I think that these layoffs were made significantly less burdensome because of who was laid off -- i.e. real estate brokers.
Almost all real estate brokers in the non-tech world work as 1099 contractors anyway, paid completely on commission -- no salary and no benefits. This has always been the "standard" in real estate, and pretty much everyone gets into the brokerage business knowing that. Sure, there have been some innovative exceptions over the last couple of decades (limited-service residential brokerages like HelpUSell or Assist2Sell, for instance), but full-commission is the general rule.
So... you are a broker and you take a salary or semi-salary job with a tech start-up... You ought to realize that you are stepping outside the way your business normally operates. You are much more likely to be standing on shaky business ground, much more likely to be discarded when the boss changes his mind about the deal he signed (which happens in real estate all the time!).
Laid off from that company with the snazzy HN post "42 Floors is Hiring!" from a short time ago? If you are a competent broker, you have a career path available that has always been there and will be there for the foreseeable future-- back to being a commissioned salesperson. If you can produce sales, you can get a new spot quickly and without much hassle.
If it were any other demographic, the boss would have had a harder time.
Almost all real estate brokers in the non-tech world work as 1099 contractors anyway, paid completely on commission -- no salary and no benefits. This has always been the "standard" in real estate, and pretty much everyone gets into the brokerage business knowing that. Sure, there have been some innovative exceptions over the last couple of decades (limited-service residential brokerages like HelpUSell or Assist2Sell, for instance), but full-commission is the general rule.
So... you are a broker and you take a salary or semi-salary job with a tech start-up... You ought to realize that you are stepping outside the way your business normally operates. You are much more likely to be standing on shaky business ground, much more likely to be discarded when the boss changes his mind about the deal he signed (which happens in real estate all the time!).
Laid off from that company with the snazzy HN post "42 Floors is Hiring!" from a short time ago? If you are a competent broker, you have a career path available that has always been there and will be there for the foreseeable future-- back to being a commissioned salesperson. If you can produce sales, you can get a new spot quickly and without much hassle.
If it were any other demographic, the boss would have had a harder time.