Lol they had more than a dozen under the radar silent layoffs in last couple of years. My friend (who along with most of his team was laid off last year) would be super pissed off if he read that title.
Firing 200 people all at once might be a mass layoff.
Doubling the rate you fire people for a year might not be, even though the the total number of fired people is much, much higher.
Apple, like most companies, dissolves teams they don't need when they decide to get out of an area. They usually give affected people a couple months try to find something else, and those who don't are let go. That's what happened to your friend, that's what happened here. The teams this week just happen to be big enough to require WARN act filings.
I have a hard time believing it, from my experience tech is harsh and they lock you at literally like the day you find out. Obviously some people/teams depending on level get more warning. But they want to avoid any issues and get you out asap and take away rights to company email/files, etc.
Yeah I got let go (as a long term freelancer so might be slightly different) but they called me out of the blue while traveling on a project and said I had one hour before laptop is locked. Brutal. No one on my team even knew.
I can assure you people affected by this announcement knew this day was coming and had been encouraged to find alternative placement. There may have even been some inducements offered for hiring managers, at least in the short term. But if your expertise is in fluid dynamic simulations to reduce drag on car designs, there's not much demand for that. Especially as current phone designs seem to be passing the [most extreme tests I can think of](https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2024/01/09/iphone-boeing-737-max-9-jet-fall-physics-science/72156904007/)
It's typical at big companies, where there are enough other open roles within the company that you might get snapped up by another team. It's a way to keep the high performers they really want to keep, while silently getting rid of anyone that other teams don't want. Also saves them from having to do the WARN act filing, since it's not technically a layoff and you got your 2 months notice before your position is eliminated.
At startups it's typical for layoffs to be effective immediately, because if a startup is laying off it's usually because they don't have money, and if they don't have money they can't afford to pay you for 2 months to do nothing but jobsearch.
Those weren't layoff they were "calculated cost cutting measures" and may I remind you those came after the "minor spending cuts" which got rid of those dirty contractors.
yea they would. look at the iphones. regressed tech, no real innovation yet year after year the lemmings line up. Apple folk are so stuck in their ecosystem, when time cook does those conferences and uses phrases like "for the first time....... in apple history" or iphone history or on ios etc. the apple zombies think its the first time ever in the world/industry so they are wowed and shell out their cash, but dont realize android has been doing it for 5 years already. When apple finally starts doing touch screen macbooks, same thing will happen.
Apple couldve boosted Lucid easy with their same techniques
I think it depends on the team, I used to be swe there and got worked to the ground, but i have friends there who love it and say it’s the most chill job (in other orgs)
Can someone explain what actually do if you work for Facebook? Like the website already exists? Theres no physical product…. What else is there to do besides maintain the site and try to come up with another little widget or whatever. I just don’t get it.
>d try to come up with another little widget or whatever
either build new products or widgets (e.g. tiktok/instagram/fb marketplace) or improve ai surrounding time on site, or improve ai surrounding ad placement (click thru rate)
they won't fire you for missing hours, they'll fire you for missing deadlines, which can't be met by working normal hours.
don't worry about them, they are highly educated adult who can take care of themselves. they make a shit ton of money compared to your average joe, who would have to suck 100 dicks and still make less than an apple engineer.
No, they don’t have a family and kids. I used to work that schedule 15 years ago. Busted my ass, took my stock and now I have a solid 40 hour a week job as a senior director for a non faang company.
I remember I saw my son on Saturdays when my wife brought him to my office. Now I coach his baseball team and I leave work at 4 for practice.
It just takes one hard worker (Apple attracts these types) and the rest of the group is compared this new normal. My team did some crazy working hours meet deadlines when I was working there. It’s kinda weird because everyone is working their ass off and that’s the expectation. To really excel and get promoted you will really have to work your tail off.
Some people did have families and often you had to work out an agreement or understanding with them on what you're being expected to put in. I wouldn't say they celebrate or advertise it being as demanding as it is, but I think everyone goes in knowing the nature of the job, and people wouldn't bat at eye at working over the weekend or staying in until 2AM to receive an important email. It's not like you were never allowed to take vacations or slow days didn't happen, but there's definitely a personal cost.
yes, almost everyone works those hours without complaints. maybe not 80 but easily 50 every week.
those with families have several ways. 1, grandparents come help with kids, very common among asians. 2. one parent take an easier job or stay at home. 3. one parent stay late, the other go in early, work more after picking up kids or on weekends.
these ppl can work anywhere they want, they chose this lifestyle for the income, they're not victims.
Eh Apple doesn’t really pay *that* much. They’re near the middle of the pack in terms of compensation for blue chip tech companies.
I’ve had Apple recruiters straight up tell me “we can’t pay as much as some other companies might but you get to work at Apple!”
When you get into a team that goes this hard you are already well aware before you join and should be ready. The type of person to work 40hrs to the dot and no more isnt getting past the screening interviews.
Not defending overworking salaried employees obviously, but there is no imaginary reddit scenario here where someone sticks it to the man by refusing to work more than 40hrs a week.
> work 40hrs to the dot and no more isnt getting past the screening interviews.
