“Every single Monday was called ‘AI Monday,’” Vaughan said, with his mandate for staff that they could work only on AI. “You couldn’t have customer calls; you couldn’t work on budgets; you had to only work on AI projects.” He said this happened across the board, not just for tech workers, but also for sales, marketing, and everybody else at IgniteTech. “That culture needed to be built. That was the key.”
Probably overhired just after COVID like everyone else in the tech sector and then realized he had no idea what to do with all the extra people because he never really had a plan.
COVID excuse not required. CEOs overhiring is like birds flying south for the winter, the sun rising in the east, water being wet - it’s just what they do. 80% is a bit extreme, but he had the AI excuse, so…
Eh I’ve only been in the software industry for 6 years and change. The post-covid hiring boom was for me the first time I’d seen it done en masse and then the subsequent layoffs were the first time I’d seen that en masse, but neither affected me personally luckily.
I have no idea what was going on before that because I had no real reason to care, nobody wanted to hire me anyway before I got my first job in the industry lol
It’s not just the software industry. Fully 1/2 of CEOs I have worked under get their hands on some money and an idea that they’re going to grow the business - really fast - poised for growth - ready to capitalize on the opportunities when they arise - and 6-18 months later their idea doesn’t pan out and they’ve got all these people who are costing more than the company is bringing in in sales revenue, so…