Thread regarding Qualcomm Inc. layoffs

@1ble+1oKwY0dV: Unfortunately, the fat trimming is not gonna happen even this time. The fat will remain, the lean muscle will be atrophied. The vested fat will encourage more fat to build up. It will accelerate the bad cholesterol. Bad cholesterol to good cholesterol ratio will keep increasing until there is a stroke and then someone will try to put in a stent.

overhire during pandemic was pure stupidity, pair that with poor performing stock, dim outlook, investor pressure for growth etc = mass layoff.

There is a lot of dead weight Q has accommodated over the years .... Mostly the folks resting and vesting, while doing minimal work.

Time to trim the fat.

80% to 90% profit margin may not be possible, but why not try to squeeze out more profit and (a) roll it into new innovation, and, (b) returns to investor. As AAPL investor, I would love them to do both. Remember this is not just money from US consumers, this is inflows from global markets into the US. What has QCOM done for me lately? As an investor, I wish Hock Tan would have taken over, he would have cleaned the clocks of the likes of ESG or Product Marketing and Product Management high titled, high expense, power point status presenters.

I read an article sometimes back. It takes about 400$ to produce an iPhone. Apple already has very high profit margin yet they have been increasing prices. Do you want them to have 80-90% profit margin or what?

Apple is not going to give up so easily. They need to go vertical at any cost. It is ingrained into Apple DNA. Steve Jobs faced failure with Newton and after that his policy was that Apple will not make a product just because the technology exists. Apple lost control of mobile connectivity after its dependence on Q. IOW, they got dragged kicking and screaming into Qualcomm roadmap. They HATE that. Let me explain it with more details.

From a user perspective, there is barely any difference between a 20L LTE and a 5G NSA-Sub6. Also, network operators installed FR2 in downtowns and while it delivers high speed, it works only when you are outdoors and in direct visibility of the base station. Post covid, downtowns are empty and operators still need to figure out a way to see any ROI! Many network operators have postponed spending money on FR2 deployments. In fact in Japan and South Korea, they even returned spectrum and forfeited the license fee after regulators came after them for not deploying FR2.

Being stuck to Q roadmap, Apple had to release iPhones with FR2 connectivity which is totally unnecessary today. Why is it unnecessary? It is just because of the fact that there are just a minuscule number of apps that require more than 300Mbps on mobile devices. This is exactly what Steve Jobs preached about - technology exists, but use cases do not exist. IOW, Apple had to use FR2 and pay royalties to Q which has to lead to (a) increased cost for consumer, and, (b) lowered profit margin for Apple.

Overhired during covid and macroeconomics are not good, demand is very low.

All those engineers/management that left Qualcomm and other tech companies for Apple to work on their 5G modem are most likely going to get layoff from Apple due to Apple's modem chip failure. So if you get layoff from Qualcomm at the same time, there will be heavy competition for any job opening in chip design/coding. If you're skills are not up to date, it's time to sharpen those skills.

We are minting money, but you need to realize that as an employee, you are need to support a huge cash flow too, beginning from your senior staff lead, his lead principal, his lead director/senior dir, vp and so on. The amount of deadweight justifying their positions are astounding. Reminds one of old Intel, HP, Cisco, IBM and others. Also, you should remember that you got a big bounce last October, some of your coworkers got offers from competitors and got huge retention bonuses.

That being said, other than QTL, which other entity makes good margins. Each BU lead is consolidating his/her position by saying, "we project that in 1Q of 2026 we can achieve a...". Other than QTL and Modem, every other BU is a low margin business.

Read the last earning report