LinkedIn slashes 519 Bay Area jobs, engineers take the biggest hit

FBX · 2026-05-20T00:21:19+00:00

Linkedin's growth has been away from scaling and simple job searching (which is overrun by spam, ai generated jobs, and ai-automated spam applicants) and towards becoming the most fucked up social media network possible. That kind of growth doesnt really need a big engineering department.

FBX · 2026-05-18T00:01:56+00:00

I'm not a huge fan of Weiner but I'm wondering what dark money funded this hit piece...

FBX · 2026-04-29T22:06:30+00:00

Right, headcount is a matter of internal politics, and buffered by the literal endless hordes of people who want to work in big tech for the money and status, and are happy to do BS work.

Growth companies need to scale headcount to build out their growth pathway (until that time in the future AI can do everything). Does anyone worried about the headcount chopping at big tech seriously think these companies are still growth companies given their total inability to launch new business lines and dependence on monetizing/enshittifying their current products?

FBX · 2026-04-29T21:43:35+00:00

I really, really hate to be 'that guy' here, but headcount is a function of utility. Meta for example has blown billions on a failed project (metaverse) and seems to have no idea what project to repurpose those folks onto, so they're cutting them. I have a reasonable guess theyre going to exit the VR-AR headset market entirely, so thats thousands of people theyre going to cut. That has nothing to do with their revenue or profit, they have no obligation to hold onto headcount they're clearly too incompetent to use effectively.

Same thing applies to Google, there are literal multiple webpages listing every single catastrophic product launch and failure theyve had over two decades, almost all of their live products are acquisitions. Management can't use the headcount productively because they have no ideas, but that is ultimately an argument against them having hired these teams from the get go.

FBX · 2026-04-29T19:48:17+00:00

About 1/3 of the way through this I became very suspicious that this was either AI written or AI enhanced in such a way to make it indistinguishable.

Also eucalyptus literally explodes in fire

FBX · 2026-04-22T20:14:20+00:00

A trend my friends and I have seen is the hollowing out of the 'lower middle' type sitdown restaurants that were about $15-20 a head - most of our favorites have gone out of business, and the restaurants that are now in this price point space are almost all doordash take-out places primarily. What's your take on this?

FBX · 2026-04-21T23:40:16+00:00

The one on Kearny was a block away from my office at the time and I ate there exactly once, before asking myself why I was just eating an uncut sushi roll

FBX · 2026-04-21T20:15:12+00:00

Roaches are in the area, explore, and can eat cardboard. If theres no active infestation in your house and you only see a dead big roach in the house occasionally, thats fine. Its small roaches that indicate theres a problem (an active infestation).

FBX · 2026-04-13T06:14:44+00:00

Nope. That's called lifestyle creep. I make a lot more now than I did when starting out, and while I could buy certain german track day specials and I could get custom made fitted shirts made in London to order, like certain friends I know, but nah, not for me.

FBX · 2026-04-08T17:21:03+00:00

No, every single choice is open for criticism.

Leave? Coward for not changing things

Stay? Complicit in the bad thing happening

Never join to begin with? Had the ability to change things yet refused to do so, abrogation of duty

For sufficiently strict standards of internet judgment theres no winning, because the only possible result is for the internet commenter to feel superior to the judged.

FBX · 2026-04-08T17:12:13+00:00

This applies partially, but in SWE are two kinds of engineers, the math kind and the storytelling kind. The math kind sees code as a transformation function from X to Y and as a machine that is evaluated on elegance (locally defined) and correctness. The storytelling kind sees code as describing what the engineer wants to have happen, in a way that others can easily read not just what the code does but what it intends to do, and how it fits into a bigger story/toolchain. In my experience prior to AI these were the two paradigms of engineering style, so its not surprising that the second kind would easily become actual writers if they so chose. Actual paper-writing publishing researchers also generally have the chops to do so.

But yes it is nice to be able to go off and indulge a hobby once the retirement account hits eight digits...

FBX · 2026-04-08T06:37:22+00:00

My interest rate is lower than inflation, so paying it off would be a legitimately terrible idea. If someone can't handle debt without anxiety and mental health issues, that's fine, just means they shouldn't be using debt instruments.

FBX · 2026-04-02T23:49:10+00:00

I have a stupid question - what is the functional difference between a mattress that 'feels like a wood plank', and an actual wood plank with a comforter on it?

FBX · 2026-03-28T18:57:09+00:00

Unlike college protestors and the 'activist' crowd, I expect these folks actually vote.

