Time Warner on Life Support

Yesterday Time Warner announced a new round of layoffs: nearly 300 people, according to the New York Times. 40 people at Time magazine are getting the axe. People is losing 44 people (although the Times points out that, since seven people are being hired, the net loss is 37 jobs). All told, 172 people on the editorial side of Time Warner are being let go, as well as 117 people on the business side.

I'm a little ambivalent about all this. As someone who used to work for the company, I can empathize with what these people are going through. Time Warner was a nice place to work, once upon a time. Then Gerald Levin made the single dumbest merger in the history of capitalism and it's been downhill for the company ever since. There were people at Time who were ready to retire who literally could no longer afford to do so -- their 401(k), most of it in Time Warner stock, had lost so much of its value as a result of the merger with AOL that retirement was no longer a viable option. And then people started getting laid off because their bosses were imbeciles (their idiotic attempt to keep the Life magazine brand alive being only the most obvious example of their stupidity). It's one thing to lose your job because you deserve to -- it's quite another to have to pay for the sins of the people who ran your company into the ground while they get a golden parachute.

It's been a long time since I've worked for Time magazine -- it feels like something I did in another lifetime. And I do feel for the people who are losing their jobs. But in a way I almost feel worse for the ones who are staying, and who will no doubt be asked to pick up the slack for the people who are leaving. Right now working for Time Warner is like having a deck chair on the Titanic -- and who knows what icebergs lie ahead.

Tom Moran