Sam's Club CTO to Exit Due to Walmart Relocation Policy

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-10-21/senior-walmart-wmt-executive-to-leave-company-due-to-relocation-policy

by jihadjihad • 2 years ago

118 127 2 years ago

bloomberg.com

dduugg• 2 years ago

https://archive.is/fY0jZ

yunohn• 2 years ago

I mean, being forced to move is bad enough, but Arkansas? That’s a tough one for someone in tech I feel.

detourdog• 2 years ago

Bentonville is being gentrified by the Walton Family philanthropy. I hear young people talking about how great Bentonville is.

vineyardlabs• 2 years ago

Going to chime in. Young(ish) person in tech. Have heard nothing but great things about Bentonville. I'm into mountain biking and the city is like a spiderweb of awesome looking biking/walking trails built by the Waltons.

korkybuchek2• 2 years ago

It's great until you find yourself looking for another tech job, particularly with another RTO company.

tshaddox2• 2 years ago

She has probably gotten accustomed to living somewhere where you can comfortably be outside more than 4 months out of the year. Or, you know, maybe she doesn't want to move her family across the country.

add-sub-mul-div• 2 years ago

I think the implication was that the majority of the demographic will find a deep red state governor a non-starter. Perks of a given city aside, for decades their tax dollars will get thrown away fighting causes like trans rights, same as with all the losing battles against civil rights, interracial marriage, gay marriage, heavy metal, video games, etc.

reportingsjr• 2 years ago

As an avid mountain biker and having been to bentonville twice, the trails are just ok. Immaculately maintained and there are some neat features, but the hills there are seriously lacking elevation.

The small downtown area of bentonville is neat, but the greater area is… meh.

pram• 2 years ago

Yeah especially because it’s a “company town” feels like putting literally all your eggs in the Walmart basket.

msisk6• 2 years ago

Both JB Hunt and Tyson Foods are nearby. Both very large Fortune 500 companies. Lots of smaller companies that work with Walmart have offices there, too.

And as others have said, it's mountain bike heaven. Super low cost of living, too.

Not my thing and I wouldn't move there, but for some folks it's very attractive.

weezin• 2 years ago

Depends on the person. Northwest arkansas is a beautiful place with tons of outdoor activities and the ability to live like a king on a major company CTO salary. I'd rather live there than Seattle or San Francisco.

fragmede2• 2 years ago

You'd live like a king on $14.5 million/year, regardless of where you lived.

https://www1.salary.com/Suresh-Kumar-Salary-Bonus-Stock-Opti...

sys_647382• 2 years ago

Having been to AK, all I can say is it's a toilet. I wouldn't ever want to suffer living there. Only MS is worse in my estimation.

marcus0x62• 2 years ago

AK is Alaska. Arkansas is AR.

1986• 2 years ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thank_God_for_Mississippi

shiroiushi• 2 years ago

At least Mississippi has some coastline. Also, it's close to some interesting places: the northern part of MS is close to Memphis, and (even better) the southern part of MS is close to New Orleans.

latentcall• 2 years ago

I’m in tech and have a daughter and the states policies when it comes to women’s healthcare would be a turn off. I’m not sure there is an amount of money one could pay me to live in Arkansas of all places.

Especially if moving from California. California has its share of problems but those complaining may not realize how good they have it until they try living somewhere else with totally different values.

jraines• 2 years ago

Good for her. The exit tech alone should be proof enough that you don’t have to be physically close to tHe bUsINeSs to bring value to millions of customers.

Tostino• 2 years ago

I hope they have to offer some significant compensation to find a competent replacement willing to move to Arkansas.

Companies need to be humbled a little with these policies they want to force.

awill2• 2 years ago

they don't care. It's not like the person making this decision will then be held accountable for having the pay a replacement more.

hparadiz• 2 years ago

It goes both ways. The comps being paid in the tech industry right now would pay off an average single family home in California in under 5 years. At this point these people are driving around in Porsches with second homes choosing to retire at 45.

midnitewarrior2• 2 years ago

They are promoting from within, presumably someone who is already going to be in Bentonville.

tshaddox2• 2 years ago

I wonder who the highest-ranking employee will be who actually does move to Bentonville, Arkansas.

baoha• 2 years ago

Nice, meanwhile the bigger CTO (Suresh Kumar) can stay in Sunnyvale

wrs• 2 years ago

Unless he’s recently relocated, Suresh lives in the Seattle area. Also, bear in mind he’s an EVP so he gets to use the corporate jet.

midnitewarrior2• 2 years ago

"There's not enough money to get me to move my life to Arkansas."

passwordoops• 2 years ago

Can't speak for Bentonville, but Little Rock is awesome!

Asparagirl4• 2 years ago

Arkansas currently has a 100% total abortion ban. They do not even allow abortion at any week if you’re raped, if you’re a child who has been raped, or if you’re a victim of incest. No woman in her right mind would ever move there, and this CTO is female.

tssva• 2 years ago

Can't speak for Bentonville, but Little Rock is awful.

maxerickson• 2 years ago

That isn't really an answer to the statement about moving their life.

