the specific reasons are actually quite opaque. of course the main reason is because these companies want to impress their wall st masters by increasing profits. there are given reasons but none of them are worth trusting. tech compensation and headcount increased a lot ($300-$400k TC for < 5 YOE) so I suspect they are colluding to suppress wages. A lot of people also point to Elon’s twitter takeover inspiring these firms to see how deep they can cut on headcount before they bleed out. there’s also mounting pressure on multiple fronts: increased competition from OpenAI and China (Temu, Tiktok), higher interest rates (can’t pay high wages without a money printer), slower top-line growth projections, etc.
the specific reasons are actually quite opaque. of course the main reason is because these companies want to impress their wall st masters by increasing profits. there are given reasons but none of them are worth trusting. tech compensation and headcount increased a lot ($300-$400k TC for < 5 YOE) so I suspect they are colluding to suppress wages. A lot of people also point to Elon’s twitter takeover inspiring these firms to see how deep they can cut on headcount before they bleed out. there’s also mounting pressure on multiple fronts: increased competition from OpenAI and China (Temu, Tiktok), higher interest rates (can’t pay high wages without a money printer), slower top-line growth projections, etc.
I think the answer is actually dumber than that.
Google did it and everyone else just followed suit.