Stack Overflow reducing headcount by 20%

Re:Stack Overflow reducing headcount by 20% by pjc50 on Friday November 03, 2017 @06:29AM (#15618031)

> instead of terminating an employee, the company might reduce executive pay,

Well that won't happen.

Apart from a few cases where executives agree to take all their compensation in equity to rescue a failing business, they tend to pay themselves first, sometimes at the cost of the long term health of the business. Philip Green / BHS is the example that comes to mind.

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Re:Stack Overflow reducing headcount by 20% by dogruck on Friday November 03, 2017 @06:55AM (#15618137)

To be fair, your example is not a counterpoint because the company also collapsed.

I think you’d have to show examples where a company:

  1. Was not allowed to fire employees,
  2. Executives did not take a pay cut,
  3. The company continued to do well.

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Re:Stack Overflow reducing headcount by 20% by pjc50 on Friday November 03, 2017 @10:40AM (#15619498)

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/jun/27/sir-philip-...

> it had found that “the main purpose of the sale of BHS was to postpone BHS’s insolvency to prevent a liability to the schemes falling due while it was part of the Taveta group of companies ultimately owned by the Green family, and/or that the effect of the sale was materially detrimental to the schemes.”

IE, Green underfunded the pension scheme in order to pay himself several hundred million pounds, and then sold the company off to escape liability for it. He "voluntarily" paid back £363 million in order to end an investigation that might have resulted in him being jailed.

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