May Likes Toronto3d ago

Epic Games is "laying off 1000 people." 23% of its workforce.

That number is bonkers. I feel like we've grown so desensitized to layoffs at this scale after a few years, that we don't think about the scale of 1000.

That's a highschool in a dense city. Or a small town in Canada, or a high-rise or two. That's so many lives and people who are dependent on that income.

What a nightmare world where we hear about layoffs constantly at this scale.

Show threadJon  

@mayintoronto "What a nightmare world where we hear about layoffs constantly at this scale."

I feel* like this a near constant when the end of tax season is near to create fake earnings boosts in a lot of American companies.

*Literally just a feeling from someone in a different country. I don't know when their tax season ends. I also feel they are empty capatlistic cunt husks.

Also fortnite and the epic launcher are fucking shit. In my opinion.

Mar 25 at 4:24amWeb
Show threadAndrew Drake3d ago

@octopuddle @mayintoronto not disagreeing with anything else you wrote, but there's not much *tax* reason to artificially boost your profits. That just means paying more taxes. Usually corporations bend over backwards to appear (for tax purposes) to have as close to zero profit as possible.

Not saying there's not a tax play here, but as someone familiar with this tax system, I don't immediately see it!

Show threadMatt Hardy 3.11 for Workgroups3d ago
@adrake @octopuddle @mayintoronto I see that Epic Games is not publicly traded. So that's my counter argument gone up in smoke.
Show threadJon  1d ago

@adrake @mayintoronto I have worded it very badly and anecdotedly as it's not my wheelhouse.

I was mostly trying to refer to some things I've read over the past few years of layoffs being used to artificially inflate profits, and so inflate outlooks for shareholders.

I Hope that somewhat explains my anecdotal layperson ignorance.

Show threadAndrew Drake1d ago

@octopuddle @mayintoronto right, layoffs to juice numbers are a thing with public companies, because the public markets react strongly to quarterly results and executives are often compensated based on those short-term objectives.

But the weird thing here is that Epic is a private company, and the majority shareholder is the CEO! He doesn't need to juice numbers to make quarterly results look good to shareholders, because he is the only shareholder that really matters.