Thread regarding VMware layoffs

Be well and stay epicc.

I’m so happy for Mr. Dell. Complete mo--n who got extremely lucky….not…his family gave him the Capital. Don’t believe that “I started building PC’s in my garage”. Bullsh-t
So happy for Silver Lake which made 100 already Millionaires into Billionaires.
This entire industry is f-c/(ed and a complete Sh-t Show.
My advise as someone who gave his Heart and Soul to the artist known as VMW for 12 years and actually came back is this.
Find another occupation.

It's been an honor and a pleasure working with so many of you. I have never worked with better people in my career and felt such a sense of community. I can honestly say I love VMware and am sad to see what it's come to. But it was great while it lasted and I wish the best to everyone. Godspeed!

Echo the OP. Here for 12 years and was fortunate to do some great work, meet some amazing people both at VMware and at our customers and partners, and make a solid living every year while doing it. Up until about the last 6 months but that's not so bad in the big picture. Either way it turns out for me, it's been a true blessing.

I’d like to echo that thankfulness to VMware. I’ve been an employee for almost 2 decades and even when I regret our leadership missed lots of golden opportunities such as public cloud, containers and K8s (yeah, we entered those spaces too late and without resolve). Still, the company managed to remain competitive in key infrastructure and infra management solutions. To me, VMware has been like a second family (lots of great people and just a few toxic folks). I’ve made enough money to buy my house and send my kids to college. No luxuries but surely I can afford a comfortable life style thanks to my hard work in this company. For all that, thank you! And please don’t blow it this time we are jumping into the AI space. We need much more determination than making some vague announcements with a GPU maker to really stance a chance. I hope BC cares about AI and that must of us who do our best to make the company successful, find a place in its new chapter.

yeah, VMW is an enterprise company but not large enough (like oracle or cisco) that couldn't be bought no matter how anemic the growth is. The company just doesn't have the resources to compete with likes of Google/Amazon/Microsoft yet smaller enough and had enough market in enterprise in pocket to be target of some other big boys. Just a matter of time before VMW gets sold, People at VMW have been daydreaming about being acquired by google for years but that's just pure delusional self-deceit. Broadcom is the only one left in the pack with the means to acquire and a path forward for VMW's value

"It doesn't matter that we had made mistakes (focused on wrong products and features; hired wrong people or bought companies that didn't yield much value); the hope is that we have learned from them."

The public investors in VMW don't agree with this statement, or the self-serving tone of any employee who fails to acknowledge the anticlimactic sale of this company's assets.

no longer at the company any more for quite a few years but still care about it since it's my 1st job. People love Diane but she sold the company to EMC which sowed the seed for all the problems later. Paul and Pat had their flaws but they both largely acted as VMware's CEOs as opposed to paws of some external overlord, Pat didn't want to gut the company so Dell could pay for his reckless financial engineering but he got no choice cuz the company wasn't his, or even a true public company.

Wut

"There are some of us who think that the original VMware ended when Diane (and Mendel) left the building, or whenever the Wednesday lunches got canceled, or whenever the company logo lost our beloved cubes."

I don't necessarily believe that. I didn't realize it at the time, but looking back in retrospect, nobody came close to doing as much damage as Michael Dell did. It's insane to think, between "special dividends", forcing Pat to buy Pivotal from him, this Broadcom fiasco, etc...

Sure - Paul and Pat had some miss-steps, but the company was still rocking. Let's never forget that VMware was able to beat the behemoth that is Microsoft when they were giving away their competing product for free and build off their core business.

While the $20bn dream never became a reality, and never will. I highly doubt there will be another commercially-backed product which garners so much community excitement. It was a cool place to be.

Thank you too

Thank you kind stranger.

There are some of us who think that the original VMware ended when Diane (and Mendel) left the building, or whenever the Wednesday lunches got canceled, or whenever the company logo lost our beloved cubes.

And while VMware changed under (sometimes good and sometimes not great) leadership, or different overlords who pulled the strings to benefit them (or their companies), it is the individuals that gave their all to keep the company brand, its legacy, and its culture to what it is today.

It doesn't matter that we had made mistakes (focused on wrong products and features; hired wrong people or bought companies that didn't yield much value); the hope is that we have learned from them.

And the hope for the next phase is that we retain enough of the institutional knowledge and collective desire to do better; not because someone is forcing us to do so (or you are fired!), but because we want to and because we can do better.

Whatever the future holds, it's been a pleasure and an honor!

Whoever is left to hold the torch - Think positive! Learn from our past mistakes! Do better!