Would the CEO resigning or getting laid off, make your situation any better if you were one of those laid off?
Feels like a weird hill to die on, and more like a crabs in the bucket mentality that doesn't change anything in the grand scheme of things. In the end I'm still unemployed and whatever happens to my ex-CEO doesn't change my situation one bit.
As I grew older and experienced my share of layoffs, I stopped caring about what happens to those responsible for me getting laid off, as my energy is better spent on improving my situation and my life instead of ruminating how Krama vengeance would make me feel better.
> Would the CEO resigning or getting laid off, make your situation any better if you were one of those laid off?
No, of course not. But he is the leader, and he guided the company to a point where certain areas became "over-invested or under-performing." In other words, he didn’t do a good job. So, it should be him stepping down. Nobody ever said being a CEO would be easy.
>and he guided the company to a point where certain areas became "over-invested or under-performing."
And now he's fixing it by cutting those under-performing areas.
>So, it should be him stepping down.
Why? How would that help the company get better? Do you think competent CEOs are like cogs that you can pick a new one from the stack of LinkedIn applications whenever the old one makes a mistake, and then slot him in the existing machine and everything will magically work better?
>Nobody ever said being a CEO would be easy.
Exactly. That's why you don't rush to replace the devil you know with the devil you don't.
Why don't you start your own company so you can be a model angelic CEO then? Why bother working for these "evil" guys? Or work for a local mom and pop shop instead of a publicly traded company?
I ran a business which is why I know how hard it is and why I prefer working for someone else and accepting the trade-offs. You're the delusional one here wanting to have your cake and eat it too.
That's a really positive attitude, to not fixate on retribution -- kudos to you!
I'd like to point out that there are other possible outcomes, like (say) the CEO and entire C-suite cutting their salary to $1 for a year (it's not like this will render any of them homeless).
IMHO, that would actually constitute "taking full responsibility", as opposed to parroting words that don't connect to the reality of the situation.
I don't know. As you said, it's a waste of energy to wonder about other people and their endeavors. Better to focus on me.
And I need the money. CEOs don't. Feels odd to go from "don't spend your energy thinking about other rich people" and then go "but rich people 'want' money" when someone makes a suggestion.
>Have the stress of running a company while working for free? Who would ever want to do that?
Again, don't know. But I suspect that most people at a CEO level are not just in it for money. There's easier, less stressful ways for millionaire to accrue money.
>I don't know. [...] And I need the money. CEOs don't.
That's some silly delulu shit right there. Imma end this conversation with you right here since you're not arguing in good faith as you've already made up your mind, so it's a waste of my energy and time to continue this any further.
What did you expect productive about this whole conversation?
Did you expect to see the magic formula/solution to people getting laid off from well paying tech companies and somehow I got in the way of that?
We're all just chatting here speaking our minds which has the real world practival equivalent of shouting into the void. There's no real value to be had here.
It wouldn't, but it'd reassure me I wasn't some expendable pawn and they are preteding to be responsible. A company trying to cut back on the highest paid workers who will still survive shows a captain willing to drown with their boat.
but it doesn't work like that in the western world.
>As I grew older and experienced my share of layoffs, I stopped caring about what happens to those responsible for me getting laid off, as my energy is better spent on improving my situation and my life instead of ruminating how Krama vengeance would make me feel better.
The tree remembers. If I have nothing else it's my pride for my craft. I'll probably never have some revenge arc, but I sure will take it personally the next time that company tries to make deals with me later in my career.
Call it cultural; I don't like being treated as a slave. Respect your fellow man, regardless of background or walk of life.
>but I sure will take it personally the next time that company tries to make deals with me later in my career.
You don't do deals with companies who fire people? You wouldn't be working for any company in the world then. IIRC in communism they never fired people, maybe that system will serve you better. Oh wait...
>I don't like being treated as a slave.
"Sent from my iPhone sipping my latte in California"
I wish you all spoiled rich western workers would stop using the slave word so easily whenever an employer does something to you, as it dilutes the meaning and the severity of the word. Similar with the over misuse of the words woke and nazi.
