The power dynamics behind the Big Tech job cuts
GeekWire
GeekWire
4.4 • 116 Ratings
🗓️ 21 January 2023
⏱️ 24 minutes
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Summary
One of the defining tech industry trends of the past decade, along with the meteoric expansion of big companies and their insatiable appetite for talent, was the growing influence of engineers commanding ever-increasing salaries.
That's changing with the waves of layoffs by Amazon, Microsoft, Google parent Alphabet, Salesforce, Facebook parent Meta, and others. The big salary increases that workers could expect when changing jobs are becoming a thing of the past.
It's one of the major behind-the-scenes shifts happening as a result of the Big Tech cutbacks, our topic this week on the GeekWire Podcast.
Related stories and links:
- Full memo: Microsoft to cut 10k jobs, about 5% of workforce, and take $1.2B restructuring charge
- Microsoft and Amazon job cuts mark new phase for tech industry after decade of massive growth
- Commentary: Washington state’s tech industry will continue to grow, despite layoffs
- Bloomberg: Amazon, Microsoft Job Cuts Deal Another Blow to Ailing Seattle
- Stanford News: Why are there so many tech layoffs, and why should we be worried? Stanford scholar explains
- New York Times: The Era of Happy Tech Workers is Over
- CNBC: Apple grew more slowly than Google, Amazon, Microsoft and Meta, and has so far dodged major layoffs
With GeekWire's Todd Bishop and John Cook
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The shift in power has occurred in the last 10 years where the rock star engineer called all the shots and here's my theory. |
| 0:09.0 | This is a grab by the tech companies to reestablish their power. Hi and I'm GeekWire co-founder Todd Bishop and I'm GeekWire |
| 0:25.4 | co-founder Todd Bishop and I'm GeekWire co-founder John Cook. |
| 0:29.0 | John when I first talked with you about the topic that I wanted to talk about on this episode, you kind of looked at me and went, |
| 0:35.4 | uh, layoffs, man, who wants to talk about layoffs? |
| 0:39.8 | I mean, what do you say? |
| 0:40.6 | This many jobs were cut and I agree with you and I don't want to |
| 0:44.6 | diminish the pain that everybody's been through this past week in saying this but |
| 0:49.3 | I think there's something bigger going on under the surface of the Microsoft and |
| 0:56.0 | Amazon layoffs this week. Please tell me. Okay. I believe this is an inflection point, a watershed moment in Seattle Tech. |
| 1:09.0 | This is my hypothesis. |
| 1:10.1 | I want to throw it out there for you. |
| 1:12.2 | Just Seattle Tech or Beyond? |
| 1:14.0 | Beyond. |
| 1:15.0 | I think it's beyond as well. |
| 1:17.0 | You've had for the past 10 to 15 years in Seattle. |
| 1:23.0 | And I think I want to use Seattle as an example, |
| 1:24.8 | not just because it's the market that we cover, |
| 1:26.5 | but because I think it's emblematic of the trend |
| 1:28.8 | in many ways. |
| 1:29.8 | Because as you know, John, what happens here matters everywhere and for the past decade you've |
| 1:36.6 | seen not only the rise of Microsoft and Amazon in Seattle but you've also seen this influx and this huge groundswell of Silicon Valley |
... |
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