#16 To Lay and Be Laid...Off

First, let me tell you how old I am. 

I’m so old that when I first worked on big corporate layoffs (1000+ roles), managers had to notify each person 1:1. You can do it by email now if you want!

I'm so old, we used to scrape an executive's BLACKBERRY to prep the counterfact folder. (If you've never seen the transcript of a sales exec sexting at 222 ppi, then you're probably also too young to know the word "podcast" comes from the word "iPod.")

Nowadays, you can just have a chatbot explain at-will-employment. Meanwhile, you pushed those people’s desks into a dumpster 5 days ago, which they’d know if they ever came to the office.

Sorry—I sound cruel.  I’m doing that on purpose.

Layoffs are a topic that benefit from a boogeyman. (An otherwise likable character who is conveniently hateable during a hard time.)

So boogie woogie, let me tell you some facts:

1. You’re likely to be laid off this year. The balance of power is shifting back to employers in general. Plus, numbers are tighter than they seem. Many industries we think still matter still matter less. (Meta's EBIT last year was 5X all of Hollywood’s gross combined). Companies experience reality faster than humans.

2. Knowledge work is the first victim of AI. Just kidding, content work was first! But you’re next.

Investors already love the February housecleaning, and this year they're extra convinced AI will be you overnight…which they’ve priced into the stock…which might as well be tarot cards for mid-level Merrill Lynch advisors, aka the Bowdoin flunkies whose dumb conclusions somehow control your board’s serotonin.

(Before you go feeling sorry for yourself, bots can do that better, too.)

3. Management roles are prime targets. They’re down 6% without backfill over the last year. Many companies are beginning to see the benefits of prioritizing execution over delegation. 

The heart of the guy (me) who built his own house with his own hands is honestly aflutter. I think we’ve been right to push stronger management skills in every industry over the last decade, but I wonder if we’ve asked too many people to use them. (There’s an old cooks-to-kitchen ratio about this.)

But THIS, I say, is where your executive neck on the chopping block may be your biggest opportunity in decades. Hear me out.

I now work extensively with AI. Projects that needed 40 writers in 2022 are now 1 editor and 6 bots. We have bots that write newsletters, bots for blogs, bots who edit, some that talk, even one that sings. We use AI for research (if you're not using Perplexity you're a dope), AI for testing, AI for analysis, strategy, and silly poems.

For background work I also have to listen to all of the people talking about AI. 

From Garry Tan, to Sam Altman, Zuck Dawg, Dharmesh, and every wannabe with a podcast.  What they all say is, “this is the year AI agents fully replace employees.”   

But there's one thing AI agents do not have, that YOU do. If you are a C-something, if you are a manager, if you are an executive, you may have the one single skill that cannot be replaced by AI.

Do you know what it is?

Hint: it’s possibly the most important thing you need in a company (assuming you have a product).

It is also a thing that many of the techno-futurists and venture capitalists overlook, because they’re overly focused on startups, who need it less.

But PE and market investors know it kills companies that lack it. Deficiency in this skill is the #1 cause for hostile M&A. And if activists can’t fix it, then companies who ignore this falter and fade. 

Plus, since startups don’t think about it as much, the tech world has never really answered how we’ll ever build it into bots. 

Do you know what I'm talking about yet?  

I'm talking about ACCOUNTABILITY. 

Whether AI replaces your job or your company, the safest roles in the coming years will be held by people who have advanced practice in the #1 skill that makes you C-Something.  Accountability. 

When is it your fault? Even when it's not your fault. (Especially then.)

And so, my accountable laid-off friend, here is your opportunity on the outside.  

If all of these techno-optimists are right (and we have reason to believe they are, since they also control the technology they're talking about), then the most important jobs in a company will be the humans accountable for anything all the bots do.

Meanwhile, after you’re laid off, the same is even more true.

We hear big talk of the first “1-pizza company” reaching a $1B value (1 pizza = 4 humans and bots hate bread).  

The people who will build those $1B businesses are going to have only two very important skills assets:

1. Accountability

2. Pretty deep knowledge of "the old way," aka all your experience.

I say stand up on that chopping block. It’s a podium.

Your opportunity, while you have a cushion of severance, is to start right now on building your expertise into bots, for whom you shall be accountable.

