The debate over the prevalence of “fake work” in the tech industry has been reignited by remarks from a seasoned investor at Andreessen Horowitz. David Ulevitch, a general partner at the Silicon Valley venture firm, recently weighed in on the issue, echoing sentiments shared by other prominent figures in the tech community.
According to Ulevitch, the proliferation of “irrelevant jobs” at megacorporations like Google has contributed to a culture of inefficiency and overstaffing. He suggests that a significant portion of white-collar staff at Google may not be engaged in meaningful work, pointing to the company’s history of investing billions of dollars in projects that yield little to no results. He said that such staff know, “A bunch of the people can probably be let go tomorrow and the company wouldn’t really feel the difference. Maybe it’d even improve with less people inserting themselves into things.”
Other tech insiders, including investor Marc Andreessen and former PayPal executive Keith Rabois, echo this sentiment. Andreessen has criticized what he calls the managerial “laptop class.” At the same time, Rabois has described recent layoffs at tech giants like Meta and Google due to overstaffing and the pursuit of “vanity metrics” like headcount.
Thomas Siebel, CEO of C3.ai, has also addressed the issue, suggesting that remote work has exacerbated the problem by allowing employees to appear productive while doing little work. He contends that tech firms like Google and Meta have overhired staff and failed to provide them with meaningful tasks.
“The growing professional managerial class in America, and more importantly, the societal perception that those jobs are ‘really important,’ is a weakness, not a strength,” Ulevitch said. I should note that I have been a part of this class in my career, and it’s great. People treated me like I was very impressive and important when I was an SVP at Cisco, so naturally, I thought I was, too. This dynamic is endemic across corporations and is lame.”
The issue of fake work in the tech industry has significant implications, not only for employees but also for shareholders and the broader economy. Ulevitch argues that the proliferation of irrelevant jobs “takes profits away from shareholders who are most often the pensioners and retirement accounts of the rest of America.” Ulevitch said, “So those people aren’t just being useless (and being coddled to think useless jobs actually matter; they don’t), but they are also taking money away from the rest of the workforce’s retirement programs.”
Tech firms like Meta and Google have responded to these concerns by implementing layoffs and restructuring efforts to improve efficiency. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg declared 2023 as the company’s “year of efficiency,” signaling a shift from a bloated organizational structure toward a more streamlined approach to operations.
As the debate over fake work continues to unfold, it remains to be seen how tech companies will address these concerns and adapt to a rapidly changing industry landscape.
