Thread regarding Nike Inc. layoffs

PM and JH spent the last 3 years doing nothing but virtual signaling and destroying Nikes market value via the erosion of both product and talent. PM was on stage multiple times telling teams that he would only hire a black female VP into FW. He shared over and over that many roles in FW would only go to black talent. Never once did he say Nike needed the “best” talent. Only black talent would do. This singular focus on skin color over capability or the needs of the business has ruined Nike. The talent is gone, product pipelines dried up and now no-one knows what to do. JH is as complicit driving Design into the ground with the same focus. 100% of dollars for any talent related initiative went to “diverse” talent (Black talent) only. Tell me ~ if Nike stock is at $60 and dropping then how are we supposed to support the communities that need our help the most? Nike exists to make money, that money supports employees and communities. Nike leaders decided they were morally superior to the rest of us, hitched their wagon to the woke movement of the time, covered themselves in unearned moral glory and with that, Nike was gone.

This is completely inaccurate! FW has been grinding out 114 different colorways of the Dunk every year, a shoe first released 40 years ago. They're working on Future Dunk V.2 for release in 2065.

Do you have any idea how much innovation it takes to make a Dunk in the Panda colorway, and a REVERSE PANDA?

@dn+1jqd3rc5q I can tell you first hand the size of our innovation team is 4x that of competitors, not twice. The pipeline IS A JOKE. Leadership has no clue and is either so removed or too involved. The amount of money and resources invested the produce no tangible results could’ve saved everyone in the last layoff. And when they laid off last December they ended up saving some of the worst talking heads who delivered no value and got rid of people who pushed things forward for not being yes-men.

@eb+1 telling it like it is. Real companies don’t operate this way.

The Engineers: I can build this prototype, write code and solve this problem in an hour. It's a cool idea and would love to show you something working.

The middlemen: ( aka SDs, PMs and directors) : My engineer friend and colleague , we know you can do it, but we have 15 middlemen who also need to justify their existence and lord over the 2 or 3 hands-on engineers we have. Lets start with a 3 month long planning process (mind you - for a task that takes an hour to do), write tickets, Jira, confluence, ceremonies and lets not forget all the daily corporate catering along the way. This is hard work - writing long epics, stories and sagas about trivial tasks takes a lot of brainpower.

As SDs and Directors in tech functions, this also gives us leverage on product teams trying to deliver and ship real experiences and products for consumers. We can hold them up, drain their budgets, grow our empires and play turf wars are well.

Accountability? - What's that - never heard of that term here before, you must be new. It's all about self preservation and enjoying the good life ( spring break, summer hours, wellness week, thanksgiving, Christmas and the umpteen dim the light and keep the lights on cycles through the year).

And Oh wait, did you write the one pager and then the six pager for the project you said will take an hour to do?

See my engineer friend - your time estimate is all wrong. This will take 30 people and at least 1 yr to deliver. Let's call a planning meeting and create an estimate. Also setup a daily recurring every morning where you can hear all about how my evening went for the first 15 minutes and I will give you 5 minutes to talk during which I will be on my phone, iPad and laptop all at once - being a leader is all about multitasking and operating at least 3 screens, gossiping on slack, posting giphys and listening to your technical blah. Don't forget to give someone (me) a kudos and then last 5 minutes are for me to give my pearls of wisdom before ending the meeting. We should also end the meeting 5 minutes sooner because it takes us 10 minutes to figure out zoom and gossip between meetings. We are amazing planners around here.

And don't talk to the other teams directly or tell them that it takes only an hour to implement. We will hold you accountable for miscommunication and let them know that as an engineer you don't understand the "business" side. It will reflect badly on your annual review as well if you meet anyone without your handler ( which is us - the middlemen)

Also if you are he-l bent on writing the 3 lines of code, make sure your create a PR and include all 15 of us on it for review

I left innovation about a year ago and I can tell you that org is bloated with middle management and super bureaucratic as well. And as someone pointed out already, the pipeline is a joke.

The size of our innovation team is probably twice of our competitors and look at what we got...Why? Because half of them are coasting or playing politics in stead of doing real works! Sigh..

JH is interested in clicks and coffee table books.

I’m in innovation and trust me the innovation pipeline is dry as F

Good times create weak men.

Thanks for asking this question OP. I’ve been sincerely wondering this myself.

I don’t blame the frontline people in Innovation and Product. My guess has been that they can only do what they’re allowed to do and leadership above them at various levels has made a series of really bad decisions.

I remember when Nike used to put out a genuinely cool, new product at least every 18 months. Something that got the market’s attention because it deserved to. And we’d put out new, very cool, industry-defining innovation at least once every three years. But that just…stopped.

There have been a couple of hot releases in recent months. Now, keep doing that OVER AND OVER! (Saying that, I feel like Charles Le Mar trying to instruct Lane Meyer how to ski the K12 in the movie “Better Off Deade”: “Point your skis forward, and then keep going!”)

They’ve been sitting in the LBJ building talking about things that never happen, because this middle management layer there is a bloated cancer that won’t allow things to get done.