Why are CEOs blaming AI for layoffs? Perhaps they don’t want to admit to their own mistakes.
  • trem@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
    12·
    3 days ago

    I imagine, this is more about software devs than sysadmins. Sure, you’ll hire a couple more sysadmins to help with the massive user growth during the pandemic. But especially combined with loans basically being made free in the same time, it’s suddenly worth hiring a bunch of devs to build the Next Big Thing™.

    Once those loans start costing again and the user numbers fall off, you quickly have lots of devs that you can’t find tasks for, that are worth doing.

    • MangoCats@feddit.itEnglish
      2·
      3 days ago

      Management loves them some rank & yank - not only are you culling the low performers, you’re retaining the doormats who you know will put up with all kinds of BS going forward.

      • phutatorius@lemmy.zipEnglish
        1·
        2 days ago

        Where I worked, stack-ranking was a way to get rid of people who were non-compliant with management bullshit, and also to punish those who took on the technically difficult or risky work. So, if you worked on a project that didn’t achieve its goals because the requirements were inconsistent with the laws of physics (real example, too bad I can’t share details), you’d be punished, while someone who’s a predictable performer at a simple, low-risk task would be spared. With (dis)incentives like that, you can guess the result.

        Also, note that Andreesen is a big investor in AI, so he would say that, wouldn’t he? Gotta keep that bubble inflated!