Thread regarding Seagate Technology Inc. layoffs

Seagate Fremont is all effed up. There's a guy there who used to be an operator and is now the Director of Engineering. No degree no engineering background what so ever but in tight with the "Good ole boys club" who says you can't have your cake and eat it too.

I'm white and in Cupertino office. You see the fire alarm drill today? Close to 90% caucasian out there. Same culture from Scotts Valley.

"A little diversity wouldn't hurt either."....said no one ever who's been on site in Cupertino or Fremont

A little diversity wouldn't hurt either.

The hilarious part about this age bias is that the people agreeing with the original post seem to think that the companies problems can be solved by letting go experienced staff and hiring young "creative" people. They dont understand that the techology is fully mature and the threat of substitution looms.

Age discrimation is live and we'll. can't blame the Jews these day so it's now ok to want to kill old guys off

I see original poster point. A lot these people with the company over 15 years and stuck to their old ways. They become complacent. However, speaking with HR friend they do want to hire younger and build for future (unless the acquisition goes through).

At this point, the culture is irrelevant. If you were manufacturing horse-drawn carriages, would a culture change save you from the development of the automobile? Would you blame a downturn on the older workers who spent their life honing their skills in that industry? If you were a young ambitious person, would you be drawn to carriages or automobiles?

The idea that a culture change is needed is a red herring.

Seagate Fremont aka FRC aka Fremont Research Center aka the SOLYNDRA building, but should be called FRC (Fremont Retirement Center).

Where to begin? How about..over a years delay in moving into the new building, which is far from being finished. Or (from good sources) so far about 40+ million over budget and growing.

I think the premise of the post was that Seagate's culture needs to change. Look at the people who work here it's almost a retirement home. That's the truth.

Younger people might be more helpful lifting all the equipment out of Seagate as facilities close. As if money and unlimited authority will just be granted to young new hires to pursue their wild dreams of digital storage. Some young Zuckerberg is going to be hired and wow all the old set when he invents the new Seagate killer app? Boy, this sounds really dumb. Think there is a reason all these innovators start outside any corporate framework? Name some young guy who took over an existing company and was allowed to totally transformed it? No, Seagate is going to die like Kodak did. Yeah, Kodak had their own version of digital camera eventually. Nobody cared by then.

The other thing I found missing at Seagate during my tenure but I find in Bay Area companies is managers/directors going out to University campuses for hiring interns. Many of the interns work a few summers; get to know the company culture and work environment and ultimately become employees. Thus these companies are able to mix young, fresh minds into an experienced workforce thus striking the perfect balance.

I agree with companies going younger. I have a few recruiter friends at the big companies and they say they will tend to higher younger these days "millennials" they call them. Maybe De Anza is gray hair, but Apple people walking on Stevens Creek aren't so gray :)

Re: "I agree with original poster. Look at all the other companies in Bay Area such as Google, Amazon, or Apple. They hire younger innovative people for the future. Seagate needs to change it's culture to fit the Bay Area and to stop living in the old days."

• Funny how when I drive down De Anza, 80% of the Apple employees I see walking around have gray hair and look to be in their late 40's and 50's. The industry is getting older and that applies to all the companies.

Actually, quoting older sources than may be currently taught doesn't mean the original intent is wrong. I doubt a more up to date source would provide a solution to the hard drive industries problems. In the future, our customers will have access to a substitute ( SSDs), and that will continually force us to cut margins, reduce RD (Assuming it would be productive), and in general lead to a zero-negative growth future. Bringing in younger employees is not going to fix that. If I were in my twenties, I would not consider a position at Seagate unless no other position with a real future was available. This is not going to get better.

To the person who mentioned Porter and Christensen. You kind of proved the poster's point. Porter model and Christensen is considered outdated 5 years ago.

I agree with original poster. Look at all the other companies in Bay Area such as Google, Amazon, or Apple. They hire younger innovative people for the future. Seagate needs to change it's culture to fit the Bay Area and to stop living in the old days. It's sad to see Seagate as the laughing point of the storage industry.

The idea that getting rid of older employees is one born of youth and inexperience. The truth is that the technology is mature, the level of complexity required to hit future requirements will lead to reliability issues with no decrease in costs. On top of that, the global economy is getting worse and a viable alternative in the form of SSD has arrived. Few companies ever successfully negotiate such a techology shift well. Review your Porter and Christensen, and if you don't know what that means, askan older colleague. Seagate and WD are places to be from, not go to.

