> zuck saying he laid off poor performers (effectively screwing those people for no reason)
Were they not actually performing poorly, then? Maybe I'm missing some context, but laying off poor performers is a good thing last I checked. It's identifying them that's difficult the further removed you are from the action (or lack thereof).
You're replying to someone (rightfully) pointing out that you can layoff poor performers without proclaiming it with one of the farthest reaching voices in the industry.
Anyone who's worked in a large org knows there's absolutely zero chance that those layoffs don't touch a single bystander or special case.
Several of my colleagues were laid off. We all worked on the same project. I reviewed their code and was in meetings with them daily, so I know what their performance was like. They were absolutely not poor performers and it was ridiculous that they were laid off and labeled as poor performers. The project was a success too.
From what I heard, Eric Lippert was one of the layoff victims. I find it unlikely that he was actually a poor performer, since he's an industry legend.
"[My probabilistic languages] team in particular was at the point where we were regularly putting models into production that on net reduced costs by millions of dollars a year over the cost of the work.
...
We foolishly thought that we would naturally be protected from any layoffs, being a team that reduced costs of any team we partnered with.
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The whole Probability division was laid off as a cost-cutting measure. I have no explanation for how this was justified and I note that if the company were actually serious about cost-cutting, they would have grown our team, not destroyed it."
Were they not actually performing poorly, then? Maybe I'm missing some context, but laying off poor performers is a good thing last I checked. It's identifying them that's difficult the further removed you are from the action (or lack thereof).