy my work a lot more.
Seems odd to blame other workers here even if they do make a lot of money. The only way workers will be helped is other jobs provide better value to the worker or companies are regulated to provide better conditions. Personal and corporate interests will always trump community interests.
> Personal and corporate interests will always trump community interests.
People _are_ responsible for the choices they make _and_ the entities they choose to empower…
Anyhow… I’ve known engineers that have chosen community over themselves…
Regardless, you’re on HN, fortunately you don’t have to make that choice. Instead you can skip FAANG toxicity and join a startup “community” that aligns with your values. Even better you can start your own startup. The payout is also potentially far better than grinding at a soul sucking FAANG position for years.
> The payout is also potentially far better than grinding at a soul sucking FAANG position for years.
if you consider financial pay out, i really can't agree that it's a better payout for the risk you're taking. A startup can be a lottery, and "winning" can be difficult and has a chance element. On average, i think the payout is lower than employment at the FAANGs, esp. if you do good salary negotiation and move often to ensure you're not missing out any uptick in the market rate.
Of course, a startup, like winning the lottery, pays out a lot more when successful, and some people prefer the high risk high reward - it's not a wrong choice. But that should be understood first.
This is another transfer of responsibility from the government to the citizen. Same as carbon footprint being used to guilt trip the individual who cannot stop global warming.
No matter how many engineers quit or refuse to apply to Amazon they will always have a replacement. The solution for both climate change and Amazon is government intervention. Be it subsidies for Solar or regulatory fines for Amazon.
Phrasing this as a "transfer" is begging the question; it can't be a transfer if the responsibility is not decided. The word "responsibility" is also a moral conundrum, not an objective one, which gums up the works in terms of finding a good solution. People can bikeshed morals all day.
A clearer way to think of it is in terms of people who have the power to change the situation:
- Governments can issue fines, but this is unlikely to harm the corporate enough to make it change. It can win votes though, so it does happen.
- Governments can write regulations, but this is done sparingly because of all the unintended consequences of adding any regulations to any industry. Also, a common (intended, by the incumbents) consequence of regulations is adding ones that disadvantage new participants in a market.
- People can choose to change the company from the inside, or not work for the company. This can work quite well if changes are encouraged from various levels, but that's not common.
- People can choose to not use the company (e.g. not to shop at Amazon).
The second and fourth are the most powerful options, with the fourth being the very most powerful.
> skip FAANG’s 300k salaries and still do fine with 180k at a more ethical company. Those people are responsible.
they are ethical, or altruistic, but certainly can't claim they are financially responsible.
If they don't have dependents (now or in the future), then they can remain financially irresponsible, because it will have little effect. But if they plan on having dependents such as children, they will need the funds to compete for scarce resources such as housing and school etc. They will also need to provide for their own retirement.
If they choose to take a lower paying job (when a higher paying one is definitely available), they are making a sacrifice on behalf of their dependents, who may or may not appreciate this choice being made for them.
As another sibling comment mentions, making 180k vs 300k as an individual doesn’t lowers one’s quality of life that much; there’s still enough disposable income to take trips, save for retirement, etc.
The “I don’t worry about my next meal” threshold for a warehouse hourly worker ($18/hr * 40hr/week * 52weeks/year ~= $37.5k) can be drastically improved.
>certainly can't claim they are financially responsible.
My man, with 180k you can comfortably afford a house by the time you're 30, have a quick million aside _and_ do lines a cocaine off a hooker's ass every week. 180k is a salary way past the bar of "fiscal responsibility".
Taking a job that screws over workers below you is really just sticking a middle finger up to the world around you.
A typical programming job is more than enough to provide for a family, a home, and early retirement. Burning down the next generation by empowering mega corporations just "for your kids" is the definition of selfish. Boomers did selfish things "for their kids" and now their kids are absolutely screwed with climate change and a worse off economic system.
But yes, they did certainly provide for their own retirement--at the cost of the whole world. FAANG developers are the same. Amazon and Apple can pay fat checks to their tech workers because they cut costs and shamelessly exploit everyone working in their lower level positions. Eventually they'll push everyone down to lower levels and have the technology to enforce it without human interference.
But hey, someone bought their kid a nice car and they retired to the Bahamas and got a few maids with that huge developer check. Got to look at the bright side.
Quarantines have existed for a long time. Countries locked down for longer.
The most important thing holding the world together was the people out there risking infection to deliver things to people staying at home. The biggest difference between the 90s and 2020s is that people are doing it by pressing a button on their phone instead of pressing a button on their computer or making a call on their phone, and loads more people are working in the package delivery industry for low wages.
> Quarantines have existed for a long time. Countries locked down for longer.
Can you give some examples?
The rest of your analysis seems incomplete. Some examples:
Zoom, Slack Facebook and WhatsApp able to keep professional, personal and family relationships alive was essential to so much continuing to function, allowing a vast number of employees to shift to online working. One notable point (of thousands) here is that while healthcare waiting lists got longer, many consultations that could be done over video, a thing never thought feasible before, meaning more isolation possibilities for vulnerable patients (and clinical staff).
