Right. The same site from which this is taken shows ~400k open tech positions. That ratio is pretty decent.

Didn't Elon just say how Tesla's software needs more work? How is he going to do that without software engineers? Is Tesla even laying off software people or other employees? As a model 3 owner, the mobile app sucks, the in-car UI/UX which was cutting edge is now falling behind, let's not talk about auto-pilot/self-driving. They should be desperate for better software people.

The one common thing about "overvalued" companies is that they either need to show strong growth or their stock is going to be decimated. Management often looks at headcount as proxy of growth (I'd argue that's not always correct but that's a different question). It's extremely dangerous for the stock price of these "overvalued" companies to do massive layoffs both in term of further hurting the short term and a big impact on the long term. If they have plenty of cash they can and should be looking forward. That said this can be a reasonable excuse to offload some lower performing employees or adjust some priorities.

More isn't a replacemnet for better

I'm in agreement with you.

I know the people who were laid off were passionate about what they were working on - and this was a big disruption to their life.

But when I see some of these layoffs, my immediate thought is:

1.) Who is this company and how did they have so many people?

2.) OK, that industry experienced a COVID boon (edtech, mortgages)

3.) Taking advantage of others laying off people to get rid of poor performers

Netflix laying off employees; I'm sorry, but Netflix is mostly a catalog of garbage at an ever increasing cost, with legitimate competitors at this point.

"real industries"?

What is a real industry to you? Farming done by migrant, mostly illegal workers, or machines? Manufacturing of goods that mostly happens in China?

Not to be a luddite, but a ton of tech ventures now straddle the edge of value addition to society. Value might be subjective, but its hard to see how a NFT marketplace is as valuable to society as, say, a tractor factory or steel plant.

For sure. The unicorn era is characterized by an oversupply of venture capital that gets spent well in advance of proportionate proof of utility. E.g., Theranos and WeWork. Or pretty much the whole [1] of the metastasizing crytpowhatever space. Layoffs in nonproductive companies are good, IMHO. And the sooner the better, as the longer someone spends in a bubble, the harder it is for them to adapt when the bubble pops.

[1] Not your personal favorite, of course. That one's the pony in there somewhere. https://quoteinvestigator.com/2013/12/13/pony-somewhere/

Netflix isn't an NFT and just because they have competition now doesn't devalue them as first mover with millions of subs.

I find those to be exceptions to most companies in our economy. Construction of housing, food, medicine, water, army/police are your base levels.

An NFT marketplace is a similar to gambling or derivatives. The value is potential income for people.

"value" is an ambiguous word. I think you understand it as "something people are willing to put money into", which certainly covers gambling.

Another definition of "value" is something which increased the economic output, a positive-sum game. Thus gambling (which is zero-sum) does not create value.

Derivatives do create value in the second sense, in that they can be used to protect against risk, thus creating value (or allowing the creation of value). Yes, they can also be used for the equivalent of gambling, but they have additional uses.

> An NFT marketplace is a similar to gambling or derivatives.

Derivatives have real utility.

Just to be clear, gambling is a net societal negative. For every dollar that goes in, less than a dollar in income comes out. It's going to happen, but let's not pretend that it's value-creating.

I don't see how you can say this. The 2 most valuable tech companies started in the 2000s are Facebook and Google. Those 2 companies are glorified Ad Companies that happen to provide a service so they can aggregate data to sell more ads.

Other than organizing the information of the internet (lately it is debatable as to how well they have been doing this lately) via google, what value addition would you say facebook or google is providing?

Same thing with Uber, now that VCs are no longer subsidizing Car rides for the entire world, it's just a more expensive cab.

What are the tech ventures that have been adding value addition to society. Based on the experience i've had with family members becomes complete Q psychos i'd say net negative on facebook's part and they dont even build anything.

a real industry makes things that people want. Farming, mining, chinese manufacturing. Coinbase is a glitch in our regulations on the other hand and we shouldn't be wasting our brightest minds on convincing people to sign up for accounts.

Is Flexport part of a real industry? Is Stripe? Is Gusto?

Just because something is not physical, doesn't mean it's not valuable.

> Places that make things that people want.

Please ignore the man behind the curtain.

> in real industries

riplol

The world will get by if we have fewer coinbases, SaaS companies and other tech jobs. If we have fewer factories, oil refineries, meat packing plants; there will be shortages and riots.

I mean, hopefully some of those tech jobs are making those oil refineries, factories, meat packing plants more efficient.

Then they're in a "real" industry. How many of them are actually doing that?

I was recently interviewing for a lot of jobs (20 or more) and most of them were in “real” industries. Making factories more efficient, improving logistics, tools for various laboratory facilities to work more consistently and efficiently, etc.

Around 75% of what I encountered touched real products, workers, and production directly.

It seems like there is plenty of that kind of tech out there and in development right now.

The other 4 or 5 companies were strictly internet related, selling digital products to people doing things on computers.

I’m not sure if I encountered that because that’s a reasonable representation of what’s out there right now. I do know I prefer work where I get to support real people doing real things, so to speak. In any case, there are definitely roles like this out there and plenty of companies hiring.

It's amazing how for some people hatred of the political opposite causes glee when tech companies fail and people lose their jobs. People who may not be political and who probably need their job.

All of this being done on internet forums and social media produced and managed by those same people.

I don't blame em. Tech has always thought of itself as a bunch of snowflakes.

Reality is, yes, it's a new industry, but no, it's not special.

Every other industry I've been exposed to has all the same bullshit office politics. The same supposed "in jokes" that only "their industry" would understand.