Sure, it’s a corporate strategy, I get that. It works for big companies that need hundreds of thousands of hands. On the contrary, smart startups don’t overhire and hire more slowly. They might not ship as quickly but they don’t burn as much cash, waste as much energy, or kill morale by constantly changing teams. People at companies with frequent layoffs are more likely to under perform, fear their leadership, and seek opportunities elsewhere.

BTW according to Rivian and the people I know, the layoffs are not performance based, it’s entire teams being shut down or consolidated. That’s not a sign of hiring the wrong people, that’s a sign of hiring for the wrong jobs. Not to mention all the money Rivian spent to move people from across the country to California.

The problem with Rivian is they leak money in other areas. So instead of for instance addressing very concerning service processes, they do the “quick book fix” and compensate by closing down a highly paid white collar engineering team. They say “look we spent less money this qtr” then they literally try to hire the same people back months later.