Bananas

The Bananas are Gone, The People Followed

Bananas

I worked for a software company that was acquired. The day the acquisition closed they removed the bananas from the snack room . It was symbolic.

Bananas were a cost that we didn’t need.

Bananas were gone.

Want a banana? Buy it at the bodega across the street.

We’re not in the banana business.

Last week that same company announced significant layoffs. Tens of thousands of people were notified by email at 6:00am that their services were no longer needed. No discussion. No phone calls. No George Clooney to do your dirty work and let them go.

Maybe it was a rational decision. The company exists to maximize returns to shareholders and the capital could be better used to invest in new initiatives.

Employees are a cost. But shareholder value isn’t produced in spreadsheets; it’s produced by people solving problems for customers. You can’t prune your way to growth.

Maybe it was an irrational decision. Shareholder returns are a product of the activities of other stakeholders. Customers are a stakeholder. Employees are a stakeholder.

Were those 30,000 employees delivering services that provided any value to the customer? If they weren’t, what does it say about your management that you had enough redundant headcount to field two airborne divisions?

There were project managers running critical projects for Fortune 500 companies.

There were consultants deploying software for community hospitals.

There were developers building new products and adding enhancements to existing products.

That work didn’t disappear with the people.

The project milestones are looming. Who’s going to explain to the customer’s CIO that the entire project team was let go and immediately cut off from your systems? What do you say when she asks for a continuity plan?

The shiny new thing is always tempting. The convertible is obviously better than the ten-year-old minivan with the dent in the rear gate that got the kids to dance recitals and soccer practices now that they’ve left for college.

But maybe you need to move them into their first apartment in the Back Bay.

The BJÖRKSNÄS bed frame from Ikea doesn’t fit in your Miata.

Maybe the new business is better. But what happens to the old one? What are you saying to your existing customers about your concern for their business when you destroy the continuity midstream?

Shareholder value is a tricky thing. Betting everything on the shiny new thing is a gamble that your existing customers won’t look across the street at your competitor for the old thing. The old thing that bought the private island in Hawaii, funded the corporate jet, financed the America’s Cup, and the movie studio.

What happens if the shiny new thing blows up? What happens if the customer for whom you are building the data centers in Texas runs out of money? Byju ran out of money. Northvolt ran out of money. Builder.ai ran out of money.

You’ve made your decision. The bananas are gone from the snack room. But some of the customers who paid for that snack room are going to go too.

They’ll get their bananas from the bodega across the street.

But, you are not in the banana business.

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