Slack Layoff bounties

Airlines have this awful habit of overselling flights and then making their customers suffer the consequences. If you fly frequently, you’ve likely experienced a situation where they offer a small amount of money for someone to rebook on another flight. This was always such an absurd idea to me, but I understand if you’re desperate for cash (and not in a rush) it’s not a bad way to make a quick buck.

There’s a similar (albeit tangential) phenomenon that happens when a company grows too much too fast in periods of economic prosperity. For example, basically every tech company during the pandemic. Google, Meta, Amazon, Microsoft, Netflix, and more all hired like crazy in 2020/2021 and then suffered the consequences before laying off massive segments of their workforce in 2022/2023. It stinks, but at the end of the day, a publicly traded company is beholden to its shareholders.

I’ve never been in this situation, but I’d guess at times figuring out who to lay off can be extremely challenging. This got me thinking… what if you could offload some of that decision-making to employees? For example, you could set a desired number for headcount reduction, and then offer an incentive for people to leave rather than waiting for layoffs. This whole experience could be time-constrained to force people into action.

At first, this feels very bleak and dystopian. However, layoffs currently are structured in a way that they sneak up on you. Making it public and offering an incentive structure would be a fascinating way to reduce headcount while testing employee loyalty.

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