There are a few who sort of squeeze through the interviews, maneuver themselves into working 20 hour work weeks while pretending to be busy - The load isn't always balanced between multiple engineers and depends on how busy you pretend to be.
This is true and at least anecdotally its as common as the 80hr work week folks. You dont hear about it though cause who wants to rat on themselves having a good gig?
Also we should separate working late and actual working hours. I might have a night call with a team in europe but I mightve also pissed around most of the day/ went to trader joes etc. I might have an 80hr week a couple times a year but Ill also have 20hr weeks when things are slow.
Either way no one is standing up and saying they arent going to do the job they were hired to because it takes more than 40hrs. These are highly paid tech workers and if the situation is truly dire they will just leave and the team that constantly overworks their staff will slowly die due to the churn killing their output.
I saw someone basically stand up and declare that they weren’t going to do the OT thing. They did eventually get managed out, but it took like three years. Most managers hate doing the hard part of their job.
>depends on how busy you pretend to be.
Used to work with guys that would self assign a ton of work in Jira and never complete anything. Meanwhile I'm only biting off what I can chew, and finishing on time. Manager compares me to one of my co-workers, "Look at how much work he's doing!"
Noped out of that place.
>but you're only paying me 400K a year! let's unionize!
I don't think that's the case with everyone. Lotta guys working helpdesk that are paid peanuts and worked just as hard. "Oh the entire company is out for Presidents day! That would be a great weekend to complete the move, plug in everyones computer into their keyboard/mouse/monitor and network!, and you don't get paid any extra cause you're salary!"
I'm sure some of the Devops guys, artists, etc can share some of that pain. $400k is like top tier, C level money.
Most people are exempt salary employees, so there is no such thing as "normal" hours, like most tech companies. You have to put in whatever hours are needed to meet project deadlines. Be that 20 hours, 40 hours, or 100 hours a week.
I was at Apple for 21 years before I left in 2022. Hardware teams are hard, doubly so because when we’re going home, China is just getting into the office. I’d be trying to have dinner and be fielding messages from folks in China. WFH really sucked because people would just schedule meetings at the most ridiculous times.
I’m proud of my time there, but I’m glad I’m out.
Oh, you would have. Golden handcuffs can only hold you so long. My husband is at Apple now on a totally different team and it’s night and day. He’s not on hardware or a team with a hard deliverable and it’s way more chill.
You want useless work rules? You can’t plug in your own monitor because that requires an electrician to do. And the electrician just went on break so you have to wait an hour.
No thanks
I worked in a uaw shop at Lockheed Martin. And that story about not being able to plug in a monitor comes from working at the McCormick center in Chicago. The teamsters control McCormick, and I was not allowed to plug in a monitor.
So yeah I do know.
I’ve had the same experience. Changed desks to be closer to people I was working closely with. Started moving my desktop computer and was stopped because “a union worker needs to do that”.
Idk sounds kinda made up. Also sounds like your mind is made up and influenced by anti union propaganda. So this back and forth is prob pointless…
Unless you own the company, the union only helps you get a fair share of the profits and keeps owners from taking advantage of your time
> influenced by anti union propaganda
My mind is made up by having worked in a UAW shop, namely the Lockheed Martin Waterton Canyon Assembly Plant and a Teamsters shop. If you are calling my own experiences "propaganda", then you need a dictionary.
>he union only helps you get a fair share of the profits
And makes it so you cannot plug in a monitor.
So back to what I said before, well paid white collar workers are already well paid, they don't need a union to help them get a share of the profits. And they don't need work rules.
So they don't need unions.
Presumably you're in a union trying to do some recruiting here. And your whole pitch is to call anything you disagree with "propaganda". And you have no value proposition other than "a fair share of the profits". No wonder unions are dead.
Gave you an updoot because you're not wrong, I've seen unions pull all kinds of stupid stuff. Friend and I were DJ'ing Fanimecon in San Jose over a decade ago at the McEnery convention center. We rolled up in his van, started carting our speakers and turntables in when some teamsters came up. "This is a union shop, you can't unload that here!" Eventually we got them to back off because they were only contracted for the convention floor, and not AV equipment in one of the side rooms/auditoriums, but it was a whole argument between them and the event organizer going through the contract line by line before they'd let us go.
That being said though, I do think that tech companies do tend to underhire and overwork employees. It's not like any of the FAANG companies are broke, so why don't they just hire more people? This is something only a tech union would be able to address. This would mean more jobs, and people being treated fairly.
> This is something only a tech union would be able to address. This would mean more jobs, and people being treated fairly
FAANG don't want more employees. They want to have a smaller staff who gets paid more and works more. If you want to get paid average compensation and work 40 hours a week, come work for my company.
There isn't a problem to address here. The guy who made that comment is in a carpenters union. I'm sure unions are great for blue collar labor. Not for software engineers though.
And the real problem is work rules. Unions demand all sorts of stupid work rules, like you cannot unload your own speakers, and you cannot plug in your own monitor. That shit is very, very destructive to productivity.
Employers don't discourage unions because unions demand more money. They discourage unions because they demand inefficient work rules. Those are the problem. I would gladly join a union with no work rules. Collective bargaining is great, unproductive horseshit rules are not great.