They'll lay off all the worker bees. If they were smart they'd layoff the management that doesn't actually do anything. But they're not.

After the last two botched acquisitions they really need to reduce executive compensation. That's a pipe dream though.

I know people are being lazy because no COLA raises are being given and haven't been for some time. I myself work hard but refuse to go the extra mile if there's no raises, no promotions, and no bonuses. I don't think they realize treating people like crap has its consequences.

I worked for 15+ years before being impacted last September. Even if 50% of the management is let go, there will be no impact on the programs/projects. However the OPex will drastically reduce. But sadly in all the layoffs I witnessed during my tenure, only the worker bees and the recently hired employees were let go. Hope things change this time around.

While I disagree with OP, I do agree with the statements about an wild number of management types who's only apparent function is to pass data along to other management types. I'd guess there are hundreds, or even over a thousand people from manager to VP who perform no useful function.

Could not agree more .

I have never worked in a company with so many managers and other employees who have no role to play only that they have been in the company 20 years and their friends will not sack them.

Time for the investors to demand extreme changes and to question luzo's motives given his failures at the minute.

Although saying that he did bring the company back from the brink before

I work for seagate and have to agree. .there's no leadership ..old boys cliques running the place into the ground. .managers who have to idea who to or how to manage but great at sucking up.

Some of the comments on here are spot on and clearly the others are the guys who suck up ..The original post is 1000%correct and he could have added alot more.

For seagate to survive it would need to listen to the reviews on glass door and get rid of dead wood in the ranks right up to the top and get with the times.

Sad, but true. Original poster is dead on. It's funny because my director and I were having a similar discussion about this.

We have flash too....our strategic agreement with MU will supply us with flash for years to come.

Yeah I agee. Glad we didn't overpay for SanDisk, but they have flash supply now. I hate how we overpaid for that POS Dot Hill though. Evault was a bust too.

At least we didn't overpay for sandisk

I don't know what to think, but I guess something's not right when you go to the printer and pick up your managers resume! Yikes

Not arguing your point and granted they had issues with the 3TB model. If ur gonna post stats please make sure they are up to date and remember that the majority of drives used by backblaze are Seagate drives therefore the data will reflect a higher failure rate.

Quote "Seagate models account for most of the removed-from-service drives and they also account for most of the new purchases in 2015. Over 85% of the 16,500+ drives were 4TB Seagate models".

If the drives were so unreliable why would they account for over 85% of the 16,500+ drives purchased in 2015?

http://www.cloudwards.net/news/backblaze-releases-2015-hard-drive-reliability-statistics-11952/

The original poster doesn't sound too far fetch. Dot Hill was a dud that was overpaid for. Our products have been laughable by industry in regards to quality.

https://www.backblaze.com/blog/hard-drive-reliability-stats-for-q2-2015/

I'm the one who said OP is full of Sh__ and he/she is. It's not a matter of arguing or educated opinions, it's a simple fact that OP is totally incorrect. Not saying it's all wine and roses for the company either, I'm just stating a fact that the original post is inaccurate.

Please can we have some educated opinions rather than one guy making a statement and the rest of u arguing about it. The whole sector is down incl. STX,WDC,MU,INTC to name a few. We are in unchartered waters the Macroeconomic environment is playing havoc with the industry, just look at the China effect. Luczo has been here before and the organisation will emerge stronger with his leadership and the strategic adjustments he will make over the short-med term. As for flash, Seagate is selling SSD's, SSHD's supplying the slimmest drives in the industry @ 2.5" as well as 10TB helium filled HDD's.

I'm hearing 60 days. Seagate doing drastic things within 60 days.

Could not agree more with the original posting. Most of the directors and above are yes men/women just following directions from the top and have no innovative ideas of their own. The Scotts Valley culture is a far cry from the Silicon Valley culture where people are always on the move.

RE: "The company may be going through some tough times, but the original poster is completely full of sh-- and has no idea what he's talking about. Anyone who reads this should ignore the original post."

• Nice Try Seagate PR Guy

Damn I am hearing the somethings in Oklahoma.

I'm still forming an opinion here, but why don't you (last poster) educate us?

The company may be going through some tough times, but the original poster is completely full of sh-- and has no idea what he's talking about. Anyone who reads this should ignore the original post.

Wow totally on point. A lot of the employees on Glass door are saying the same.

Really? You have no clue man