Eric Siu argues that companies like Intel and Vertiv use layoffs as a marketing tool to spin disappointing growth numbers. When earnings disappoint, they announce cuts instead, letting the stock market reward the narrative of efficiency over actual business performance.
If you look at the stocks, like, AXTI is up 6,800%, okay? And then Intel's up 500%, Marvel Technologies 243%, Vertiv, which does cooling, is up 188%. And so speaking of narrative, Neil, AXTI, it's not like they're crushing it from like a revenue growth standpoint or cash flow growth standpoint. It's the narrative that's tied to this. And when your stock price goes down, you need to figure out how to make your economics look better for the market, and you got to paint a narrative. It's marketing. They're just spinning the verbiage and the messaging to make themselves look better. The real reason that most of these companies are laying off is because they're just not growing the way they expected. So now they gotta cut back.