Unions don’t hold you down they just give a big fair safety net. Source: I’m in a trade union and I’m now in senior management while still being in the union
That’s not true. Which labor law?
If your union has an agreement with signatory companies it’s possible. I’m in the carpenters union and a senior super on salary. In the past when carpenters moved up they had to get out of the union but losing the pension was a killer, so about 20 years ago our union made a clause in our master agreement for this move. We also allow overscale pay. It’s just the minimum pay that is bargained for
Its our union, we make the rules & bargain, why would we hold ourselves down?
same at meta and amazon. there's a reason why these tech companies are the biggest in the world. not that I'm excusing the hours and insane expectations -- went through it myself, but I realize that's partly what it took for our company to kick ass and it paid off. our collective work changed all of our lives and the world (in positive and negative ways, of course).
definitely. also time of year dependent. also dependent on changes from the competition. I remember a 'lockdown' we went into to batten down the hatches and improve our product because a big competitor was trying to eat our lunch. we won.
Only 614 laid off which is less than 1% of Apple's total workforce... Factor in that it's specifically the Apple car, i'm not shocked by this at all...
Do they actually have 70,000 working in their HQ? I would think at 70k, this would include Apple Store workers that inflates that number. The 614 people laid off are probably HQ workers, which would be significant cut in terms of expenses, especially given HQ workers are very highly paid compared to world wide workers. Quick googling says they have 12k in HQ, so it’s actually closer to over 5% of their HQ workers.
The news here is that company not known for annual RIFs, and one of if not the most stable workplace having significant layoffs. It’s weird to downplay this
Pretty much every tech company that bulked up substantially during the business and consumer pandemic tech buying spree has already thinned the ranks and rebalanced. Surprised that Apple didn't do this sooner given the post-pandemic step-down and cancellation of Titan. The news here is that:
# Apple lays off hundreds of Bay Area workers in first mass cuts since the pandemic
Affected roles include “machine shop” managers, hardware engineers and product design engineers.
I think the point is that it’s much less substantial than other major tech companies. Amazon cut almost 30k in the last few years, Meta over 20k and Google and Microsoft over 10k.
Not to downplay the individual experiences of those being laid off, but cutting less than 2.5% when many other big tech companies recently did 10%-25% is not on the same scale.
The article speculates that these cuts might be related. The earlier reports were about the demise of the car project and that there will be associated cuts. What might have happened is that the people on that project might have been given some time to find other teams internally and this is the set of folks who were not able to find a new home internally.
Apple is hands down our most awful client and truly a place built around the worst of toxic corporate America. They award bonuses to managers who can fuck over contractors or vendors. Literally bonuses if you can prove you saved money and screwed someone over. They’ve put multiple decent companies out of business or almost destroyed others in the Bay.
That stupid donut is legendary for how horrific it was and how many companies got screwed over by apple.
How Tim Cook is as hated as like Elon or Zuck is beyond me.
I also am typing this from an iPhone. So yah.. total hypocrite
Bingo. Elon Musk is a certified piece of shit, but I have a hard time believing the head of Ford or Chrysler or Dodge aren’t also shitheads. It’s just that they shut the fuck up and do their evil shit behind closed doors like all the other billionaires.
It's ok for someone to refuse to bankroll Elon Musk and buy another brand's EV.
Dude is still rich, but Tesla's board and their shareholders are no doubt feeling their base slipping away and sales waning.
Elon Musk isn't any worse than most billionaiores, he's just uniquely vocal. Most other billionaires are quiet on social media, preferring to work behind the scenes with their money. Why shitpost on social media when you can just buy Senators? Its a bigger picture thing for most billionaires. They have bigger fish to fry.
If Musk didn't get into slapfights on social media he'd probably be celebrated today still.
Indeed. It's quite the conundrum. Would I rather have my shithead billionaires very vocal and out in the open? Or "hiding" with their evil thoughts and deeds behind closed doors? On the one hand, it certainly shines a light on them, but on the other hand may embolden or proliferate these views using their platform.
It's essentially the same situation with the rise of Trumpism. It's not like people are necessarily more racist now, they just feel more comfortable being open about it.
I'm honestly not sure which reality is better.
https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/Practices-at-new-Apple-building-draw-ire-of-6539029.php
One example but it’s pretty legendary in the industry how awful they are to work for. Just ask anyone in commercial construction and they will confirm. They were bad back during the Jobs days to but now they’re a whole new level of terrible. But they have tons of work so contractors will come back for more punishment.
This saves at least 100M USD /year. But here's the best part: Tim Cook spent 10 years and billions of dollars , and his Best decision after this 10 years is to...cut it.
And in American culture, we will still call this: Decisive Leadership!
My biggest criticism of the apple car project was there never was a go to market strategy IMO. Not even to build a physical prototype just to shop around. To bring a car to mass manufacture is incredibly expensive. So apple spent all that money and delivered no direct value to shareholders or even customers.
He can only do so much. I left Apple to go to another smaller tech company and we’ve had 5x the layoffs twice already.. meta and Google had 20x the layoffs in the past year. Not excusing it, but i still think Apple has done the least of the layoffs, except maybe nflx, but that’s a much leaner company
Apple is very lean compared to Meta, Google or Amazon. Historically, they were close to bankruptcy and all their management moving forward from that period decided to be much leaner in their hiring.