Please read up on what slavery actually meant and the lives of actual slaves. Working in tech in the richest country in the world, and being fired by Dropbox isn't even remotely in the same ball-planet as slavery.
As CEO, it's his responsibility to make/approve the decision to do the layoffs, or not. The buck stops with him. That's all that it means. It doesn't mean he's liable for any hardships.
If "responsibility" only constitutes "I pull the trigger, and I don't care what happens as a result", then that is a fairly weak kind of leadership -- ostensibly not very different from a child doing whatever they want in a consequence-free manner.
I want to believe that "responsibility" not only constitutes "I can make things happen", but that "I am willing to Make Things Right if my actions cause things to go sideways".
If I'm wrong, then we live in a world where "taking responsibility" means "using power", and "I take full responsibility" means "yes, I used my power to do that" and that's Not Good Enough to call such people "Leaders".
Layoffs are a fact of life with businesses. It sucks. I'm sure these CEOs do not enjoy doing it, but someone has it in their job description (i.e. the responsibility) to make those kinds of decisions.
You may have it in your job description the responsibility to do performance reviews on your reports. Those reviews can make or break a career. If you do them honestly and with the consideration they deserve, you should not be expected to personally bear the consequences of giving someone a deserved poor review.
It's too bad we don't live in a perfect world where everyone has a job and is never at risk of losing it. But if wishes where horses.....
If that was what responsibility meant, then by definition any CEO is fulfilling their responsibility.
The moral meaning of responsibility here means that the CEO takes responsibility for the lives and livelihoods of those affected -- which does feel a bit hollow when the CEO presumably is not only not affected negatively, but probably will be rewarded for increasing shareholder value.
My insurance companies and government definitely share that opinion of responsibility. So, yes. But my answer remains "take responibility and mean it".
I'd love to hear you explain how I can get out of paying my car insurance of alimony though with this line of reasoning, though. Could be useful one day.
CEOs are responsible to the board of directors and shareholders. The BoD and shareholders are who choose and remove CEOs and you can bet both are considerably displeased when the company isn't as profitable as they expect.
That's the best part of modern tech markets in a not-recession recession. They are still profitable but will layoff because it's fashionbble or to make more money.
> but acting like petulant child and lashing out at CEO won't do much.
I don't think anyone is attacking the CEO with the expectation that he's got his iPad in-hand, reading every comment through his tears. What we are saying is that corporate doublespeak is unbelievably fucking grating when it doesn't correlate whatsoever with tangible change at the company. This kind of repeat behavior is what makes people (justifiably) laugh when CEOs walk out onstage.
Like when Tim Cook steps out on and insults us all perennially with his "best iPhone yet" comment. Like, duh, of-fucking-course it is! Why don't you tell me something I don't know, show me some form of change in your posture or the way you provide your products and services to me. Don't just advertise to me - convince me that you're not steering the company in a direction that sucks for everyone but the CEO.
> Tim Cook steps out on and insults us all perennially with his "best iPhone yet" comment
I loved this sentence and the sentiment behind it. Nowadays whenever I get the urge to upgrade my old iPhone 13, I go and rewatch old recordings from 2021 of Tim Cook gushing about how the phone I already have is such a huge leap forward for humanity and why everything that came before it is garbage.
Applying this to CEOs and layoffs, every time you join a new job and start to drink the company kool-aid about how you're part of this wonderful family, go and reread that CEO talking about how he took personal responsibility for throwing hundreds of his "family" out on the street right before the holidays.
These words mean nothing really. I expect the next CEO to not use meaningless phrases. How does "taking responsibility" works in his case? What does it even mean other than PR fluff?
why would you expect the next CEO to not use weasel words? it's like they all go to the same "mom school". they all go to the same tailor to make teflon suits so nothing sticks to them, and they all learn the same "rain in spain falls on the plain" dreck.
No, responsibility is not a word. Responsibility is an action.
If I'm on-call, I'm responsible to carry my laptop with me and be available immediately to fix critical issues. I don't just say "I take responsibility of being on-call", and the leave my laptop at home, get drunk and fall asleep in a bar for the weekend. That's called being irresponsible.
I see. But that's still like doing your job. I do my job for being on-call by having my laptop with me and phone on, etc. If do my job badly I get fired.
