Well if you don't have to pay people then yah, revenue will go up for now.
Collect your bonus, get your stock, bail and move to the next job. Sell the stock before the damage you caused rears its head.
this post was submitted on 16 May 2026
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Finance should be banned
Fucking suits.
Shit like this is why I had to learn the trades as backup while I was still in the game, in this case training to be a computer technician.
Part of me is glad I'm getting the hell out of this system in the near future. My heart goes out to younger people being royally screwed by it and I don't see any way out of it within that system.
What is the logical progression to this kind of a thing. Is there going to be a turning point or is bottom a long long way to go?
I’m just brainstorming here, but do layoffs pave the way for hiring new grads at entry level wages, with more cutting edge knowledge?
Sure, that overlooks the loss of tacit knowledge that keeps the company running. I haven’t actually figured out yet how large companies can keep packaging out their senior employees that glue their disorganized systems together with undocumented knowledge.
Neither have the large companies. The only difference between you and them is that you have acknowledged this loss of knowledge.
This is just a game to them, they have nothing to lose no matter what happens.
Seems fine, employees were well compensated and supported. Its a big company 4000 isnt a huge amount. Interesting to see a bigger pivot to silicon and optics.
How does boot taste?
Leathery? With a hint of shoe wax.
This will continue to happen until sociopath executives see consequences.
Or, you know, workplaces organize and form strong labor unions?
dont work hard for companys, better they do more likely you will get laid off with everyone else. Might happen anyway, but if they dont do well they might think they actually need people to do work.
It hurt to read that post. Grammar much ?
Who are you kidding?
Record profits > "We need to lay off workers to keep these numbers going up."
Not record profits > "We need to lay off workers to make these numbers go up."
CEO: I need the highest possible performance otherwise the board will fire me.
Board: We need the highest return otherwise we’re not willing to support the CEO.
Fund managers: We need to only invest in the most profitable ventures.
Pension companies: We need to only put our money in the most high performing funds.
You: I need the best return on my pension so I can retire as soon as possible.
If you’ve ever moved saved money to an account offering higher interest or performance, you’re part of this. I’m not saying that to blame, but people often don’t connect their own behaviour with the behaviour of the market.
I agree. The stock market was a mistake
Agreed. I participate as a thoughtless investor trying to maximize the growth of my savings but I hate that I have to even bother. Extra work, some guilt or anxiety around whether you made the right choices, and more complicated taxes. I think it’s horseshit that I’m effectively obliged to play in this casino the ruling class set up, just so my money retains its value against inflation.
I’m not against my money being used to grow businesses. But then just let the bank deal with it and pay me a fair interest rate for lending it to businesses. I still haven’t been given a good answer as to why the stock price of a company should have any effect on its day to day operations or revenue generation.
That doesnt even make sense
congratulations on finally getting on the same page as the article and the rest of us
So you think Cisco is shrinking its workforce?
It's literally in the article and the headline...
Long term they are growing. In a year or two they be at 90k and then 100k in a decade or two. The employee count cant just sit static.
too many layoffs this year.
we have so many layoffs this year.
And the year isn't even half over yet.
Just wait until the full impact of Trump's bullshit works its way through the economy.
The carnage will be felt for a decade or more.
American Capitalism 101. Sacrifice future growth for immediate profits.
You better thank the Job Creators for the right to work, Serfs! Now go gratefully into the gig economy, singing the praises of Tr*mp.
The usual self-canibalism game.
You guys, all those employees contributing to their huge profits were actually a liability and now they'll be so much more efficient.
/s because people take sarcasm literally
Meta is doing the exact same thing:
Mark Zuckerberg's social media giant will reportedly hand out roughly 8,000 pink slips on Wednesday, May 20, eliminating about 10% of its global workforce. Notably, though, these cuts will arrive on the heels of one of the most lucrative quarters in the company's history: $56.31 billion in revenue and $26.8 billion in net income for the first three months of 2026...
https://moneywise.com/news/top-stories/meta-layoffs-8000-workers-zuckerberg-ai-spending
Slashing 10% of your workforce annually is something Jack Welch thought of when he was CEO of General Electric; essentially it shifts that 10% of staff overhead cost straight to profits per year.
The justification they give for the figure is that it's the lowest performing 10% according to internal key performance indicator (KPI) metrics. What this effectively does is two fold:
-
Anyone who's focusing on delivering stuff the company needs long term isn't always or sometimes never will produce nice neat KPIs that can be measured along with the rest of the company. This means these people are under constant pressure and can often get swept up in the firings.
-
It makes KPIs, a measuring tool, the target which as any statistician will tell you that when you make the measurement a target it ceases to be a good measuring tool. Because everyone is automatically incentivised to deliver KPIs NOT the actual company deliverables that generate the added value and therefore the profit.
This means after 5 to 10 years of this cycle all that's left of the company's institutional knowledge is how to deliver for KPIs and the sycophants who best adapt to this reality. You get a hollowing out of the company.
If this AI fuelled trend keeps up then companies like Cisco and Meta will eventually implode at some point.
makes KPIs, a measuring tool, the target which as any statistician will tell you that when you make the measurement a target it ceases to be a good measuring tool
This came up recently elsewhere and is known as “Goodhart’s Law”
Yup. Not all value is easily and directly measurable. Trying to overmanage and only value measurable factors is incredibly counterproductive. But hey, that makes the stock price go up. So who cares about anything else.
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Nice! Thanks.
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