What Belt-Tightening? Cisco CEO Planned $1 Billion Budget Increase To Retain Employees (theinformation.com) 18
Cisco Systems CEO Chuck Robbins told managers earlier this month that the networking hardware pioneer would increase its operating expenses $1 billion over the next 12 months, in part to raise employee pay to stem a rise in departures, The Information reported Friday, citing a person with direct knowledge of the situation. From a report: Robbins made the surprising comment after the company's revenue growth flatlined in the quarter that ended in July and following a 12-month period in which Cisco shrank its operating expenses as its free cash flow fell. The company didn't discuss Robbins' plan in its quarterly earnings report or conference call on Wednesday.
Cisco's move may seem unusual, given the belt-tightening happening almost everywhere else in the tech sector. Most major technology companies, including Google, Meta Platforms and Oracle, are freezing hiring, laying off employees or cutting contractors and extraneous projects as their growth slows. At the same time, these companies face enormous pressure to retain employees in a tight labor market after some workers have expressed concerns about their pay amid rising inflation. Earlier in the year, before macroeconomic conditions deteriorated further, managers' concerns about employee turnover prompted Microsoft and Amazon to announce broad pay increases.
Cisco's move may seem unusual, given the belt-tightening happening almost everywhere else in the tech sector. Most major technology companies, including Google, Meta Platforms and Oracle, are freezing hiring, laying off employees or cutting contractors and extraneous projects as their growth slows. At the same time, these companies face enormous pressure to retain employees in a tight labor market after some workers have expressed concerns about their pay amid rising inflation. Earlier in the year, before macroeconomic conditions deteriorated further, managers' concerns about employee turnover prompted Microsoft and Amazon to announce broad pay increases.
What if they threw a recession (Score:2)
Take all the cops off the streets and don't let people defend themselves and you get organized crime. Who knew?
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Well apparently they threw an economics class and you didn't show up....
We can see the results of that.
Rather than give you a free education (I paid for mine) I'll just throw out a term for research: Money Supply.
Go fark yourself.
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Right. "The corporations" all got together and decided "hey, let's all raise prices all at once because we love money!" Gee, why the fuck didn't they ever think of that before? Why did it all of a sudden start late last year?
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Well apparently they threw an economics class and you didn't show up....
We can see the results of that.
Rather than give you a free education (I paid for mine) I'll just throw out a term for research: Money Supply.
Go fark yourself.
Your economics training doesn't mean jack shit in the land of Too Big To Fail, and endless budgets for the QE printing presses.
Politics now defines whether you will succeed or fail financially. Proving that with math is for pleb losers who still do silly shit like pay taxes.
Re:What if they threw a recession (Score:4, Insightful)
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha, oh my, so funny though. A government caused the inflation by printing all this money, by creating fake credit that never existed and never should have been written to the Treasury, to the banks for the housing market, even for the stock market, whatever. The government creates inflation and then someone like rsilvergun says: inflation results from corporate profiteering and decades of no anti-trust law enforcement :)
I think Americans redefined inflation more than once already, but this is yet another new definition.
Inflation is just expansion of the money supply. Prices go up due to more money chasing the same amount of goods (or fewer goods), so rising prices are not inflation, they are a symptom of inflation.
As to 'decades of no anti-trust law enforcement', wow, really? There is more competition than ever before, so nobody can just raise prices for the hell of it, they'll get killed in the market. However once again - rising prices are not inflation, rising prices are a symptom of the expanding money supply and our money supply expands as much as the governments want.
Also there is no budget in government any longer, there is a wish list and this wish list is simply paid for by the inflating money supply provided to the politicians by the ever accommodating federal 'reserve' bank. A budget actually requires people to live within their means, however government doesn't believe in that. Government believes that you can wish whatever you want and just print money to provide it, well, that's how inflation causes prices to go up.
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I have a theory that the ultra wealthy benefit from swings in the economy and enough wealthy people are throwing enough money around to try to talk the country into a recession right now. This will bring further opportunities to buy limited assets (land and property) from distressed sellers.
Why put up interest rates if a recession is looming? This is the opposite of what central banks should be doing.
What recession, though? Unemployment is at historic low levels, profits at historic high levels. The one thi
"Network hardware pioneer"? (Score:1)
They don't pioneer hardware for shit. They take boring-ass old hardware and mark it up sky high then charge through the nose for "service fees". The one upside is you can buy the exact same outdated kit for a long time.
There'll be large enterprises needing their computer networks tomorrow too. And they'll still be filled with middle managers seeking to cover their asses by buying "support" contracts for sums that tend to add up very nicely for cisco. A mighty fearful lot, middle managers.
cisco sell "depen
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Cisco = legacy old-school networking equipment company. They're the IBM of networking hardware. Similarly, they'll keep offshoring jobs and milking support contracts to see how long they can keep their innovationless company going.
I predict bonuses for the few in the top (Score:3)
Top contributors (Score:5, Insightful)
Demand for top talent is still super high. I do think that mid tier and low tier contributors may see some pressure - but if anything, you'll probably see that top contributors end up ahead after all of this is said and done.
Personally, I've never seen a layoff work out positively. Every.single.time there are cuts, the people that have options and high market value end up running for the hills, so the layoff is a short term bandaid that ends up hurting bad long term.
I actually left my previous job because the company made me shrink a team that was performing well... and they struggled hard to find a replacement for me, ended up spending lots more money for a mediocre replacement who negotiated a bigger title.
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Given that for some items that Cisco delivers right now there's a good reason to believe that there's more to this than just keeping top level people.
I did order a "simple" switch, 24 port with PoE, and it had a lead time of over 200 days to get delivered. This due to trouble in China with the lockdowns. So my prediction is that they plan to start manufacturing elsewhere even though it's not official just to improve delivery reliability. The price for not being able to deliver due to situations outside your
Must be nice (Score:4, Insightful)
>"What Belt-Tightening? Cisco CEO Planned $1 Billion Budget Increase To Retain Employees "
Yeah, well, it must be nice to have a model where you can charge 5 times what something is actually worth, while locking in all kinds of huge government contracts to keep feeding you forever. Most businesses can't do that. Many of your competitors can't do that either.
So now you just raise prices even more to make up for this little blip.
CEO proposes ... (Score:2)
Yeah, we'll toss some of the executive suite a few bucks as well.
Inflation (Score:1)
Belt tightening (Score:2)
You know there is more than one way to tighten your belt right? :-)
Making their waist bigger is the strategy chosen this time.