That's your business. 1 pizza, one billion dollars. Or, keep the whole pizza to yourself and make just a million. Whatever you wanna do. You have accountability; you have experience. All you need is agency. 

Think small. You don’t need to build a magical product or service. It could just do ½ as good at something for 1/100th the cost. Remember, for every Zuck there’s 11.5 million people who make a full-time living on his products.

You don't need to code a complicated app or invent AI. You just need to use it.

Then get big if you want. You have the early-mover edge and incumbents won’t catch you. How do I know? Because I help them with their layoffs, and not even Elon cool-sculpting Twitter could cut enough jobs to beat your bot-first business. 

The only hard part is learning how.

And if learning that stuff still feels daunting to you, as a 30-, 40-, or 50-something, then I have two pointers to encourage you:

1. It’s not a handicap. EVERYONE is learning this stuff right now. Get off your sad duff and make rad stuff! 

2. I have to say, as a reasonably seasoned fuddy-duddy (see above, re iPods) who's entering the fun phase of middle-age, I can tell you there is no serum, ozempic, or cosmetic that will make you as feel as young as learning something hard.  

The fountain of youth is not a sipping well. It's Class V whitewater. Paddle.

I will warn you though: no matter how many people you feed that pizza to, you're going to have to lay some of them off eventually.  

So you might as well read this second half, too.

Time for real talk, and let’s get tactical.

First and most important: remember that layoffs are NOT an end goal.

They can easily seem like one if you have Alvarez Marsal in your ear, or if you've spent 6 weeks whiteboarding orgs to get it perfect. But the truth is layoffs are a beginning. They are a (painful) reset.

Therefore, it’s my unpopular opinion yet deep experience that speed is the most under-appreciated element of a successful layoff.

There aren’t many consultants who will tell you this (partly because they bill hourly, but mostly because they would matter less). 

And speed itself is not enough. But it’s a lot more than we think. 

For many years, I provided a free blueprint for “layoffs for startups” at an unindexed URL (DM if you want it, but it’s a little dated now).

What happened instead is a lot of large publicly-traded companies started to use it.

In the blueprint, young me suggests the entire point of your layoff is whatever you’re doing one day after it. Since it was meant for startups, I also make the heretic idea that a good layoff should take only 3 hours.

That’s less true in bigger companies, but here are some guidelines that work for everyone.

Good layoffs have three key outcomes. The third is least popular to discuss and potentially the most important.

1. Departing employees leave with dignity.

2. Retained employees stay motivated AND become more nimble.

3. Executives (you) sleep well.

Nail these three and you’ll succeed. Re the third: it’s wild how poorly a guilt-ridden founder who’s never done a layoff and spent his first ten years thinking he was so damned unique he’d never need to will perform after a RIF.

It’ll get in your head for years if you let it for 1 minute. So don’t.

Practically speaking, this means avoid the popular structure, “it’s my mistake, we over-hired.” Instead, build a (true) narrative that explains how conditions changed and companies adapt.

Don’t be a D about it, but you’re accountable to the company and the truth. You made the right decision in those circumstances, and you are in these.

Second, don’t drag out the prep.

This is where most go wrong. Complexity ≠ competence. Asking your teams to submit headcount plans for different scenarios is really just one thing: delaying your decision.

Slow layoffs have even worse costs later.

The reason is a simple fact of human communication: People form narratives by instinct, and when we form them ourselves (aka gossip), we don’t believe the truth when it’s later shared. Instead, we think we’re being lied to, by liars (e.g., you).

This is not what you want in that one engineer you need.

On the big day, notify everyone in 1 hour or less, however you do it. Keep it straightforward and focused on severance details. Announce an all-hands for exactly one hour after that. Not 1 minute more or less. Gossip loves downtime, and anxiety hates it.

At the meeting (live, unrecorded), say: what happened (a layoff), why it happened (the company mission), and what’s next (goals).

Don’t discuss specific people and don’t over-do the rationale. Focus forward.

And that’s it! Seriously. Anyone with bigger ideas is selling you something.

And, trust me, you can’t afford it.

Here for you at either end of the axe,
Jesse

PS: A new experiment for me this year is hand-writing letters more often. Analogue letters, as a little breath away from the bots. I’ve been penning about one note per week, nothing fancy. Just a thought or two, usually a thank-you.

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