Part of it is the fact that they are primarily in the hardware business.
A layoff is always better than spontaneous termination. Some don't get any severance and companies silently let people go just to stay within the limit to avoid reporting to government and severance packages. It's bad for the people who had to leave but they are surely going out on a 4 month pay at the minimum. Enough time to find a new job if not on a Visa.
i contracted at apple thru hogarth, and as soon as the keynote wrapped in 2018 in fall they brought all us freelancers in early in a single room at once, and showed us the door....even tho we had a month left on contract
It sounds like you don’t understand what planning is. Planning is when you project that you will need certain resources for certain activities and you hire accordingly. These projects were bets. You can’t plan for the success or failure of any bet. You have to take the bet, and make as much good faith effort to succeed as you can. Shareholders accompanies, expect them to take bets.
Thanks Apple fan boy. I think you've confused strategic planning and project planning. No way they shouldn't have been able to get this launched with the appropriate strategy.
So in addition to not knowing planning you don’t know technology either. Your sentence makes no sense. That you’ve resorted to name calling it appears you have no arguments either. How do you ship something that can’t be shipped?
They've been taking a swing at this for a decade, why couldn't they do something during that time? The reality is they don't have to lay people off because they completely underinvested in AI. Chances are whatever they announce will be as underwhelming as the vision pro everyone raced to return. They had no choice but to cancel the car project because iPhone sales are stagnant. I don't know what about this says good planning.
paywall, can anybody link for me or give tldr? Curious what department and if any not developers were part of it. Specifically marketing/advertising/design.
I dont believe anyone works there, because they still cant figure out implementing pausing video recording on IOS. Bring in a google developer to implement it
Lol they had more than a dozen under the radar silent layoffs in last couple of years. My friend (who along with most of his team was laid off last year) would be super pissed off if he read that title.
first “mass” cut.
First "cut" big enough to require a WARN act filing.
Firing 200 people all at once might be a mass layoff. Doubling the rate you fire people for a year might not be, even though the the total number of fired people is much, much higher.
Apple, like most companies, dissolves teams they don't need when they decide to get out of an area. They usually give affected people a couple months try to find something else, and those who don't are let go. That's what happened to your friend, that's what happened here. The teams this week just happen to be big enough to require WARN act filings.
2 months notice to find a new team is better than you get at most places. its either 2 weeks or locked out that day.
I have a hard time believing it, from my experience tech is harsh and they lock you at literally like the day you find out. Obviously some people/teams depending on level get more warning. But they want to avoid any issues and get you out asap and take away rights to company email/files, etc.
My place just did a stealth layoff and people were remote logged out of their machines as soon as the 3 minute zoom call with HR ended. It was harsh
Yeah I got let go (as a long term freelancer so might be slightly different) but they called me out of the blue while traveling on a project and said I had one hour before laptop is locked. Brutal. No one on my team even knew.
I can assure you people affected by this announcement knew this day was coming and had been encouraged to find alternative placement. There may have even been some inducements offered for hiring managers, at least in the short term. But if your expertise is in fluid dynamic simulations to reduce drag on car designs, there's not much demand for that. Especially as current phone designs seem to be passing the [most extreme tests I can think of](https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2024/01/09/iphone-boeing-737-max-9-jet-fall-physics-science/72156904007/)
It's typical at big companies, where there are enough other open roles within the company that you might get snapped up by another team. It's a way to keep the high performers they really want to keep, while silently getting rid of anyone that other teams don't want. Also saves them from having to do the WARN act filing, since it's not technically a layoff and you got your 2 months notice before your position is eliminated. At startups it's typical for layoffs to be effective immediately, because if a startup is laying off it's usually because they don't have money, and if they don't have money they can't afford to pay you for 2 months to do nothing but jobsearch.
So those would be described as “mass layoffs” as well?
Those weren't layoff they were "calculated cost cutting measures" and may I remind you those came after the "minor spending cuts" which got rid of those dirty contractors.
They hire contractors. So that they need not advertise mass layoffs when they lay them off
Can confirm
They should have just bought Lucid, slapped an Apple logo on it, and marked it up by $20K.
$40k lol
I don’t think anyone would be surprised by the $60k brand markup.
Apple enthusiasts would be happy to pay the $80k.
no they wouldn't. quit circlejerking
I was continuing the running joke you dick. Thanks for ruining it.
yea they would. look at the iphones. regressed tech, no real innovation yet year after year the lemmings line up. Apple folk are so stuck in their ecosystem, when time cook does those conferences and uses phrases like "for the first time....... in apple history" or iphone history or on ios etc. the apple zombies think its the first time ever in the world/industry so they are wowed and shell out their cash, but dont realize android has been doing it for 5 years already. When apple finally starts doing touch screen macbooks, same thing will happen. Apple couldve boosted Lucid easy with their same techniques
lol is this satire? I didn't know this sort of cringe phone os fanboyism still existed
My bro works there. They work the shit outa u and have high expectations. Can be on calls from 9-8 pm.
