I've just been informed by an anonymous source that Yiken is a song, not an artist.

Hi there, longtime reader, first-time caller. Favorite Yiken song?

What have been the reasons for these layoffs by tech companies and them all happening around the same time?

Hey there! This is a bunch of questions haha, so I’m going to break it down with a bullet or so for each q

- I saw that article too. And it definitely matches up with what I’ve heard from my recent chats with recruiters.

- There are definitely negative impacts of these layoffs. And we’ve already started seeing that across companies. I think Twitter is an extreme but perfect example of this: things are breaking on the front-end, employee morale is pretty low, and entire (vital) teams are missing.

- The experts and tech industry people who I’ve chatted with have pointed a few major long-term shifts. Most notably, there’s a focus on efficiency over innovation (like how multiple Big Tech companies have shuttered their moonshot branches). But at the same time, they can’t ignore how the tech industry keeps innovating. Generative AI (thanks to ChatGPT) for example is a curveball that they definitely weren’t prepping for a few months ago. Yet a lot of these companies are now scrambling to react to it.

- I totally agree with your concerns. Cloud is getting hit pretty hard right now, and it ties back into your question about the negative effects of layoffs — this is definitely one of them. Within Big Tech alone, cloud spending has decreased a bunch (my teammate Paayal Zaveri wrote about it here: https://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-amazon-google-cloud-business-lower-spending-growth-slowed-charts-2023-2?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=IAmA-comment) And it’s especially pronounced since digital transformation was such a buzzword during the pandemic tech boom. But optimistically, this cool-off likely won’t last forever. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella even predicted that the sector could rebound as soon as this year: https://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-ceo-earnings-azure-slowdown-cloud-bounce-back-2023-1?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=IAmA-comment1

-DNS

If ozone layer is getting better than why politicians start new agenda to curb methane? I mean why we always blame gases for global warming rather than deforestation?

I’m so sorry to hear that your family member was recently laid off.

This is definitely a tricky situation. I would advise people in this situation to acknowledge what the company said but to push back on that narrative applying to them — basically let your work speak for itself. Companies can say what they want (especially to appease stakeholders) but they can’t take away the work you’ve accomplished.

Here’s an example of it happening to former Reddit employees: https://www.businessinsider.com/reddit-job-cuts-employees-livid-company-painting-them-low-performers-2023-2?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=IAmA-comment

And to avoid getting low-balled — regardless if you’ve been laid off or not — do your research! There are a bunch of resources out there to help you find out how much you should be paid (levels.fyi, Insider does salary stories, Blind, and even job listings themselves after salary transparency laws). But I’ll also caution that compensation is starting to look much lower than before, given the tech industry turmoil (here’s a story my colleagues did on this btw: https://www.businessinsider.com/workers-laid-off-in-big-tech-have-to-take-jobs-with-less-pay-prestige-2023-2?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=IAmA-comment). So definitely just do as much research as possible and make sure that you keep advocating for yourself.

-DNS

For more AMAs on this topic, subscribe to r/IAmA_Tech, and check out our other topic-specific AMA subreddits here.

What is the current rate (mm/year) of sea level rise? Is it accelerating, and if so by how much?

This is extremely difficult to answer. Our own work has focused on a small piece of the puzzle: what happened in the geologic past, and how does it inform us about our problems today? But past events played out in the absence of human societies, and what could happen to human societies over long term (1000s to millions of years) is fascinating but very poorly understood problem.

Was there a large extinction event 11600 years ago as Graham Hancock and others claim?

Hey there! Great question. I definitely do think people were pushed — there’s even evidence of it happening at a bunch of companies like Google, Facebook, etcetera. Some of these companies implemented harsher performance reviews and set a mandatory percentage of employees who needed to be put on performance-improvements plans (aka PIPs). PIPs are often a first, required step before being fired at many companies.