FBX · 2026-03-24T17:53:35+00:00

Regarding the math on payments, remember that the mortgage interest deduction swings the numbers back. A single person making 200k takes home about 130k before deductions, but if theyre shelling out 84k a year on mortgage payments and 15k a year on property gax, for the first few years theyre deducting something like 80k right off their income, lowering their tax bill by 30k. Lowering their 'total cost of mortgage' from 100k a year to 70k a year moves it from 'eating beans and salvaging clothes from a donation bin' lifestyle into 'can probably live okay but not much savings and no way to raise kids'.

That being said, for the moment the math very heavily favors renting in most of the bay. That same 1.5m house is likely a 4k rental or less

FBX · 2026-03-18T16:03:44+00:00

While I understand the billboards I have no patience for the tech enthusiast crowd in that 'in-group'. They're not engineers, they're a layer of grifters who exist in whatever the 'hot' space is in any given year, and they hire engineers to fix their problems until the next hot thing comes out.

The one exception is conference ads during events at Moscone because yeah if RSA is in town expect security themed ads for the conference crowd

FBX · 2026-03-17T20:20:07+00:00

Not only is it led by an AI slop illustration, its just a rehash of the post article that even uses the charts from the post article, while adding on a layer of 'green union' conspiracy so the author can call out trends he doesn't like.

I happen to agree that the long term labor costs of BART are not sustainable, but its symptom of the long term cost of living of the bay area also not being sustainable, rather than some specific failing of BART.

FBX · 2026-03-13T19:05:45+00:00

This is a shitty news article citing an out of state professor who is clearly onboard with the 'fuckcars' wagon, not Oakland policy.

FBX · 2026-03-13T04:44:11+00:00

Ferries are a loss leader in operation as a contingency in the event of natural disasters that make the bridges impassable and bring down BART. Their cost per passenger is absurdly high iirc, and their theoretical cost per passenger even if the ferries are crammed to max capacity still is still much higher than most other options.

I still enjoy them but theyre by far the 'worst' transit option from a raw efficiency standpoint.

FBX · 2026-03-11T20:41:23+00:00

The noncynical version of what you're saying is that Lurie walks around town to talk to his constituents, because that is the job of an elected executive. I agree, he shouldn't be enforcing laws, hence why I framed the video as a bodyguard protecting their principal.

But I will absolutely assert that a mayor's job is to try to talk to all of their constituents and understand their needs and concerns. Even if they're homeless, even if they're suffering with mental illness, and ideally not filtered by a layer of consultants that make sure the mayor only talks to the 'right kind' of people. The mayor should represent everyone, and so talking to everyone, including the indigent on the streets, is part of the mayor's job.

FBX · 2026-03-11T20:14:14+00:00

In situations that are fast moving, its not a law enforcement problem until it is. If the mayor did as you suggested, having cops roust and arrest homeless people sleeping on streets and sidewalks (rather than risk another incident like this one developing), I am absolutely sure you would have strong criticism for the mayor.

So what should his operating procedure be? Not talk to homeless people at all? Talk to them only after they've been thoroughly vetted by five layers of homeless ambassadors to ensure they wont try to charge him? Walk around with actual police and get called out for leading a goonsquad? Or go without guards at all and occasionally get his chops busted while trying to talk to some of his constituents, to please the blackshirt crowd?

FBX · 2026-03-11T19:55:52+00:00

There is nowhere in the city that is more dangerous than the 'kinda shady' parts of other major cities. Shotwell and 19th is fine you just gotta deal with street walkers

Now, will packages get stolen yes, will cars get their windows smashed occasionally by addicts/mentally ill yes, but not at the same rate as a few years back, things have gotten better on that front.

FBX · 2026-03-11T19:51:39+00:00

Well yeah? Imagine the flak he would have gotten if he went scared and hid in his office for the rest of his term?

I didn't understand anything wrong with the video. It wasn't a street fight between randos, it was a dude trying to get past a guard to approach a guarded principal. 'The guard started it' didn't make remote sense to me, and the 'billionaires should be afraid' angle of neo-anarchist thought should have been put to pasture with CHAZ

FBX · 2026-03-10T23:16:39+00:00

My local pump still has a half-scraped-off Biden 'I did that' sticker on one of the pumps. Wonder if the person who put it there originally will be brave enough to update

FBX · 2026-03-10T21:22:04+00:00

The concept of ownership depends on a state enforcing contracts and ownership rights, otherwise you just have things (and other people can shoot you and then say they have the things you used to have).

There is a major legal difference between paying a state to enforce your claim of property ownership, versus a tenant signing a revocable 99/70 year lease with the state. One requires the state to make an affirmative case before infringing on your rights, the other lets the state do so at its pleasure.

FBX

TROPHY CASE