For all the companies like Zoom and Shopify claiming they thought the COVID gravy train would never end, there was never a chance of that. But they hired as if that was the reality because because of the asymmetry: Your output is .000001% of what the company needs to function.
Meanwhile even if you're saving 50% of your pay and living on the other 50%, that's many orders of magnitude more need
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So yes, either side can walk away tomorrow morning, but who's more likely to be hurt? Definitely not the company, so there's no real punishment for overhiring knowing you'll need to fire.
If anything you get rewarded by the market: If company A hires in a sustainable way that can weather headwinds (believe it or not, this used to be somewhat common) and company B goes full "feast or famine", the market rewards B for their growth, then rewards B when they lay off a bunch of people. Meanwhile A is punished for limiting growth, and not really rewarded for not having fired people, since valuations are bad at capturing nuanced ideas like "B just fired their best minds, while A has cultivated an effective workforce" (just check out Zoom's ticker today)
For all the companies like Zoom and Shopify claiming they thought the COVID gravy train would never end, there was never a chance of that. But they hired as if that was the reality because because of the asymmetry: Your output is .000001% of what the company needs to function.
Meanwhile even if you're saving 50% of your pay and living on the other 50%, that's many orders of magnitude more need
-
So yes, either side can walk away tomorrow morning, but who's more likely to be hurt? Definitely not the company, so there's no real punishment for overhiring knowing you'll need to fire.
If anything you get rewarded by the market: If company A hires in a sustainable way that can weather headwinds (believe it or not, this used to be somewhat common) and company B goes full "feast or famine", the market rewards B for their growth, then rewards B when they lay off a bunch of people. Meanwhile A is punished for limiting growth, and not really rewarded for not having fired people, since valuations are bad at capturing nuanced ideas like "B just fired their best minds, while A has cultivated an effective workforce" (just check out Zoom's ticker today)