I reported a story with my colleague Kali Hays about how this practice is really beneficial for employers, while hurting workers: https://www.businessinsider.com/big-tech-using-quiet-layoffs-helping-companies-and-hurting-workers-2022-10?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=IAmA-comment

And here are some company-specific stories from Insider about what this looks like in practice:https://www.businessinsider.com/google-layoffs-performance-rating-jobs-2022-11?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=IAmA-commenthttps://www.businessinsider.com/meta-layoffs-doubles-target-lowest-performance-ratings-non-regrettable-attrition-2022-12?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=IAmA-comment

-DNS

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How will doing nothing about it other than taxing the middle class further and putting increased costs on us stop this all from happening when it is third world dumps , plane traffic and ocean going vessels making the pollution way more than say anyone middle class from the USA or Europe?

I saw this article by Insider the other day, I am curious if you would concur with what Recruiters are saying: https://www.businessinsider.com/tech-company-layoffs-pay-salary-cuts-remote-work-recruiter-power-2023-2

Are you seeing the negative effects of these layoffs as outlined by the Harvard Business Review? https://hbr.org/podcast/2023/02/why-many-companies-get-layoffs-wrong

How are businesses shifting their tech strategies long term? I see a lot of discussion about pulling back on their migrations to the cloud. I am concerned that this will result in increasingly aged hardware and software and a lack of High Availability in major critical infrastructure. Would you agree with those concerns, or are there other aspects along these veins that you think would be good to know?

First, thank you for doing such important work! It’s hard for us to give advice specifically for your situation (we’d probably just ask you for your thoughts!)

Nevertheless, in case it’s helpful: we’ve found that even talking about it is useful by itself. Extrapolating from our own lives, for the little it may be worth, it seems like often a more thorough awareness of what the negative issues are can help us better deal with them.

Thanks for your question! Promoting ecosystem flourishing on a local scale is a lovely goal, but outside of our particular expertise. And no, we’ve not read the book yet.

When doing your research, have you attempted to calculate potential affects of -solar radiation management -engineered carbon removal for example DAC

If so what did you find? What are the challenges of modeling these interventions?

Thank you!

A family member was recently laid off and the company (pre-ipo) said publicly that all layoffs were due to performance though this was not the case for my family member and a lot of senior (higher paid) employees were cut from her team.

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For my family member and those in similar situations, how would you recommend they address this layoff in hiring interviews to avoid getting low-balled by prospective employers?

Thanks for your questions!

1. A large part of the answer is curiosity. We were aware of the great disruptions of the geologic past and wondered whether a quantitative theory could be devised that helped us relate past disruptions to modern environmental change. Of course were were also motivated by the practical importance of the question. But curiosity came first. Perhaps the most important consequence of our conclusions is that they’ve provided a new impetus to study the past, not just because it helps us understand how the Earth came to its pre-industrial state, but also because it helps us understand the risk of disturbing it.

2. Most fundamentally, the experience has led to a deeper respect for and interest in the people doing this important work!

Do you think some people were pushed so they would quit rather than needing to be laid off?

Thanks for your question! Clearly the answer is to do both. But how much to each? That depends on relative costs and benefits, time horizons, how easy or hard it is to actually implement certain policy changes, etc. --- and unfortunately these are all things we have no particular expertise in. Nevertheless we think that this discussion is important; democracy probably has an important role to play here.

Have you ever tried searching for your girlfriend on an abandoned space station?

What are your go-to key points to explain that we should indeed move our asses?

A good friend of mine who is in his seventies looks at me with eyes that say “you sweet summer child, when you’re older you’ll see things are not so bleak” and calls me fatalistic because of how much time and effort I’m willing to diverge into all things climate related. I’ve built a wooden Tiny House (on wheels so I could move it closer to wherever my job would take me), am lending a (musical) hand to multiple food forests/ edible city projects, will not get on the plane even though the train will take two days and I had to cancel a job I love doing for me to avoid getting on a plane, am not planing on having children of my own and am trying to make living differently socially acceptable. I’m hopeful, because I feel the ability to change and find more joy in this new version of living. To me there’s nothing fatalistic about that.

Yet I start to question myself when he ask me why I need to make everything so difficult for myself, the world will be fine if I take the plane he says. I start explaining the tipping points and all of the things that worry me, but I am no scientist and I fear I could be using the things that caught my eye more than the more scientifically important signs on the wall. Which of course undermines credibility and leads to inaction.

Thank you for taking the time to be here, it’s greatly appreciated

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