 Folks are treating the recent tech layoffs as something spontaneous. They were not. Apparently the current layoffs were orchestrated by hedge funds. This hedge fund demanded that the big tech companies lay people off because they were being paid too much. Let that one sink in: a hedge fund manager saying that you're being paid too much. Note that TCI is demanding that Google lay off more people. @sue @fuzzychef I am only assume the boot must have a delicious flavor. Or perhaps it feels therapeutic on the neck..... @fuzzychef multiple recruiters have approached me on behalf of hedge funds offering very shiny compensation packages, and I have honestly never felt tempted. My soul may not be squeaky clean, but at least this way I can still see it through the dirt. @fuzzychef I only regret that I've never told them no in the language I felt was truly appropriate to the situation  @fuzzychef i'll add that to my list of brilliant sounding ideas that don't do anything. "never be deceived that the rich will allow you to vote away their wealth"  @fuzzychef these same hedge funds are also driving the costs of housing up. They are overall creating havoc. With a divided congress, we are not going to be able to do anything until we have Dems back in the House. You know the GOP are not going to do anything. @fuzzychef we should approach the French about borrowing some old equipment. I'm sure it would be okay if we promise to hose it off before sending it back.  Why would banning the hedge fund solve anything? Some other capitol investment system would take its place.
If you don't like what big tech does, stop supporting them. Piracy > Netflix 🏴☠️ 🦜 Pay for the underdogs with integrity like Louder with Crowder, No Agenda and Corbett Report! @fuzzychef @webmink everything is made worse by private equity firms and hedge funds @fuzzychef I swear that so many of the coding boot camps and learn to code initiatives were about increasing the labor pool of developers so that the compensation could be lowered and devs would be less likely to job hunt in search of a raise. @ChaosCatgirl @fuzzychef @Cleopatra @fuzzychef it was always so fascinating when I was mentoring new devs how it was always the minorities in the boot camps that got hired last and offered less. Two companies in my city created their own boot camps and then hired only 4 people, but oh they advertised so much on the "look how diverse the students are!"  @ChaosCatgirl after skipping going into tech when i was in school & now making the effort after a While later, i have definitely been concerned that companies will see an opportunity to cheap out on a lower caste of devs who will take anything. like that needs to be actively resisted but it's definitely true that anyone looking for a first job right now will accept almost anything, at least at the beginning  @fuzzychef That's absolutely toxic and, in a remotely fair world, would be a clear court case. @fuzzychef Chris Hohn has less than 40 billion assets under management. They could crush him like a bug if they wanted to. This isn’t because of activist investors, it’s because the C-suites wanted to reduce headcount. @grs @fuzzychef yeah hard to understand the pressure he can put in Alphabet if his fund owns <1%  @fuzzychef haha i was so tempted to post it, but figured perhaps that would be stirring the shit a little more aggressively than normal  @ariadne @fuzzychef And, it's not like Google is hurting for money or needs to pay attention to even the biggest hedge funds. I'm really ticked at what Google, in particular, is doing and I'll be ranting about it in print soon. Alphabet is a publicly traded company. the activist hedge funds (of which TCI is just one, but they had the balls to publicly say it) have non-trivial amounts of voting power. @ariadne @fuzzychef Yeah, but I wish Alphabet the balls to say f-off. The Google cuts are into muscle and bone, not fat. <Rant, Scream, Rant!> @ariadne @oneiros @sjvn @fuzzychef being able to mass sell 6 billion usd worth of stock and crash the price is it’s own form of voting. and that’s just TCI. they have friends. @fuzzychef @ariadne @oneiros 4th quarter results are on Feb. 2nd, but they won't show the layoff results for at least another quarter. I'm glad I don't cover that end of technology. @ariadne @oneiros @fuzzychef The funny thing about covering technology for a living is that after a while 6 billion doesn't even sound like that much. And, for Google I think that makes them like 22nd or so in the list of top stockholders. That said, I'm pressed to think of another good reason for these cuts except an irrational fear of recession. @ariadne @sjvn @fuzzychef Just a reminder that with Google's voting structure, the hedge fund votes matter not at all -- L+S have a lock on any vote by a lot. They have the 10x shares (same as Meta + Zuck). @sjvn @ariadne @fuzzychef after how these (first?!) cuts gutted Google's OSPO, GOOD. I look forward to seeing your longer-worded rant. @communiteatime @sjvn @fuzzychef Google’s OSPO has done a lot of great work over the years advancing the values of software freedom, both in a social and technical way. it is a loss in the big picture view. but the OSPO is one of the largest anti-copyleft voices in the room. there have been several instances where i have had to choose non-copyleft licenses for my projects, because of how the OSPO influenced the industry resulting in my employment contracts disallowing copyleft licenses. @communiteatime @sjvn @fuzzychef so given that, i think it’s ultimately a good thing that OSPO is so effectively gutted that it’s basically dissolved. one of the largest anti-copyleft lobbyists in the industry will be gone. that is a good thing for software freedom. @ariadne @fuzzychef had the same when layoffs were being justified as “analysts think an actual bank should have the same number of staff as a fintech startup” which was a take @litelotus @fuzzychef it's a hedge fund - it's all about numbers for them. I also believe that they hate the fact that labor has been gaining in influence. I believe the corporate climate is not liking the rise of labor. @fuzzychef {thick sarcasm} Gosh, now I feel so dumb for refusing the interviews with Google, Amazon, and Facebook. However, I did have the pleasure of telling the Facebook recruiter: "Sorry, I can't do 10 hours of interviews just to get a job where I get paid by the Russians. You do know they are the bad guys, right? I mean .. you DO know that, right?"  @fuzzychef Even if it did save money it's a really careless approach to just pick a number out of the air for an "ideal" number of employees. Business needs change, and new products need new groups to run properly. Capitalism is poison, even to itself. Found TCI's previous letter they reference: @fuzzychef It's a classic example of someone that knows nothing thinking they know everything. "Well, the business has grown so much they've added 100,000 employees but that's too much so get rid of them but keep growing because that's how anything works." Why the hell is a hedge fund even talking to anyone outside of the fund? How is this not market manipulation? Oh, wait, it is, but we allow market manipulation as long as you're already rich or a politician. @fuzzychef @Skirnir @fuzzychef I was mentioning that they seem to be doing the same thing with housing.  @fuzzychef: Hey, wasn't Alphabet's corporate structure specifically designed to avoid giving the vulture capitalists a voting control?  @fuzzychef Interesting. I was just discussing with @pnathan earlier today about this. Investors / advisors was my strong hunch, and this letter would tend to support that view. Thread: https://social.seattle.wa.us/@pnathan/109739639040151031 @fuzzychef who the fuck is this guy who determines what Alphabet needs as a company? Like seriously, are they on the board? In which case this would be a discussion at a board meeting. Otherwise, they should be told to pound sand.  @fuzzychef these guys, at the start and end of each day. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=7VrvhUU7Kok  @fuzzychef has this hedgey tried to hire any competent tech staff in the past 10 years? lmao  @fuzzychef I heard this came in after the layoffs, he publish anything urging the first rounds? @fuzzychef I'm not thinking the big companies need anything but cover of "other companies are doing it" to layoff people if they want the appearance of profit.  @fuzzychef Wow, they even say the quiet part out loud at the bottom: in the face of all these layoffs, "competition for talent in the technology industry has fallen significantly". So exactly what we all assumed was true: the layoffs were meant as a comp reset and a power play, not because they had any basis in financial reality. @klardotsh @fuzzychef @cdarwin @fuzzychef And I suspect these layoffs will serve only to further depress said share price in the long run (though hedge funds are too blind to see more than 1 day, or at best 1 quarter, ahead of them) @fuzzychef and that's what he looks like "Sir Christopher Anthony Hohn[1] KCMG (born October 1966) is a British billionaire hedge fund manager. " https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Hohn @fuzzychef can't wait for the upcoming labor shortage to bite these old guys in the butt. People dieing more than predicted. More people disabled than predicted and the generation with the biggest work force retiring and limited immigration. Supply and Demand. @fuzzychef So TCI is basically telling Sundar he has no clue about how to run his company. Yeah. Right. @fuzzychef Why is a British POS pressuring to eliminate AMERICAN jobs? If Joe Biden adopted a little bit of economic nationalism & cracked the whip on that British guy to at least give the appearance of fighting to save American jobs, then that could only help improve his approval numbers.   (h/t: This boost brought to you by @ruby https://toot.cat/@ruby/109741462799059666) [edit] also relevant, from @PetraOleum https://cloudisland.nz/@PetraOleum/109741273397774714 It's fun how, as an economy, we all went straight from 'nobody wants to work anymore' to 'oopsie doopsie we overhired and have to fire a bunch of you'  @woozle The option list on the yacht got a little out of hand, but they’re all necessary, ya know. 🥸 @fuzzychef @fuzzychef why did finance forget it was about building the economy, not destroying it?   @fuzzychef If some bright spark can find a quote from him about generating wealth instead of redistributing it that would be a fun reply to this thread. @fuzzychef i will <redacted> if a damn hedge fund ruins tech money before I even enter the industry lmao Ruthless letter from "The CHILDREN's Investment Fund Management" ! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Children's_Investment_Fund_Management  @fuzzychef This is.. mildly terrifying. TBH I actually fact checked your post, naively thinking it was disinformation. @fuzzychef let me be lowd and clear fuck head funds that put profits before people especially ones that due it explicitly  Some things never go out of style On the plus side, at least they waited until after the lockdowns. At Cognos, they sent managers to a special retreat to learn how to fire people two weeks before Christmas.  Hedge fund manager: “We spent all of 2022 betting on a recession!! Where the hell is the recession!? We *can’t* be wrong about this, it’s killing us!!” 2nd hedge fund manager: “I know, right? But we have to play the hand we’re dealt. Does anyone have some ideas about how we can *cause* a recession that hasn’t happened on its own yet? …. ok yes you sir, in the back, go ahead” 3rd hedge fund manager: “How many people do Google and Microsoft employ? 😏” @fuzzychef @ECityMom The letter really shows how performative the layoffs are, too. He could well be right about reducing headcount, and the result could still be achieved by just stopping hiring for a few months. They want to see layoffs because they want to put labour back in their place.  @fuzzychef and if all their demands were met, TCI would absolute divest immediately and disappear. Extract the maximum possible value with all disregard to the viability of the business, and then move on to the next. Eventually you run out of other people's money^H^H^H^H^H labor. @fuzzychef Well, Business is business, Google and other Tech companies are not charities, so if they need to cut employees to be profitable then you can't blame them.. they have shareholders to report to! @fuzzychef it feels orchestrated, designed to squash any recent gains made by the middle class. @fuzzychef Huh. I thought the Google founders made a point of retaining enough shares to always keep control of their board. Has that changed? Do they really have hedge funds now dictating Google policy? @fuzzychef same reason, rent is going up. Hedge funds are buying up all the properties for rentals. Companies want to scale fast and along the way sell their souls to “investors”. Leaving no crumbs for the employees. I remember the days of profit-sharing and good raises. All gone so those who are already rich can get more money they can never spend. #CorporateGreed #regulate  @fuzzychef This guy is human trash. I guess he has pretty good security because boy he needs it.   @fuzzychef this fund owns < 0.5% of alphabet (assuming all their holdings are class A) shares and they published an open letter, which is something you do when you don't have enough influence to get them to read your private emails. This is posturing to try to hit above their weight   @fuzzychef tech people do get paid too much actually this would not have happened if they werent a bunch of lobotomized stemlords afraid of unionizing @fuzzychef I’m not convinced there’s a conspiracy—or that there isn’t—but you don’t really need one to explain it when all these guys got their MBAs at the same three places. I wish someone would right size hedge fund manager's compensation and replace all the tea bags in their office with the weakest tea possible. Out of curiosity, how did that letter come to light? @fuzzychef it’s a hedge fund using its money on things to halt and reverse dire issues that, left unchecked, will result in the extinction of our species. i’m ok with it. jobs come and go. humanity needs sweeping change, transformation in all sectors across the globe.  @fuzzychef Which is suggesting that they do a good enough job for 2021 with worse morale in 2023? e.g. customers then suffer as they are 2 years plus degradation worse off? @fuzzychef They own less that 1% of Google stock. Nobody cares what they propose. They are playing well pretending they can influence Big Tech's decisions though. @fuzzychef Hedge fund ghoul Christopher Hohn, who’s personally worth $8 billion, tells Google to cut tens of thousands of employees and slash salaries. There are not enough obscenities to describe a person like that.  @fuzzychef "Competition for talent in the technology industry has fallen significantly", said someone who has never even once tried to fill a role for a technical position. @fuzzychef Wait is this real? Has it been verified in any way? Is there anyone reporting on it? I need more information! @fuzzychef If several employers in a given field cull their workforce at the same time, wages generally in that field will decrease. If workers don't like being squeezed like this from time to time, collective bargaining regarding certain working conditions --when and how layoffs happen, seniority, etc., seems like the best answer. But herding cats making $300,000/year is not easy. @fuzzychef What's the beef here? Alphabet made the decision to cede control over aspects of their business in return for massive injections of capital. Instead of funding their business privately, they tossed it open to the market. Their owners would now like to see costs trimmed and are making their demands clear and transparent. Shareholders get a voice.  Aren’t hedge funds also buying up newspapers, (firing their staffs, hiring pt-ers, & freelancers to save money), while creating news deserts in many areas? https://www.npr.org/2021/10/18/1046952430/the-consequences-of-when-a-hedge-fund-buys-newspapers @fuzzychef Looks like the signatory to that letter, Hohn, should be punished in some way. And his organization. Is there some way to depress his personal portfolio value by, say, 75%? @fuzzychef but why not? Is there anything wrong in TCI’s letter? Besides they are shareholders at a publicly listed company exercising their rights. It is up to the management to swallow it or fight back. Just a thought. @fuzzychef  @fuzzychef Indeed. Wikipedia: “Hohn is worth $5 billion according to the Forbes billionaires list in 2020, an increase of $1.9 billion from 2019.”. What a disgusting creature. @fuzzychef This is what hedge funds have been doing to newspapers and other news outlets for about 10-12 years now. It's directly contributed to why current journalism in the U.S. is so terrible recently. ETA: Actually, probably more like 20 years, I forgot it's 2023. @fuzzychef a lot of the current layoffs are requested by activist investors. And all they care about is short term gain for themselves. Wow, if I'd had any idea this was going to be so popular I'd have put more work into it. @fuzzychef The capitalists are working very hard to destroy the economy rather than pay people more in wages. That's what all of the interest rate hikes are for. They see workers organizing, demanding better pay and better benefits and they hate it. Watch the stock market when unemployment numbers come in, if unemployment increases, the markets love it. More people looking for work will push wages down. Workers will be happy with what they have. @fuzzychef any asshole can write letters. They wish to be seen as powerful and influential and you're doing their PR for them. |
Gregory's Server
@fuzzychef I wish I hadn't looked at this on twitter, replies are full of folk giving it "he's right" etc 🥴