Uber is laying off 10% of staff(www.uber.com)
32 pointsby DeepLogin3 hours ago4 comments
  • garbawarb2 hours ago
    > We are also asking the vast majority of remote employees to move to an office, and going forward, only ~1% of employees will be remote.

    If you believe in return-to-office as a soft layoff, even more than 10% will be leaving.

  • Artgor2 hours ago
    "In Pulse surveys and conversations with many of you, we’ve heard that too much work requires coordination across teams, debates take too long, and decision-making rights are unclear. I’m sure many of you have felt that you spend too much time “aligning” rather than building, shipping, or serving customers. To improve this, we have reduced roles primarily focused on coordination, and have clarified the remit of the coordination roles that remain. "

    Well, in theory this sounds reasonable. But who knows what will be the real consequences.

    • sznio37 minutes ago
      I don't get it. Too much time is spent coordinating, so fire those who are responsible for coordination? Am I reading this wrong?
      • etse3 minutes ago
        That's how I read it, too.

        They pinpointed the problem of over-coordination to the messenger (coordinator) instead of the teams demanding final approval over launches (coordination).

        Won't merging different teams under a single owner only push the problem further down the org chart?

      • jerjerjer22 minutes ago
        People whose primary job is to "coordinate" often, either in a well-meaning attempt to be thorough or just to be relevant, try to pull as many different people into any decision-making as possible.

        So instead of me just getting approval from my manager, I need to get approval/buy-in from departments A, B, and C.

        In that case, firing the "coordinator" person increases velocity because parts of the business processes they prop disappear.

      • csande1722 minutes ago
        There were too many meetings, so they got rid of the people whose jobs were to create lots of meetings.
  • 33 minutes ago
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  • 1attice35 minutes ago
    Interesting -- it doesn't cite AI (smart comms move, and a change from recent practice) but the buried lede is that this frees up resources etc etc.

    I think we might be in a new phase: AI layoffs are now being disguised as regular layoffs (rather than the other way around) because of the backlash.

    • jaykru14 minutes ago
      Layoff note mentions AI => it's not AI

      Layoff note omits AI => it's AI

      I am onboard with the idea that corporate messaging is typically anything but forthright but I don't see the logic here.

      • 1attice5 minutes ago
        Because AI is now a monstrous political issue, and the valence has flipped -- literally the irony I was pointing to :)