The triple of economics, the reality of the pandemic era, and political pressure is changing technological culture. From big technology to Silicon Valley startups, companies are pushing to “do less.”
Shopify CEO Tobi Lütke enjoyed the reputation of growing a $125 billion e-commerce company without spending the time expected of startup founders.
“My job is incredible, but it’s just work. Family and personal health is ranked highly on my priorities list,” he wrote in an X, and then a now-deleted post on Twitter, just before the pandemic. “The only time I worked over 40 hours in a week was when I had a fiery desire to do so.”
This year, even Lucke seemed to have changed his songs.
“I’m at home for dinner, but I work at least 10 hours a day or so on weekends,” Lucke wrote to X. “I don’t want people to be misguided by this meme.”
Throughout technology, the table has changed as performance pressures and declarations of “efficiency” and “strength” replace perks and pampering. Swee Playoffs have become the norm in recent memory in the industry that has enjoyed job safety. The pressure to dominate with AI has created fierce competition as companies use technology to do more with fewer workers. Already forced workplaces are becoming even more difficult.
The situation for tech employees has changed since the pandemic boom ended in 2022, but recent developments have a distinctly different tone from executives. Businesses are not just making these changes now. They want to see them make.
Elon Musk’s slash and burn tactics are now accepted in Silicon Valley in the name of efficiency. On Twitter, Musk cut 80% of its staff. This is over 6,000 people. A few years later, the company did not collapse as feared. And now, the impact of masks’ character on President Donald Trump and his administration has empowered both him and his throat strategy. The CEOs of the largest tech giant have filed lawsuits on similar tactics.
Earlier this year, Meta said CEO Mark Zuckerberg said the world of “culturally castrated” companies has moved away from “masculine energy,” thus cutting back on employees who deemed 4,000 employees as poorly performed. Amazon claimed that employees would return to work every day. This is a policy that some employees say is stricter than before the pandemic.
Other companies have also cracked down on it. Once dubbed the “country club” of a relatively loose culture, Microsoft cut 2,000 employees as it conceptualized a review process and eliminated underperformers more quickly.
Google has actually invented high-tech perks like free lunches and launched an “efficient drive.” Its co-founder Sergei Brin, who has stepped away from the Google giants, is now showing up to tackle the company’s Gemini AI model, recommending employees working on Gemini tools work 60 hours a week and go to the office at least on weekdays. Wall Street is rewarding this rigor as Alphabet’s stock prices have skyrocketed since 2022, the parent of Meta, Amazon, Microsoft and Google.
Startups also have the trickle-down effect from the pressure of major high-tech companies. AIX Ventures partner Krish Ramadurai said he noticed a “significant shift” to more lean teams at startups and strict performance standards.
Between performance-based reductions, office return obligations and workplace perks, it is clear that not only is the tech industry imposing employees, but companies want to send a message to that era. BI interviewed Tech Giants employees, including Microsoft, Google, Amazon, Meta and various high-tech startups, about the changes. Although their identity is known to BI, some spoke about the state of anonymity as they are not permitted to speak to the press.
Meta, Microsoft, Google, or Amazon did not comment. Shopify did not respond to requests for comment.
It collapsed from something comfortable
For years, fierce competition for tech workers meant that businesses with amazing salaries and amazing perks had ruined their employees, including amazing massages and free food prepared by flashy chefs.
By 2022, tech companies seemed unable to throw enough money to workers. Earlier that year, Amazon more than doubled its maximum base salary, and Microsoft gave employees a raise up to a certain level of seniority to discourage employees from leaving for their competitors.
Once the pandemic boom ended, tech stocks plummeted, and interest rates rose until 2022.
Also, that year, the company saw billionaire Elon Musk handled the Twitter acquisition, cutting thousands of employees, cutting perks like free lunches, and demanding a new “very hardcore” vision and commitment to “long and long hours.” At one point, Twitter workers were pleading for loose toilet paper and clean bathrooms amid the dramatic cost cuts of Musk.
Later last year, Fidelity was only about 20% of the $44 billion Musk purchased X in 2022.
“It was that people weren’t able to take out so many engineering organizations and put a lot of instability on it, and they didn’t take it down, so people paid attention. “It got closer to falling. He actually pushed right towards the falling edge, but it didn’t fall.”
“I’ll do more with less.”
Between the end of 2022 and early 2023, the tech giant was implementing an unprecedented layoff. Meta, Amazon, Google and Microsoft collectively fired more than 60,000 employees during that time.
Since then, layoffs have been steadily dripping across the industry. For example, because Google has become so commonplace, employees are crowdsourcing information about internal Google docs layoffs.
