EVHasteJan 20, 2023

Make no mistake, the tsunami of #tech #layoffs is not about the recession. It’s about striking back at “uppity” labor, after they enjoyed a shift in the balance of power from #remotework and DEI #activism .

These companies are reporting record profits. Inflation is just cover. It’s because they can, because there’s social cover for it, because there’s money left on the table and having “some” money isn’t enough.

It’s nothing short of class warfare.

Show threadtoxtethogradyJan 20, 2023
@Haste I suspected it was coordinated. But they are playing with a certain amount of fire, because the employees they cashier may decide to never come back. Or they may come back as competitors...
Show threadChoteeJan 21, 2023
@toxtethogrady @Haste one would hope that atleast a few not only do they take their skills to be effective competitors but also take their experience and decide for organisational structure like a workers coop rather the unstable bullshit they just got burned by.
Show threadtoxtethogrady
@chotee @Haste I worked for one of those - an employee-owned engineering firm. Most engineering firms were structured like that. Later, they decided that they all wanted to get into the construction and ownership field, and the only way to do that was to mass together to acquire the capital to become developers themselves. As a result, they all issued stock, which they offered to shareholders. They stopped being enterprises whose profits went to their employees and they found that they had to satisfy the profit motives of the investors who acquired stakes in them. So they stopped protecting their employees, gave away their human capital when the need for profit dictated, and in short became like every other business in existence. I made money when they sold the employee-held shares in my company to a larger competitor, then I lost my job and changed careers. The money I received was nice, but the loss of the original business culture was devastating.
Jan 22, 2023 at 12:05amWeb
Show threadtoxtethogradyJan 22, 2023
@chotee @Haste At one of the company management classes, I was asked what the primary purpose of business was. I gave the standard B-school answer - to make money for shareholders. Our instructor responded that the primary purpose of business is to stay in business. It seemed like a subtle distinction at the time, but I found out from debating selfish capitalists that many of them did not see the value in keeping a business in business. Instead, they wanted a quick kill that provide a big-payout to investors now while sacrificing the company later. It explains much of capitalism today, with its leveraged buyouts, acquisition of debt, predatory investing and the resulting layoffs and occasional bankruptcies. Henry Kravis claimed in the '80s that "debt is therapeutic", but I know of no therapy that makes a patient sickly to restore it to health. Debt can be used to finance a purposeful acquisition, but debt acquired to transfer company ownership to its managers has no purpose...
Show threadChoteeJan 22, 2023
@toxtethogrady @Haste yes, this is especially true for tech startups. The investors and many times even the founders, don't invest to create a sucessful company, they are investing to have a highly profitable exit by selling it to a bigger idiot. The hypecycle _is_ the real product.