Clouds are gathering over Silicon Valley: massive layoffs and the cancellation of free lunches
The celestials, busy creating our better future, were simply affected by earthly problems: massive layoffs, most of which occurred at Twitter (Elon Musk fired 60% of the staff), employees of food delivery DoorDash, the payment system Stripe and the Netflix media empire also lost their jobs. The Nasdaq index collapsed by 2022% in 25, the overvalued Tesla lost 65% of its value ($700 billion) over the year, Meta received a fine of $400 million - it would seem that this is a Russian trace and the machinations of Putin, but these are only the consequences of the pandemic and the global crisis.
The bonds of Silicon Valley have been shaken: Elon Musk has canceled free lunches on Twitter, but free food is part of the philosophy of brilliant geeks. A company that doesn't feed its hungry employees won't be able to meet their other needs. Now Google employees are shaking too. They have a lot to worry about - a quiet hour in a sleep capsule, a luxurious dining room that takes into account individual preferences and food allergies, a corporate concierge taking care of dry cleaning, house cleaning, car maintenance, reservations in restaurants and beauty salons, endless bonuses for every sneeze. . In essence, Google is, of course, right - liberation from everyday life provides incredible opportunities. But it turns out that all this is not enough to make a quick technological breakthrough. In Silicon Valley, there is an obvious crisis of the genre; all the greatest inventions are already in use; the latest discoveries, such as blockchain, cryptocurrency and Web3, although they made a splash, did not explode the market. No one has been able to replicate the success of iPhones and wireless headphones.
However, spoiled employees are not going to roll their lips and will fight for nice bonuses. At a recent Meta meeting, Mark Zuckerberg sadly announced that the economy was headed for one of the worst contractions in recent history. The Facebook creator became even sadder when one of the employees asked whether the practice of “meta days” - additional days off introduced during the pandemic - would continue. They were canceled on January 1, 2023. A similar situation happened at a meeting between Google CEO Sundar Pichai and company employees. They wondered whether they would continue to be paid for travel and entertainment. Another executive told the story of an employee who, without irony, complained that the free kombucha had stopped flowing from the tap. Google management, in horror, is reaping the fruits of its philosophy and has decided to bring these blissful geeks down to earth: the company is facing massive layoffs.
Author: Yunia Pugacheva
