Over the past few months, there has been endless debate over the best way to attract workers, especially as companies are finding it harder to hire workers who quit or were laid off during the pandemic. Last week, AnyVision CEO Avi Golan, a former Google product director and operating partner at tech investing giant SoftBank, threw his hat in the ring and took to Linkedin to issue a desperate call for fellow CEOs to "#stopthemadness." The problem, Golan explained, was that tech companies are offering wages and benefits that were too generous and, he claimed, would hurt employees in the long run."I'm calling all Israeli CEOs specifically in hi-tech to stop the hiring madness before the bubble explodes," Golan wrote. "This new generation of young engineers needs proper guidance, and we need to be responsible to teach them career fundamentals. Many of my CEO colleagues [are] already looking or exploring to outsource dev services abroad. We are hurting our young generation as well as our own market and country by the fact we keep raising salaries and offering crazy illogical benefits."Israel-based Anyvision’s previous largest stint in the public eye came when Microsoft pulled its investments from the company last year after reports (which AnyVision denied) that the company’s AI was used to surveil Palestinians in the West Bank. AnyVision did not immediately respond to Motherboard’s request for comment.The reception to Golan’s comments has been mixed, to say the least. AnyVision recently raised $235 million in a funding round, which Golan changed his bio on the site to brag about."Avi Golan, excuse me for asking, but how much secondary did you take in your latest round," asked Ran Moram, a senior product manager at Microsoft, on LinkedIn. "Do you believe that taking millions of dollars/shekels as secondary is acting responsible and aligned with the bubble, but paying 10-20% more to your hard-working employees is not? The money your high-level management took as secondary could be invested in growth and/or for hiring great talent. If you can take it, so can your employees. Seems like double standards to me."Yanir Gold, a product manager at TiSpace--an Israeli tech staffing company--wrote on LinkedIn that he found Golan's piece "embarrassing" and hoped employees would quit. "My response to all and any Anyvision's employees. Jump ship. Why? You are numbers in his calculator and the signs are clear. The employees are bad! bad employees! how dare you ask for good middle class wages! how dare you! Shame on you!"In a separate post, TiSpace went so far as to offer Anyvision employees "free consulting" to help them find a new job, though it seems few have taken the company up on its offer.As dozens more comments point out in response to Golan's post, his call to action to lower wages and benefits for the rank-and-file is undercut a bit when his bio reads "Just raised $235M, We are hiring top AI talent!" The real madness here is that tech valuations are inflated, and whatever the point of Golan’s post was, it’s not that AnyVision’s leadership is just looking out for workers by trying to get CEOs at different companies to all pledge to reduce salaries.
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