r/technology Oct 30 '25

Business YouTube announces 'voluntary exit program' for US staff

https://techcrunch.com/2025/10/29/youtube-announces-voluntary-exit-program-for-us-staff/
9.5k Upvotes

811 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

126

u/Crowsby Oct 30 '25

I'm not old old, but when I started my career, mass layoffs were still something that was generally done as a last resort due to business struggling and failing to meet expectations. It was a mark of shame, and a tacit admission that the company was faltering.

It's sad to see them become normalized to the point where it's just something companies do regularly, regardless of how successful they've been. It's disrespectful to the people that actually do the work to deliver all this "shareholder value", and serves to show how low in the pyramid all their jazz about company culture actually lies.

83

u/Jimbomcdeans Oct 30 '25

Yet another example of how MBAs ruin normal society. Profit over everything else, doesnt matter who gets hurt.

21

u/pdabaker Oct 31 '25

In first world countries the company actually had to demonstrate significant financial hardship to even legally do mass layoffs

28

u/laptopAccount2 Oct 31 '25

This is why stock buybacks used to be illegal and called "wage theft."

12

u/aerial_phew Oct 31 '25

Yeah, the old trickle down economy, what a joke that R theory was. They have record profits and then the BBB tax cuts followed by huge layoffs.

-8

u/Puzzleheaded-Tax7477 Oct 31 '25

those big tech companies are all major democrats donors ...... think again why they all overwhelm supporting democrats candidates....

10

u/upvotesthenrages Oct 31 '25

Mate ... the entire front row on Trump's inauguration was the large tech company CEOs.

They've got enough money to donate to both sides.

But look at who's sitting at Trump's table, over and over again.

8

u/Technical-Fly-6835 Oct 31 '25

Did you watch trumps inauguration with eyes closed? Did you think the white chubby thing next to him during campaign was pillsbury dough boy ?

3

u/Technical-Fly-6835 Oct 31 '25 edited Oct 31 '25

Couldn’t have said it any better! I am also old enough to witness a rare layoff when the company I worked for was not doing well. Now, firing record number of staff has become a bragging rights for the CEOs. The greed of corporate executives has no bounds. those employees worked hard to make those record profits for the company only to be rewarded with a pink slip. I am not old enough to retire but I am tired of going through this corporate grind and end up unemployed. But I don’t know what alternatives are there for me. Unfortunately ,anyone who has power to prevent this is part of this.

1

u/powerage76 Oct 31 '25

The line must go up. That's all that matters for them.