threat of an economic downturn?

Amazon, Meta, Netflix: Why Big Tech Is Facing Massive Layoffs Wall Street Journal  Nov 18, 2022 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYVMuWGCtK4
Tech companies saw exceptional growth in both revenue and employee headcounts through the pandemic. But now, they’re cutting thousands of jobs. WSJ explains the macro — and micro — reasons for the industry’s massive layoffs.

Layoffs Aren’t a Good Look for Big Tech’s Growth Story https://www.wsj.com/articles/layoffs-arent-a-good-look-for-big-techs-growth-story-11668045118
Meta Platforms, Twitter and other tech companies have shown they are economically sensitive, puncturing the myth of ‘permanent acceleration’

But part of what made fast-growing tech companies appealing to investors was their ability to defy economic cycles...When companies begin to succumb to economic cycles instead, they start to look more like the legacy businesses they were supposed to disrupt...Meta has been so desperate to rebrand itself in investors’ eyes that it changed its name from Facebook to reflect its “metaverse” product before it even existed...But the urgency now is to slash costs and bring in revenue. “Chief Twit” Mr. Musk is now looking at ways to bolster his newest business through subscriptions, video and paywalls. ..

TikTok Is Still Hiring as Competitors Shed Jobs https://www.wsj.com/articles/tiktok-is-still-hiring-as-competitors-shed-jobs-11668819207
Social-media company has said it would add 3,000 engineers, plans to boost head count at Mountain View, Calif., hub TikTok, which is roughly only five years old, is on a different growth trajectory than many of the older American tech giants that are now shedding thousands of jobs. By some measures, TikTok has surpassed Facebook and Meta-owned Instagram in popularity, especially among American teens. But TikTok still brings in a fraction of the revenue of Meta, which had $118 billion in sales in 2021.