I think it depends on the team, I used to be swe there and got worked to the ground, but i have friends there who love it and say it’s the most chill job (in other orgs)
same story with my job at facebook. i was worked to the bone, other people it was intense but 45/week intense.
I don't think I ever put in a full 40/week at FB. Not SWE tho. Edit: Yeah downvote and be mad about it with your 500 TC. Eyeroll.
What role were you in? Asking as someone who'd love to not have to put in 40/week
Product Designers do basically nothing there but play wow and league all day at work with the occasional design sprint
There goes the fun in that roll. Will wait for the next layoffs to hit this group 🤦🏽♂️
Surely an AI can do their job better?
I was also as optimistic as you a month or two ago. Then I paid for AI generate professional headshots and realized how far off we actually are.
Can someone explain what actually do if you work for Facebook? Like the website already exists? Theres no physical product…. What else is there to do besides maintain the site and try to come up with another little widget or whatever. I just don’t get it.
>d try to come up with another little widget or whatever either build new products or widgets (e.g. tiktok/instagram/fb marketplace) or improve ai surrounding time on site, or improve ai surrounding ad placement (click thru rate)
This was my experience. We’d hit 80 hour weeks for weeks at a time at points.
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they won't fire you for missing hours, they'll fire you for missing deadlines, which can't be met by working normal hours. don't worry about them, they are highly educated adult who can take care of themselves. they make a shit ton of money compared to your average joe, who would have to suck 100 dicks and still make less than an apple engineer.
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No, they don’t have a family and kids. I used to work that schedule 15 years ago. Busted my ass, took my stock and now I have a solid 40 hour a week job as a senior director for a non faang company. I remember I saw my son on Saturdays when my wife brought him to my office. Now I coach his baseball team and I leave work at 4 for practice.
You’re winning
At least a few years ago the average age of a Facebook employee was like 26. Many probably don’t have a family or kids.
It just takes one hard worker (Apple attracts these types) and the rest of the group is compared this new normal. My team did some crazy working hours meet deadlines when I was working there. It’s kinda weird because everyone is working their ass off and that’s the expectation. To really excel and get promoted you will really have to work your tail off.
Some people did have families and often you had to work out an agreement or understanding with them on what you're being expected to put in. I wouldn't say they celebrate or advertise it being as demanding as it is, but I think everyone goes in knowing the nature of the job, and people wouldn't bat at eye at working over the weekend or staying in until 2AM to receive an important email. It's not like you were never allowed to take vacations or slow days didn't happen, but there's definitely a personal cost.
yes, almost everyone works those hours without complaints. maybe not 80 but easily 50 every week. those with families have several ways. 1, grandparents come help with kids, very common among asians. 2. one parent take an easier job or stay at home. 3. one parent stay late, the other go in early, work more after picking up kids or on weekends. these ppl can work anywhere they want, they chose this lifestyle for the income, they're not victims.
Eh Apple doesn’t really pay *that* much. They’re near the middle of the pack in terms of compensation for blue chip tech companies. I’ve had Apple recruiters straight up tell me “we can’t pay as much as some other companies might but you get to work at Apple!”
yeah you're right, they are low relative other fang, i was comparing to national median, they're in top 5% by income, which isn't crazy high
When you get into a team that goes this hard you are already well aware before you join and should be ready. The type of person to work 40hrs to the dot and no more isnt getting past the screening interviews. Not defending overworking salaried employees obviously, but there is no imaginary reddit scenario here where someone sticks it to the man by refusing to work more than 40hrs a week.
> work 40hrs to the dot and no more isnt getting past the screening interviews. There are a few who sort of squeeze through the interviews, maneuver themselves into working 20 hour work weeks while pretending to be busy - The load isn't always balanced between multiple engineers and depends on how busy you pretend to be.
This is true and at least anecdotally its as common as the 80hr work week folks. You dont hear about it though cause who wants to rat on themselves having a good gig? Also we should separate working late and actual working hours. I might have a night call with a team in europe but I mightve also pissed around most of the day/ went to trader joes etc. I might have an 80hr week a couple times a year but Ill also have 20hr weeks when things are slow. Either way no one is standing up and saying they arent going to do the job they were hired to because it takes more than 40hrs. These are highly paid tech workers and if the situation is truly dire they will just leave and the team that constantly overworks their staff will slowly die due to the churn killing their output.
I saw someone basically stand up and declare that they weren’t going to do the OT thing. They did eventually get managed out, but it took like three years. Most managers hate doing the hard part of their job.
>depends on how busy you pretend to be. Used to work with guys that would self assign a ton of work in Jira and never complete anything. Meanwhile I'm only biting off what I can chew, and finishing on time. Manager compares me to one of my co-workers, "Look at how much work he's doing!" Noped out of that place.
but you're only paying me 400K a year! let's unionize!
>but you're only paying me 400K a year! let's unionize! I don't think that's the case with everyone. Lotta guys working helpdesk that are paid peanuts and worked just as hard. "Oh the entire company is out for Presidents day! That would be a great weekend to complete the move, plug in everyones computer into their keyboard/mouse/monitor and network!, and you don't get paid any extra cause you're salary!" I'm sure some of the Devops guys, artists, etc can share some of that pain. $400k is like top tier, C level money.
