Power Reads: 5 Interesting Articles That Will Help You This Week

Each week, I select a few articles that rise above the fray and hopefully help you on your journey in leadership and the CRE world. They pull from one of four "corners": corporate real estate, technology, management science and anything positive. Each day we can become a better version of ourselves.

1. How Apple Has So Far Avoided Layoffs: Lean Hiring, No Free Lunches

Layoffs have hit the tech industry hard—except at Apple Inc. The world’s largest company has so far avoided the job cuts rippling through peers including Microsoft Corp., Google, Meta Platforms Inc. and Amazon.com Inc.

“No company is certain to avoid significant cutbacks in an economic environment as volatile as the current one, and Apple isn’t immune to the business challenges that have hit other tech giants. It is expected next month to report its first quarterly sales decline in more than three years. Apple has also slowed hiring in some areas.”

But the iPhone maker has been better positioned than many rivals to date in part because it added employees at a much slower clip than those companies during the pandemic. It also tends to run lean, with limited employee perks and businesses focused on hardware products and sales that have so far largely dodged the economic downturn, investors say.

2. Tech Layoffs Shock Young Workers. The Older People? Not So Much.

When Lyft laid off 13 percent of its workers in November, Kelly Chang was shocked to find herself among the 700 people who lost their jobs at the San Francisco company.

“It seemed like tech companies had so much opportunity,” said Ms. Chang, 26. “If you got a job, you made it. It was a sustainable path.”

Brian Pulliam, on the other hand, brushed off the news that the crypto exchange Coinbase was eliminating his job. Ever since the 48-year-old engineer was laid off from his first job at the video game company Atari in 2003, he said, he has asked himself once a year: “If I were laid off, what would I do?”

3. Microsoft to Lay Off 10,000 Workers as Slowdown Hits Software Business

Microsoft Corp. said Wednesday it plans to eliminate 10,000 jobs in response to the global economic slowdown, the company’s largest layoffs in more than eight years and the latest in a string of cuts from big technology companies.

“The software company’s chief executive officer, Satya Nadella, wrote that the layoffs would happen before the end of March and affect less than 5% of the company’s worldwide workforce. The last time Microsoft laid off that many people was in 2014, when 18,000 employees lost their jobs as the company pulled out of cellphones and other noncore businesses.”

In a blog post to employees, Mr. Nadella pointed to the shaky economy, telling employees that companies globally had begun to “exercise caution as some parts of the world are in a recession and other parts are anticipating one.” He added that the company would be taking a $1.2 billion charge in its soon-to-be-announced earnings related to severance costs.

4. These Companies Have Announced the Biggest Layoffs in 2023

Amid an avalanche of layoffs in some sectors of the U.S. job market, particularly across technology, retail, and finance sectors, Swedish music streaming giant Spotify announced Monday that it would cut 6% of its global workforce.

“The news comes day after Google’s parent company Alphabet announced on Jan. 20 that it would cut 12,000 jobs.”

The Google layoffs are the company’s largest ever, accounting for 6% of the company’s global personnel, and comes after a decision to defer a portion of employees’ January bonuses to be paid later in the year. Sundar Pichai, Alphabet’s chief executive, shared a memo on Friday via the company’s website citing ill-hiring decisions over the past two years, which aimed to “match periods of dramatic growth.” He said, “To match and fuel that growth, we hired for a different economic reality than the one we face today.”

5. Georgia Brokers Trek Across Country To Cheer On Bulldogs

Brokers Brooke Gothard and Nicole Goldsmith work for rival firms, but the friends came together in Los Angeles where they cheered on the Georgia Bulldogs to a huge victory over the Horned Frogs from Texas Christian University.

“Gothard, who works for JLL Atlanta, and Goldsmith a CBRE landlord representative, joined dozens of real estate pros from Georgia who made the cross-country trek to watch the 2023 College Football Playoff National Championship at SoFi Stadium.”

Gothard went to the game with University of Georgia grads Kristen Henderson and Goldsmith to support her friends and kick off the new year in a big way.

Your success blesses others. I wish you a great and hugely impactful week!