Mike Lacher:
Team,
There's no easy way to say this: I have made the difficult decision to lay off over six thousand of you. In the past two years, we have achieved huge wins together. But unfortunately, the macroeconomic environment has shifted in ways none of us could have foreseen, from an economy in which I did feel like paying you, to one in which I'd rather not.
In 2021, things looked different. Interest rates were low, and my enthusiasm for bankrolling your children's insulin was high. Given every available forecast, it was the perfect time to hire 1,200 blockchain developers, spin up original streaming content, and lead three rounds of funding for my nephew's AI-powered B2B sourdough recipe app. Who could have known that in just a few months, despite all our operational velocity, the world would pivot so dramatically? Supply chains have stalled. Inflation has risen. And suddenly all your salaries and dental work hang like millstones chafing the supple neck of my stock compensation package. [...]
This was not an easy decision to make. It's weighed heavily on me for the past month, keeping me up at night and nearly causing me to cancel the exec team's offsite, even though Bad Bunny's appearance fee was only 50 percent refundable. Let's not mince words, though; the accountability for this decision rests with me. The consequences, on the other hand, rest with you, but so does a pretty generous COBRA package.
Matt Stratton on twitter
"If an AI can write the email you want to send, it isn't worth reading." - meme making the viral rounds out there.
Huh, I wonder if we've officially hit the "good prices on lightly used Herman-Miller chairs" stage of the cycle of reincarnation yet?
If you spot that in Seattle, sing out. I need a new office chair, presuming that all the clients I see who can afford my hourly rates aren't dropping like flies due to tech layoffs.
I'd check the dumpsters behind Microsoft HQ.
We're in a curious interim stage. It's been obvious for a while that people who say we should just burn the plutocrats (not metaphorically) will be seen in a few years (after the plutocrats are burned) as visionaries. But if you actually say, today, that we should burn the plutocrats, you will generally get your comments censored and at worst get a knock on the door at 3AM.
But we should burn the plutocrats, we really should.
I don't know if I agree with this. This is not the sort of conclusion we can arrive at lightly. There are a lot of things to consider.
We can't just settle on combustion like this when so many other excellent options exist.
Surely using them as fertiliser is a better use for them? They'll finally be of some use to society then :)
And burning is so bad for the environment - think of all the particulate put into the atmosphere!
Please consider the Asthmatic Kittens when liquidating Plutes,
Thank You.
The best compromise solution is biochar