So this CEO is saying, "if I do my job poorly I understand I could get fired."
But, did he/she do their job poorly? That's the thing I can't figure out quite yet. It seems it was bad for the laid off people, but maybe not for Dropbox?
>"if I do my job poorly I understand I could get fired."
If I got a million dollar parachute when I do my job badly, I would love to "take responsibility" as well. Fuck the people, I get paid either way here.
> But, did he/she do their job poorly?
in a fiduciary sence short term, no. So shareholders are happy since that's all their care about.
Long term, who knows? I don't see them closing the gap with Google nor Microsoft so this could just accelerate that downfall.
in a spirit of, as some politician say, "creating jobs and stimulating the economy", absolutely awfully. We have 500 more workers out on an awful job market and it's not because DBX wasn't profitable. They simply dropped workers to prepare for a bad time that the US economy doesn't want to admit out loud.
A 20% layoff means either the market changed very very quickly or something went terribly wrong in the company strategy. Here it's the second scenario and I'd expect the CEO to be on shaky grounds after such bad results.
There needs to be more explanation on where the CEO screwed up that badly and the consequences for the management.
At the very very least, they should be explaining how Dropbox is suddenly a 20% smaller company, because either that means the market has contracted by 20%, or Dropbox has shit the bed as a competitive entity in said market.
Both options should directly imply that the CEO should earn less. Either you're running a smaller, simpler company, or you sucked at your job.
Actually they don't. Well run companies have cash reserves and expect to have periods of ups and downs. They don't pray to the alter of the next quarterly report.
They do it to suppress wages, not only because of economic instability. It’s worked - wages are down across industry. Wage suppression is one of the responsibilities of a well run business (the CEO together with HR hires consultant help for this or they hire a benefits and wages role, and it’s referred to as market positioning)
It's pretty cynical to say that wage suppression is one of the responsibilities of a CEO. But perhaps not off the mark.
If only we had the equivalent on the other side to balance the equation. Some kind of a group of individual employees, who work together to counter wage suppression efforts.
historically in tech, that group is some new competitor that "disrupts the industry" and either becomes a new power respecting talent for a while, or gets bought out by a megacorp and given that huge salary once again.
That's really the main saving grace for this industry; the scalability that a few employees can still provide a solution that makes corporations with hundreds of thousands of workers sweat. That's why they surged salaries so aggressively in the 00's and half the '10's
That's also the reason why unionization will be a hard argument among tech workers. Slowly starting to happen in the games industry, so that at least confirms there IS a breaking point somewhere for that to happen.
not saying I should go work for McKinsey, just noticing that unnecessary payments are likely happening. companies don't exist to employ people. employees exist to help companies. just make everyone a decent shareholder with decent liquidity and move on when the employee isn't necessary.
>companies don't exist to employ people. employees exist to help companies.
Companies in society exist to serve the customer, provide labor opportunities, and overall stimulate the economy (all of which is needed to make money).
This mentality above is exactly why the latter half of Millensials and Gen Z were demystified by the labor market and simply don't take the kind of "loyalty" narrative of the older generations. You can't talk family, layoff "family" every 2 years regardless of talent and pretend that "hard workers get rewarded". So you'll get the bare minimum, you will get no overtime when you request it (especially if you aren't paying 1.5x), and you probably won't even get the long dead 2 weeks notice when I move on.
You can't expect much more "help" when you can't give the basic modicrum of respect to your help.
> just make everyone a decent shareholder with decent liquidity and move on when the employee isn't necessary.
They should make whole those affected, as best as possible. The CEO, who is the responsible party by their own declaration, should distribute their personal wealth to those affected until all parties have approximately the same amount of wealth.
How about describing what exactly taking full responsibility means for them in that particular situation?
Saying e.g. what is the impact on the situation for those responsible might be nice - no bonuses for next year? A plan in place so that this doesn't happen again? Stepping down as a CEO?
I mean, if I take responsibility for e.g. wrong tax filing, I pay the fine penalty, and/or go to jail.
Saying "I take responsibility" some kind of failure while having no consequences for said failure is not taking responsibility.
Takes full responsibility - check
Layoffs are still there