Having online shops able to update listings in seconds, rather than your example of the 90s where catalogues would be sent out every six months with new stock for you to phone up and buy, or rather, not be able to get through to, was also awesome. Modern logistics means packages and returns can be done incredibly easily and fitted into your day, rather than spending ages on the phone with a human operator.
Uber and derivatives meant that the increased load of shutting down public transport could be transferred onto a dynamic fleet of private citizens' cars, and the traditional taxi firms also didn't require scaling human operators to book, and Google Maps powered the routing for those drivers.
And the rise of cloud infrastructure has meant in general that many services, government and private, have sprung into being in record time.
And those are just the first examples that occur to me.
Those people taking 300k salaries and building amazon.com are also contributing to creating value for the customers of amazon.com.
Is the value created for the customers of amazon.com less or more significant for society at large than people who can't get a better job than minimum wage, voluntarily working for minimum wage?
There is no moral right or wrong.
I personally hate amazon and I would never work for them (even if I'm impressed by what Bezos achieved) but I don't judge people working for amazon.
I judge way more people working for the IRS, that's a proper criminal enterprise.
If you work at Amazon, as I did, regardless of what you do you are part of the system. And that system, ultimately, creates value for AMZN's shareholders. And first and foremost Jeff Bezos.
The line so is based on how far down the food chain you are. Blue Collar employees, the drivers, warehouse workers and so on, are not part of the problem. White collar employees, pretty much so. I say that as a former White Collar Amazonian. Amazon, so to be fair, is just among the more extreme manifestations of rampant, unregulated capitalism. And it's not that all the other logistics companies are treating their blue collar employees any better. On average, so there are always those exceptions of great employers and great managers everywhere. Unfortunately those are becoming rarer by the day.
I've turned down a bunch of jobs on moral grounds. I work for a charity organization now. I make less money but I'm much happier then I have been working in jobs with different / more shady objectives.
If we could convert the value you get from charity work in to dollars, you would be making more than people working for big corp. Your values are atypical, and I'm glad you are able to do the work that provides you with the most benefit.
I also appreciate that anybody who puts the work in can get a good job in tech. But I don't follow your reasoning that the current tech interview process supports that in some way that another process could not.
Sure, but at the other end of the spectrum you get "know a guy" interviews where interviewers just hire their friends if they are the only person in the hiring process.
Where I work (and even other co's my friends work at) even if you wanna hire a friend as a candidate, your friend still has to go through a full interview process.
I don't agree with "hiring a friend" but I can certainly say that nothing has higher signal value than previous coworking experience with someone. The validated network of your current high performers is the best place to look for more.
I agree. So should that person get a "skip the vetting process" pass?
At my current org, they don't. They go through the hiring process like everyone else, and the person that recommended them is not involved until they are hired or not.
They will very likely be hired because they are good, but the process makes sure of it.
A middle ground that I follow is to go back to the person referring and ask are we stupid for not hiring this person? Then we try and reconcile the interview performance with the recommendations.
Another thing that I generally do is never recommend to anyone great that I know to come work where I work. Nothing good comes out of that. They already have good jobs. There is some probability they won't be as successful in the new place. I would deviate from that under certain scenarios but as a rule I would not initiate that sort of change. If they come to me I'd happily recommend them (rarely happens, as I was saying, they have good jobs).
Referrals are tricky especially when there's incentives like referral bonuses and everyone starts referring their cousin's friend's uncle's neighbor (some other problems in that sort of culture but we digress).
> Sure, but at the other end of the spectrum you get "know a guy" interviews
And code puzzle style interviews prevent that how exactly?
If the boss's boss want's his golf buddys friends nephew hired, goes to HR and says "hire that person", then that person will go through the same interview process as everyone else, presented with the same puzzle questions as everyone else, and do as good or bad as his preparation allows him to do, just like everyone else...
...and then get hired no matter what, because, just like everyone else, HR people want to keep their jobs as well.
That person gets hired and fits in with the team. The team puts more effort into mentoring because they are friends and you end up with a strong teammate.
Team made of friends tend to level each other up or cover for weak areas.
Teams of strangers need to fit in socially.
Relationships level teams up quicker so if you are hiring every 6 months gets friends if you are hiring every 10 years it matters less.
As someone in tech but not (professionally) a developer I have to confess that all my (few) jobs since grad school were of a “know a (senior) guy/gal” persuasion. Haven’t had a really serious interview since the 80s. Hav I optimized salary? Likely not but things have worked OK.
Well if there is such a process that does a better job than the current one at scale then the billions of dollars spent researching the problem at tech recruiting departments haven't unearthed it yet.
Work addicts will have a hard time following this advice unless they get the same dopamine boost from other tasks like networking. Unlikely to happen until they accept they have a problem.
Would be better off getting some therapy and buying index funds. I'm guessing in the long run this person would make a lot more money even after paying for therapy.
Unless the plan is to turn this into a paid subscription newsletter. In that case, there are tens of thousands of similarly high anxiety people looking for a similar way out that are willing to pay for this.
Paid investment advice is a form of therapy when you think about it.
Not really a tech layoff. Many more similar examples. Also counting companies rather than jobs doesn't make sense. And the job data is likely centrally collected on FRED.