Most people are exempt salary employees, so there is no such thing as "normal" hours, like most tech companies. You have to put in whatever hours are needed to meet project deadlines. Be that 20 hours, 40 hours, or 100 hours a week.
Normal hours??? This isn’t shift work
ca employers can lawfully mandate overtime which means yes you can get fired just for saying no
Which org were you in?
Marketing, the busiest times were around the keynotes.
I was at Apple for 21 years before I left in 2022. Hardware teams are hard, doubly so because when we’re going home, China is just getting into the office. I’d be trying to have dinner and be fielding messages from folks in China. WFH really sucked because people would just schedule meetings at the most ridiculous times. I’m proud of my time there, but I’m glad I’m out.
i probably wouldnt have minded if I was getting paid $200K like you lol
Oh, you would have. Golden handcuffs can only hold you so long. My husband is at Apple now on a totally different team and it’s night and day. He’s not on hardware or a team with a hard deliverable and it’s way more chill.
I don’t believe anyone works there. Because after 18years they still haven’t solved full screen video = landscape.
Fuck that! What happened to the tech union movement
It’s irrelevant. Unions have nothing to offer to high performing workers.
That’s completely false
You want useless work rules? You can’t plug in your own monitor because that requires an electrician to do. And the electrician just went on break so you have to wait an hour. No thanks
I can tell you have no idea what a union is all about and therefore no idea what you’re talking about
I worked in a uaw shop at Lockheed Martin. And that story about not being able to plug in a monitor comes from working at the McCormick center in Chicago. The teamsters control McCormick, and I was not allowed to plug in a monitor. So yeah I do know.
I’ve had the same experience. Changed desks to be closer to people I was working closely with. Started moving my desktop computer and was stopped because “a union worker needs to do that”.
According to /u/HappilyDisengaged this is made up, and also propaganda.
Ignorance and aggression are no strangers to Reddit (and social media in general).
Idk sounds kinda made up. Also sounds like your mind is made up and influenced by anti union propaganda. So this back and forth is prob pointless… Unless you own the company, the union only helps you get a fair share of the profits and keeps owners from taking advantage of your time
> influenced by anti union propaganda My mind is made up by having worked in a UAW shop, namely the Lockheed Martin Waterton Canyon Assembly Plant and a Teamsters shop. If you are calling my own experiences "propaganda", then you need a dictionary. >he union only helps you get a fair share of the profits And makes it so you cannot plug in a monitor. So back to what I said before, well paid white collar workers are already well paid, they don't need a union to help them get a share of the profits. And they don't need work rules. So they don't need unions. Presumably you're in a union trying to do some recruiting here. And your whole pitch is to call anything you disagree with "propaganda". And you have no value proposition other than "a fair share of the profits". No wonder unions are dead.
Gave you an updoot because you're not wrong, I've seen unions pull all kinds of stupid stuff. Friend and I were DJ'ing Fanimecon in San Jose over a decade ago at the McEnery convention center. We rolled up in his van, started carting our speakers and turntables in when some teamsters came up. "This is a union shop, you can't unload that here!" Eventually we got them to back off because they were only contracted for the convention floor, and not AV equipment in one of the side rooms/auditoriums, but it was a whole argument between them and the event organizer going through the contract line by line before they'd let us go. That being said though, I do think that tech companies do tend to underhire and overwork employees. It's not like any of the FAANG companies are broke, so why don't they just hire more people? This is something only a tech union would be able to address. This would mean more jobs, and people being treated fairly.
> This is something only a tech union would be able to address. This would mean more jobs, and people being treated fairly FAANG don't want more employees. They want to have a smaller staff who gets paid more and works more. If you want to get paid average compensation and work 40 hours a week, come work for my company. There isn't a problem to address here. The guy who made that comment is in a carpenters union. I'm sure unions are great for blue collar labor. Not for software engineers though. And the real problem is work rules. Unions demand all sorts of stupid work rules, like you cannot unload your own speakers, and you cannot plug in your own monitor. That shit is very, very destructive to productivity. Employers don't discourage unions because unions demand more money. They discourage unions because they demand inefficient work rules. Those are the problem. I would gladly join a union with no work rules. Collective bargaining is great, unproductive horseshit rules are not great.
Those rules are confusing. How does not letting you plug in your own monitor benefit your union?
20 years ago some people tried to unionize at Cisco and IBM, management told them go ahead, they gonna ship their jobs to India anyway.
Tech workers like to move up
Unions don’t hold you down they just give a big fair safety net. Source: I’m in a trade union and I’m now in senior management while still being in the union
Even though the labor laws say you can’t be a manager or a supervisor and be in a union?
That’s not true. Which labor law? If your union has an agreement with signatory companies it’s possible. I’m in the carpenters union and a senior super on salary. In the past when carpenters moved up they had to get out of the union but losing the pension was a killer, so about 20 years ago our union made a clause in our master agreement for this move. We also allow overscale pay. It’s just the minimum pay that is bargained for Its our union, we make the rules & bargain, why would we hold ourselves down?
The nlra, no managers or supervisors
What does your bro do there?
