YouTube announces 'voluntary exit program' for US staff
Mood
skeptical
Sentiment
negative
Category
business
Key topics
tech layoffs
corporate restructuring
YouTube
YouTube has announced a 'voluntary exit program' for its US staff, sparking concerns about potential layoffs and corporate motivations behind the move.
Snapshot generated from the HN discussion
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Very active discussionFirst comment
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Key moments
- 01Story posted
10/30/2025, 10:55:18 PM
19d ago
Step 01 - 02First comment
10/31/2025, 1:57:25 AM
3h after posting
Step 02 - 03Peak activity
27 comments in Day 1
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Step 03 - 04Latest activity
10/31/2025, 6:25:06 PM
18d ago
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I know, its unlikely to not have heard about internal rumors but who can tell how far the dystopian tech cult around thiel and co reaches. These guys clearly conspire for something. Ok, tinfoil head off now.
What is so wrong with having a sustainable business with happy employees.
The issue is everyone’s own greed. Including the old ladies and pension fund managers.
Which provides many benefits - but also, when push comes to shove - exposes the ‘teeth’ more directly.
The stock market just allows more abstract and scalable access to that greed, that otherwise would be more randomly distributed.
The one that doesn’t go to the right, because if they figured out how to stop or go back in time, they probably have some smart people working there.
Many strong employees are ambitious and need the prospect of progression to be happy with their job. When growth slows below the employee ambition rate, not everyone can be sustainably paid more. Then you're faced with a choice of removing people to make space or employees being unhappy.
You can let this equillibrate naturally. The employees who are both ambitious and skilled enough to land other jobs will disproportionately be first out the door, leaving room for others. But this reduces the average talent level, and hurts company prospects, so many companies choose other paths. Some proactively fire the bottom 15% every year. Some heavily differentiate pay to make up for lack of promotions. Some constantly reorg and fail to find spots for employees in internal interviews. Offering a paid out for those who were thinking about it anyway seems a uniquely humane solution.
In many regions, one needs to be happy to have a job at all, while others cannot accomodate everyone that wants to be there.
The VEPs are good for people who either are already planning to leave or who are considering it. I'm much happier that Google has done VEPs followed by layoffs to hit targets rather than just plain layoffs this year. I still think that the layoffs are horseshit given how outrageously profitable the company is, but the VEPs have been great.
The pay is less than most people think as reported since it is just salary and doesn't include stock vests, but if you've been at Google for a while its still a good chunk of change.
What in god’s name is the “voluntary exit program” going to do then ? It will obviously eliminate some roles ?
Corporate doublespeak at its finest.
Or, even more cynically, the roles can be nominally retained but due to inability to find the right talent or something like that kept open through the current (outside of AI, for now) economic downturn, and then filled again later.
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