The employee told BI that “the less the more, the more we do.” “There’s a lot of uncertainty,” said a longtime Amazon employee, “there are a lot of pressure to merciless middle managers and carry out the work of multiple people.”
High-tech companies are also selecting middle management tiers. In September, Amazon announced plans to increase the manager ratio of individual contributors by 15% by the end of this month. In December, CEO Sundar Pichai told staff that Google had cut the role of Vice President and Manager by 10% as part of an efficient drive. Microsoft also monitors what is called a “span of control” and tracks the number of reports per manager.
Related Stories
Performance pressure
In the cut, employees across the industry say companies are dialing performance demands.
As Zuckerberg wrote in an internal memo, Meta told staff in January that it would remove about 5% of its employees, or about 4,000 employees, to raise the standard for performance management.
Google has also increased pressure on its employees. Perhaps the most common was Pichai’s December comments trying to clarify what “googlee” means to modern Google. Once a squishy and vague philosophy for the search giant’s corporate culture, Pichai said he believes it means, among other things, that it means “the first mission.”
“There’s more pressure for individuals to make their roles better, and there’s been much more aggressive performance management these days,” said a longtime Google Manager.
“We’re being asked to do more to less,” said a long-time Google employee today.
The same Google employee said Silicon Valley has been heading for a more ruthless and efficient workplace for some time. Google has been working to be more efficient since Chief Investment Officer Ruth Porat joined the company in 2015 as Morgan Stanley’s CFO, but “masks are off now,” people said.
Microsoft was once known as the “country club” of the high-tech industry. This means where employees go after they work hard in their careers and want a Coast run before resigning. This year’s changes show how much Microsoft has shifted when 2,000 employees fired low-performing companies without leaving, ending their health benefits the same day. This kind of performance-based Muscat showed a shift for tech giants.
One longtime Microsoft senior-level employee said he felt that Piatec companies like Google, Meta and Amazon “shift to expectations of stronger performance.”
At Tiktok, the pressure to instruct managers to provide more scores in performance reviews, jumped last year to run to lead to PIPS and final exits. At the same time, six current and former employees told BI that their goals have become much more difficult to hit. One staff member called the goal “unachievable.”
The company has recently increased the RTO requirements for some teams. In February, I told US e-commerce workers that in addition to being in the office five days a week, they were physically required for the building eight hours a day. Ten current and former workers told BI that burnout became commonplace and leads to some degree of breaks to take mental health leave. Tiktok did not respond to requests for comment.
“If you haven’t hit a target, even a moving target feels like it’s a problem,” a former staff member who took leave for mental health reasons told BI. “For me, it felt like I just failed, like I couldn’t do anything right.”
I’ve got hardcore in “Valley of Death”
With an increase in pivot to performance, it has already become a hard-charging startup.
Startups have an old tradition of lifestyles that are always on and work. Early employees are expected to include rigorous coding and customer support at this critical stage known as the “valley of death” when the startup is being washed away with the initial funds but still not making profits.
The free money era tested this tradition of hustle. Investors piled up money on small startups when interest rates bottomed, and subsequent scaling of the Blitz sparked a perks arms race to help startups attract top talent. Employees can work from home and set their own schedules. They pocketed wellness scholarships and sprinted across the globe in their luxurious offsite. High-tech startup bolt fired Friday on many employees.
“I think a lot of individuals (including founders) have lost sight of the company’s true goals. That’s to make money,” Mang-Git Ng, founder of document automation company Anvil, told BI.
Executives who now lavish employees with high pay and flashy perks have reset their expectations, engulfed remote jobs and reduced their head count.
“Everyone who comes to our office at Decagon chose to work with the team here because we want to do big things and see better results,” said Jesse Chan, founder of Decagon. “There’s no such thing as a rocket ship that doesn’t have a certain level of strength to burn that trajectory.”
Call it a big technical trickle-down effect.
“The founders don’t sugarcoat it,” said Natan Fisher, who runs Singlesprout, a recruitment company specializing in hiring technical talent. “I told a few co-founders that I wasn’t working hard enough to work with my employees. Even those who crash late at night, weekends, in the office, that’s true.”
Any hints? Contact Ashley Stewart by email at astewart@businessinsider.com or send us a signal at +1-425-344-8242. Contact Hugh Langley by email at hlangley@businessinsider.com or send a signal at 628-228-1836. Use your personal email address and unprocessed devices. Here’s a guide to sharing information safely:
Emma Cosgrove, Eugene Kim and Pranab Dixit contributed to this report.