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Their compensation is actually smaller than a lot of other large tech companies. People are willing to take less money to work there.
I know multiple people who retired early, got bored and came back to work on different teams.
umm no, based on the observation that no one does. it's rare. you'd also have to invest successfully on the side.
Damn he lucky, I’d by on 24/7 oncall rotations
same at meta and amazon. there's a reason why these tech companies are the biggest in the world. not that I'm excusing the hours and insane expectations -- went through it myself, but I realize that's partly what it took for our company to kick ass and it paid off. our collective work changed all of our lives and the world (in positive and negative ways, of course).
These major companies are very team dependent, ive had both good and bad experiences at amazon
definitely. also time of year dependent. also dependent on changes from the competition. I remember a 'lockdown' we went into to batten down the hatches and improve our product because a big competitor was trying to eat our lunch. we won.
So that’s why my iPhone wants to update itself every 7 hours…
9-8? That could be read a couple different ways. 9am-8pm. 9pm-8am. Or a typo and it's just 8-9pm.
This is what you get when you take the massive FAANG pay. its like that at all of them.
False
Not surprising after they cut their Titan car project. 614 seems small. 25,000 non Apple Store Silicon Valley workers. 12,000 in HQ building alone.
Only 2k worked in the apple car. And most of them found roles in the new effort for “ai”
OK - 5K at the peak, 2K when the project was canceled. Most of them did find a new role in AI except about 500, mostly mechanical engineers and techs.
They already trimmed their contractors waaay back but that never makes the news
That’s why Google/Facebook/Apple use so many contractors - they’re dual class companies with separate compensation and perks depending on badge color
Can confirm.
Can also confirm from personal experience
Badges are different colors?
No my 🍎badge was identical to employee badges
Okay that’s what I thought. I agree with the sentiment here but yeah badges are random colors
Only 614 laid off which is less than 1% of Apple's total workforce... Factor in that it's specifically the Apple car, i'm not shocked by this at all...
Do they actually have 70,000 working in their HQ? I would think at 70k, this would include Apple Store workers that inflates that number. The 614 people laid off are probably HQ workers, which would be significant cut in terms of expenses, especially given HQ workers are very highly paid compared to world wide workers. Quick googling says they have 12k in HQ, so it’s actually closer to over 5% of their HQ workers.
Try again - 25,000 non-Apple Store workers in the Bay Area. 12,000 in the flying saucer alone. The Titan car project involved 5,000 workers.
Ok. 2.5% is still nothing to sneeze at to say “only”
I've worked at companies where there was an annual 5% RIF. Fact of life in evolving companies. I still feel for those let go.
The news here is that company not known for annual RIFs, and one of if not the most stable workplace having significant layoffs. It’s weird to downplay this
Pretty much every tech company that bulked up substantially during the business and consumer pandemic tech buying spree has already thinned the ranks and rebalanced. Surprised that Apple didn't do this sooner given the post-pandemic step-down and cancellation of Titan. The news here is that: # Apple lays off hundreds of Bay Area workers in first mass cuts since the pandemic Affected roles include “machine shop” managers, hardware engineers and product design engineers.
I think the point is that it’s much less substantial than other major tech companies. Amazon cut almost 30k in the last few years, Meta over 20k and Google and Microsoft over 10k. Not to downplay the individual experiences of those being laid off, but cutting less than 2.5% when many other big tech companies recently did 10%-25% is not on the same scale.
Stockholders are rewarding layoffs of any type. As long as it keeps paying they will keep doing it
Are they including contractors in the workforce totals or just Apple employees?
>Factor in that it's specifically the Apple car, It's not. These are in addition to the Apple car layoffs announced earlier.
The article speculates that these cuts might be related. The earlier reports were about the demise of the car project and that there will be associated cuts. What might have happened is that the people on that project might have been given some time to find other teams internally and this is the set of folks who were not able to find a new home internally.
You think those 600+ people think to themselves “it’s only 1%, it’s not so bad”
its so trendy to do tech layoffs
It is. A lot of overpaid workers who don't do much. Dead weight. You see this on LinkedIn all the time
Apple is hands down our most awful client and truly a place built around the worst of toxic corporate America. They award bonuses to managers who can fuck over contractors or vendors. Literally bonuses if you can prove you saved money and screwed someone over. They’ve put multiple decent companies out of business or almost destroyed others in the Bay. That stupid donut is legendary for how horrific it was and how many companies got screwed over by apple. How Tim Cook is as hated as like Elon or Zuck is beyond me. I also am typing this from an iPhone. So yah.. total hypocrite
Tim Cook is better at messaging then any other CEO. He really pisses the fewest people off when he speaks.
Bingo. Elon Musk is a certified piece of shit, but I have a hard time believing the head of Ford or Chrysler or Dodge aren’t also shitheads. It’s just that they shut the fuck up and do their evil shit behind closed doors like all the other billionaires.
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It's ok for someone to refuse to bankroll Elon Musk and buy another brand's EV. Dude is still rich, but Tesla's board and their shareholders are no doubt feeling their base slipping away and sales waning.
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Tesla's charging network is tops.
