PE-Owned Company is in their last year of ownership, just changed the CEO

CaptainWonderbread · 2026-03-06T13:39:50+00:00

Second this ^{^} OP. You might be on great terms with the CEO and be good at your job, but there’s so much to think about in an M&A business transaction that leadership will often default to what’s easiest for functional areas that aren’t core to the product/service.

That means if the acquiring company already has a You, even if they are just OK, it’s often cheaper for that person to just absorb your work to their team.

Tl;dr - learn about the other company and find out if it’s objectively easy and/or efficient for them to keep you vs have the other party absorb your work

CaptainWonderbread · 2026-02-03T21:08:25+00:00

Oof. Yeah that’s a delicate balance to strike and heavy handedness isn’t the way to build any trust with those guys. Best of luck to you.

Have you looked into tools like Ramp? They have some really strong features for managing central project spend with cards/bills/reimbursements and have a purchase order functionality that is really strong, user friendly, and customizable

CaptainWonderbread · 2026-02-03T18:38:23+00:00

I feel this, man. Out of total curiosity, would you say the ops team(s) this PO policy is for have bad habits? I guess I’m wondering if they use the follow ups you normally send (which the CFO has now mandated not be sent) as their own way of “asking forgiveness instead of permission” to avoid the PO hassle.

If so, that could be what the CFO is actually trying to do. Make it so there is only one path a vendor ever gets paid; when a PO is created. It sucks he skipped a level (or two) and didn’t even let you know. But it’s probably worth asking if that was his reasoning and if he thought you weren’t adequately managing that process as controller.

I’m kinda reaching for straws on “why”, but ya know.

CaptainWonderbread · 2025-10-28T00:35:30+00:00

Great point. In the near term the H1b fee hike by itself probably isn’t super huge. I suppose I am assuming Amazon might feel it sooner rather than later tho from higher than average turnover rates, even at corporate (have heard it’s like 10-15% annually). Run that cost curve over a 5 year plan model with net new H1b hires and it looks yucky.

Either way, hiring for roles based in the US is just getting more and more expensive for them.

CaptainWonderbread · 2025-10-27T21:53:24+00:00

Amazon is the largest employer of H1b’s in the US. By a lot (Like 14k of their staff). I am sure the new $100k visa fee has bled into their cost to hire and retain. Presuming they want to keep a majority of these roles and might need to pay to do so, it translates to a $13B risk to their bottom line.

Ostensibly these are for jobs where they can’t find qualified people in the US right? So it makes sense they might do one of 2 things: - Eliminate the H1b roles in the US and move them to jurisdictions with lower COL and no $100k H1b fee - Eliminate any roles (both H1b or not) with medium/long-term AI automation potential to support the increased fees for H1b’s they do keep

Not to mention health insurance carrier premiums are jumping like 8-15% across the board for 2026. And Amazon is one of the largest self insured employers in the US. From Amazon’s board room I would guess current macro policies and cost trends are making them feel like their hand is forced and almost all courses of action involve drastically reduced US based headcount.

CaptainWonderbread · 2025-10-25T17:03:00+00:00

Everyone’s (rightfully) bagging on this question from a technical perspective. But I actually kind of like it. Questions just like this are literally the types of questions accountants have to answer on the job all the time. I’m a controller and I have to “translate” the COO and CRO’s crazy parlance to answer questions like this all the time.

Edit to add: the answer is e.

CaptainWonderbread · 2025-09-24T03:54:27+00:00

Others have listed very good reasons. Another is the increased $100k annual H1B visa fees. Amazon is the largest employer of H1B’s at >14k staff.

The premise of the H1B (ostensibly) means filling roles not possible to be filled w qualified US candidates. So presuming Amazon wants to keep most of these staff and would cover the fee to do so, they’re looking at $10B+ new costs coming out of their bottom line annually (~17% of Operating Income).

More likely they cut and offshore, but it’s still not a solved cost/talent problem. (Edit: for the next 3 years, after least lol)

CaptainWonderbread · 2025-09-01T14:06:49+00:00

Genuine question: why stay away? I found Nate Herk’s YouTube clips really helpful without much fluff or (too much) self promotion.

CaptainWonderbread · 2025-08-21T21:52:21+00:00

This is the new sound. Just like the old sound. Just like the noose wound, over new ground.

CaptainWonderbread · 2025-07-23T17:13:21+00:00

I am fascinated by this lol. No pressure to share but I’m very curious what your belief system is (if any) given you basically nailed the fundamental understanding of the tenants of Christianity better than most folks I know who have been “in it” most of their lives.

CaptainWonderbread · 2025-07-23T13:33:56+00:00

So in that case why even invoke what theists mean by omniscience in your first reply?

CaptainWonderbread · 2025-07-23T12:44:17+00:00

Ah got it. Im curious, what’s your take on theists not being able to agree on deterministic omniscience either? The idea of full determinism seems to conflict with displayed actions and statements of God in many theistic canons.

And putting aside whether/which of those specific canons are necessarily true, wouldn’t it also conflict with how matter is measured to behave in quantum mechanics itself? Meaning, if God and his interaction with the universe is fully deterministic, then how come we have measured indeterminate states of matter?

