throwaway45501

I'm terribly sorry, I can't describe my idea and expect to stay anonymous. If I would ever describe it again I could be linked to the account, which defeats purpose of creating the throwaway account.

One day I hope to be a billionaire and at least try to change the system. I would gladly spend nost of my wealth to see this happen.

I view this behavior as an emerging property, and I don't think you can get rid of it.

What we as a society can do is educate people that companies are not your friends, that they are amoral, and they exist to maximize their profits. I think we shouldn't allow them to make political donations or support any charity or social movement because this makes them seem "friendly," - which is a net negative for society.

Can you elaborate on why civil disobedience is the only choice? I don't think it is. We haven't tried other solutions. I would love to see a global agreement to cap the wealth of any individual at $1 billion dollars and the total market value of any company at $100bn (those numbers are arbitrary).

That would be true, if majority of those fired were visa workers, or people who moved across country. Is this the case?

Who told you that you'll have a job until your performance drops? Was that the contract? You'll have a job for as long as you're needed to the company. Once your services are no longer required you'll be laid off. Why should anyone pay you if they no longer need your services? Is this the social contract in USA?

I see nothing deceptive nor cruel in it, unless Google promised not to fired these people

Now, Visa workers and people who moved should be taken care of separately, I agree. Firing them is not ok, at least not without extra compensation. However, are they a big percentage of those laid-off? Centering discussion about minority like if they are majority isn't helpful.

As for power imbalance.. Those hired at FAANG are one of the smartest people in the population. They should have known all of this and factor in all of this. It's hard to treat seriously people who make $300k/year and say they were cruely harmed because they were fired and now they may need to apply to another job.

I wrote this elsewhere, but I do not support Google. I view them as amoral, they make whatever is necessary to maximize profit.

I do not support Google's policy. I view USA's labor laws as barbaric. In EU paid leave and paid maternity leave is standard, nobody even view them as extra benefits.

I just don't understand why very intelligent people are surprised by all of this, and why they expect to never be laid-off.

Business is not your friend, it's not your family. The only goal of business is to make profit. If they can make something good along the way - great, but don't expect them to do it.

At this scale it seems very hard to make good decisions. It looks like a lot of companies overestimated their long term needs. Also, they might have hired those employees to prevent competition from hiring them,and it might have been a good business decision. What people fail to understand is that corporations goal is not to maximize well-being of their employees.

I wonder if this is a result of liberal movement that allowed those companies to leech to various causes (LGBTQ rights,gender equality, etc) and allowed them to spread image of friendly, responsible, good, family-like image. I 100% support those movements myself, but I also have seen this coming for years. As soon as it no longer pays off to be friendly, corporations stop be such.

The best way to fight this is to educate people that corporations are not your friend, family, they don't care much about you.

Do you keep paying a plumber once they complete their job? As employee I enter into mutually beneficial (and in case of IT and FAANG - extremely beneficial) contract knowing that I can be fired once the company deems my services no longer necessary.

The backlash comes from highest educated, best skilled people who received high salaries and who have great prospects of being hired again quickly. Why they suffer?

Should these companies not hire those employees in the first place? The employees would be jobless then, our would be hired by companies witch they previously rejected in favor of FAANG.

To me it all seems like reality check for people who for years were bit out of touch with, well, reality. This is what regular people deal with all the time.

Regarding your argument about falling birth rates - education, career, job stability etc. are all negatively correlated with birth rates. I'm pretty sure that FAANG employees have one of the lowest birth rates in society - I admit, I have no data to back this up.

Why is it the company's responsibility to keep employees that are no longer necessary? I don't understand that. Did Google or any other company promised these people that they will be hired forever? Google hired them and paid them very cushy salaries. What am I missing? I really don't understand the discussion around those recent layoffs.