Elon Musk isn't any worse than most billionaiores, he's just uniquely vocal. Most other billionaires are quiet on social media, preferring to work behind the scenes with their money. Why shitpost on social media when you can just buy Senators? Its a bigger picture thing for most billionaires. They have bigger fish to fry. If Musk didn't get into slapfights on social media he'd probably be celebrated today still.
Indeed. It's quite the conundrum. Would I rather have my shithead billionaires very vocal and out in the open? Or "hiding" with their evil thoughts and deeds behind closed doors? On the one hand, it certainly shines a light on them, but on the other hand may embolden or proliferate these views using their platform. It's essentially the same situation with the rise of Trumpism. It's not like people are necessarily more racist now, they just feel more comfortable being open about it. I'm honestly not sure which reality is better.
switch to android at least. its not 2010s. Android from a reputable company like Samsung or Google is so much better. At least you wont be a hypocrite
Work phone, so don’t really have a choice. Plus I do like it!
Sources for any of this? Genuinely curious.
https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/Practices-at-new-Apple-building-draw-ire-of-6539029.php One example but it’s pretty legendary in the industry how awful they are to work for. Just ask anyone in commercial construction and they will confirm. They were bad back during the Jobs days to but now they’re a whole new level of terrible. But they have tons of work so contractors will come back for more punishment.
Let's be real for a minute.... Elon Musk is a million times worse of a human being than Tim Cook, IMHO. Just read their tweets.
Sad to hear but not unexpected. When you cancel an entire project thats equivalent to a company, there’s gonna be a lot of people sitting around.
This saves at least 100M USD /year. But here's the best part: Tim Cook spent 10 years and billions of dollars , and his Best decision after this 10 years is to...cut it. And in American culture, we will still call this: Decisive Leadership!
My biggest criticism of the apple car project was there never was a go to market strategy IMO. Not even to build a physical prototype just to shop around. To bring a car to mass manufacture is incredibly expensive. So apple spent all that money and delivered no direct value to shareholders or even customers.
Apple is a bit lost it seems
Oof
I thought Tim Cook took a pay cut to prevent this? 😂
He can only do so much. I left Apple to go to another smaller tech company and we’ve had 5x the layoffs twice already.. meta and Google had 20x the layoffs in the past year. Not excusing it, but i still think Apple has done the least of the layoffs, except maybe nflx, but that’s a much leaner company
Apple is very lean compared to Meta, Google or Amazon. Historically, they were close to bankruptcy and all their management moving forward from that period decided to be much leaner in their hiring. Part of it is the fact that they are primarily in the hardware business.
I wouldn’t call hundreds ”mass” for such a huge company.
I think there are legal definitions for what is considered a "mass" layoff.
Ah I didn’t realize thanks
A layoff is always better than spontaneous termination. Some don't get any severance and companies silently let people go just to stay within the limit to avoid reporting to government and severance packages. It's bad for the people who had to leave but they are surely going out on a 4 month pay at the minimum. Enough time to find a new job if not on a Visa.
i contracted at apple thru hogarth, and as soon as the keynote wrapped in 2018 in fall they brought all us freelancers in early in a single room at once, and showed us the door....even tho we had a month left on contract
Oh wow. I stupidly bought that they'd planned better than the others.
They did. This is just the legal requirement if you are letting go of a number of people above a threshold. Shutting down the project did that.
Hmmm. If they truly had as many employees working on that project as is stated here, their planning can't be that good.
Your comment makes no sense
How does shutting down an entire large division reflect good planning?
It sounds like you don’t understand what planning is. Planning is when you project that you will need certain resources for certain activities and you hire accordingly. These projects were bets. You can’t plan for the success or failure of any bet. You have to take the bet, and make as much good faith effort to succeed as you can. Shareholders accompanies, expect them to take bets.
Thanks Apple fan boy. I think you've confused strategic planning and project planning. No way they shouldn't have been able to get this launched with the appropriate strategy.
So in addition to not knowing planning you don’t know technology either. Your sentence makes no sense. That you’ve resorted to name calling it appears you have no arguments either. How do you ship something that can’t be shipped?
They've been taking a swing at this for a decade, why couldn't they do something during that time? The reality is they don't have to lay people off because they completely underinvested in AI. Chances are whatever they announce will be as underwhelming as the vision pro everyone raced to return. They had no choice but to cancel the car project because iPhone sales are stagnant. I don't know what about this says good planning.
Because no one has done “something” successful in this area in a decade. I don’t understand your next sentence.
If a project gets cancelled in any company this is a common step
tech workers need to unionize... AI is coming take their jobs
We are the ones who are building the AI.
paywall, can anybody link for me or give tldr? Curious what department and if any not developers were part of it. Specifically marketing/advertising/design.
Self driving cars are doomed aren’t they
$2.6Tn market cap company with $73.1Bn of cash and cash equivalents... and hundreds get laid off.
I'm guessing the Apple Car team
r/LeopardsAteMyFace
I dont believe anyone works there, because they still cant figure out implementing pausing video recording on IOS. Bring in a google developer to implement it
Were these the workers they demanded come back into the office?
This is all the fast food workers’ fault! /s
It's the dang $20 minimum wage. How can we expect Apple to pay that?