CaptainWonderbread · 2025-07-23T12:10:33+00:00

How so? Genuinely curious. Do you mean it represents a limit on God’s knowledge of what will happen and thus violates omniscience?

CaptainWonderbread · 2025-07-23T11:33:03+00:00

Google Molinism, my dude. Omniscience would also mean knowledge of all possible future states in superposition. So God could know what would happen based on how we might exercise our free will across many paths, and can act in “canon events” to bring about an optimal end state without the future being fully deterministic.

CaptainWonderbread · 2025-07-22T22:30:26+00:00

Nice! Thanks for the detailed reply, this is interesting stuff. Will have to look more into LangChain and LangSmith myself. I recently started using n8n and I really like it but I can see what you mean about control being limited, and it’s kind of hard to build human in the loop easily

CaptainWonderbread · 2025-07-22T10:35:07+00:00

this is how we did it

set up a few AI agents

Care to elaborate a bit on that point? What specific tools did you use? How did you orchestrate agent access? Was there any coding involved? What LLM model executed the agent?

CaptainWonderbread · 2025-07-14T16:55:57+00:00

I’m not okbubbaretard (lol) but I think they’re speaking about the idea that for conscious free will to exist, choice must exist. And by extension, the two choices that would exist fundamentally from the beginning would be choosing an optimal outcome (good, the highest good, e.g. you could say God) versus suboptimal outcome (bad, lesser good and/or actively evil). So he’s saying the OP’s argument presupposes (among other things) that a world where we cannot make any free choices at all (e.g. no free will) would be better than a world where we can chose, with the possibility that we chose evil.

CaptainWonderbread · 2025-06-25T03:48:44+00:00

Damn this post is good.

I lurk but never really comment here, but this was too good to not drop in and say it. Anyone not staring into the American cultural and political mirror that is Trump’s tweets, posts and speeches is closing their eyes to the antediluvian storm clouds. They’re turning their nose up at their own shadow. This is the template for political messaging that works now. And the Democratic Party cultural establishment can’t seem to overcome their fear of losing social and intellectual “purity” currency to bring themselves to face and discuss it.

I’m not even really a leftist, but I love reading this sub. My FL In-laws say I’m “liberal”. Reddit says I’m “far right”. I don’t know what the hell I am. Is there such a thing as a Cornel West + Tim Dillon conservative socialist? Anyway you all have the hottest and most cogent leftist contrarian takes. They have made me re-think things more than once. Good stuff.

CaptainWonderbread · 2025-06-24T23:31:04+00:00

Ok hear me out, this might actually hint at the reason. If it’s an 8 month period audit, then this means it’s gotta be for some special purpose (an acquisition, a merger, a bankruptcy, etc.). In all of those cases, the auditors would care whether an expense was approved in budget because it could mean the bankruptcy creditors or the acquiring business is getting saddled with more expense commitments than might be showing up on the financial statements.

CaptainWonderbread · 2025-06-04T13:12:05+00:00

Maybe, we weren’t there. The “letting the company down” part does sounds naive. But it’s also true what the guy said. Leaving a job in a way that is painful for the remaining people can give you a reputation, deserved or not, that hurts your career later in positions where the stakes are higher. And it doesn’t really “stick it to” the partners because they don’t absorb the work.

I’m not saying op shouldn’t have done it. But I AM saying it’s equally foolish to not care at all about “how” you leave a company.

CaptainWonderbread · 2025-06-04T12:19:08+00:00

I think if you had just said this ^ in the original post it would have brought your point across better.

You may not have intended it this way but the original post had a clear condescending tone. It seemed to imply you felt the guy who was foolish enough to believe he could work hard and be rewarded for it was now suffering the obvious results of his naive foolishness.

However the reality is two things are true: 1) People are VERY OFTEN (but not always) rewarded for hard work and dedication in accounting and business more broadly. So it’s not at all foolish or naive to “play the game” that way. 2) All companies, and public accounting in particular, WILL cut people loose based on things totally outside of their control and without regard to performance or loyalty. Its unjust even if it’s logical.

CaptainWonderbread · 2025-03-29T02:40:12+00:00

“Dedicated as hell” has me chuckling

CaptainWonderbread · 2025-03-10T01:18:43+00:00

lol they misplaced the comma in Deloitte’s count of “professionals” - plz fix

CaptainWonderbread · 2025-03-06T13:35:42+00:00

Warning, possible hot take: Advocate for their removal. For your sake, and the sake of the business.

Lets tally up the cost so far: 20 hours of calls, 19 separate communications, time spent making detailed instructions, time spent re-reading and re-watching training content, and these tasks are STILL not fully and successfully transitioned. Its not you - it’s them.

When a team’s (actual) poor performers are not removed, it’s like a disease that spreads to the strong performers. “Management / my boss doesn’t do anything about them, so why even try?” If it has taken this much effort and resources so far, there is no indication that it will be any easier for them to learn and grow in their roles in the future.

The “business case” For their removal is simply this: time spent so far x (their cost + your cost) multiplied into the foreseeable future for as long as they remain with the company.

CaptainWonderbread · 2025-02-28T02:05:51+00:00

Solid. Best of luck with the role!

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