If they have been well compensated, they likely have other prospects and don't really care about money, so their friends and other relationships could be a priority.

jcadam2• 2 years ago

All you did was say you like Little Rock. What is this place becoming, Reddit?

babyent• 2 years ago

I live in SF. I actually thought about moving out for a little bit and realized California has some of the best protections and social safety net for entrepreneurs compared to other states.

I will never leave California.

It’s the best place for forward thinking individuals and the politics are what I imagine will lead to Star Trek and not a dystopian nightmare where we live under capital allocator warlords.

ethanwillis• 2 years ago

I just have to say that from my perspective it's the Bay Area politics that has produced the capital allocator warlords.

Gig work did not sprout from places like Arkansas.

mr_toad• 2 years ago

A good way to tilt the political makeup of your workforce, if you were so inclined, would be to move to a red state.

jcadam2• 2 years ago

Oh, everyone has a number....

almost_usual• 2 years ago

According to LinkedIn they live in San Jose.

jorts• 2 years ago

Wonder why they wouldn’t work out of the Sunnyvale office then?

ian-g• 2 years ago

Good. If you're going to require RTO, don't exempt higher ups from it. Looking at you, Starbucks

fragmede2• 2 years ago

Starbucks' CEO famously commutes to Seattle from Newport Beach in California, which is like a thousand miles.

sksxihve2• 2 years ago

Weekly in a private jet, while still having an at-home office for days he isn't in Seattle. All because he didn't want to relocate.

datavirtue2• 2 years ago

I'm watching Starbucks, like a hawk. I find this episode of their history rather interesting and I don't have warm fuzzies about this new CEO, yet. All these Chipotle people are showing up now. I hope they can innovate and iterate quickly.

I remember the 1990s when it was common to see the same baristas day after day for years. Everyone seemed to enjoy working there. It's a bleak, dystopian contrast as of late.

EasyMark• 2 years ago

This was RTA though, return to Arkansas

red-iron-pine3• 2 years ago

Not just Arkansas, but the company town in AR not near anything else of note.

You want me to move to Austin... Maybe. My wife and I could make it work, probably. Bentonville, AR? Nah.

archeantus• 2 years ago

I spent 7 amazing years working for Walmart Labs (what they called it at the time) and it was a great place to work. I was being paid like I lived in the Bay Area, but I lived in a much lower cost of living area. I worked my tail off for them and got two promotions. On the second one they declined to increase my annual RSU target because I was making too much for my geo. I saw the writing on the wall regarding their plans for remote workers and left to a competitor that has been much more remote friendly.

I know so many amazing people that were doing the work of their lives that quit or were laid off because of the RTO mandate. I can’t believe that they are doubling down on this, despite the human and financial costs associated with it.

Ultimately it highlights an important fact about working at WM (and lots of other companies, I am sure): you aren’t as special or irreplaceable as you think you are. Look out for yourselves and do what makes sense for you, always!

delichon4• 2 years ago

I picked an outfit where the CEO, CTO and everyone else is remote. There is no office to return to. I'm not a second class citizen as remote staff. Recommended.

slyall• 2 years ago

I worked at a company like that. This was 10 years ago when remote was less common but the company was in the work-from-home space so it was sort of in line with the product.

We got a new CEO from Austin. They opened a new office there. Over the next few years they closed most of the other offices and stopped WFH.

neduma• 2 years ago

Nice or Start you own.

datavirtue2• 2 years ago

Living this. Very nice.

Aurornis• 2 years ago

This comment is interesting to me because I know a lot of people who went to Walmart Labs with similar stories: Amazing at first, then sudden drop in compensation when they didn't refresh RSUs, then slow slide into being pushed out.

The strange part is that all of the stories I've heard covered different time periods, often not overlapping. Off the top of my head I can think of 4 people I've run into at local meetups who went from thinking Walmart Labs was a great place to work, to having nothing good to say about the place at all.

It's natural for new jobs to have a honeymoon period that wears off over time, but I've heard this same story arc so many times that, as an outsider, it feels like something must be wrong with how they approach long-term employees. Obviously the RTO mandate is a huge blow to one of their original selling points, too.

awill2• 2 years ago

I think it's straight forward. They made a decision to pay top dollar because they had ambitious plans, and wanted the silicon valley types. All went well.

Then, as this part of the company grew, some bean counter decided it was a huge expense, and something had to be done.

I suspect these walmart labs people were costing triple the standard walmart webdev, and so to the bean counters, the path forward was obvious.

It's really unfortunate when non tech people make decisions like this. I've worked at a FAANG for 10 years, and before that was at HP and other mid-sized companies. HP's average principal engineer would be outperformed by our interns.

whalesalad• 2 years ago

Were you writing Clojure there?

kubectl_h• 2 years ago

Did the work that WM Labs did influence the Sams club mobile experience? It (the app) is so much better than Costco and is one of the reasons I still pay for a Sams membership even though Costco has now moved into my area.

Aloisius• 2 years ago

I was being paid like I lived in the Bay Area, but I lived in a much lower cost of living area

I'm a little confused as to why a company would pay bay area rates for remote workers given the higher competition for jobs.

OkayPhysicist2• 2 years ago

Bay Area workers don't get paid well just because of the higher cost of living. They also have a lot more options, so you have to pay more to keep them. Those factors combine to lead to inflated salaries which in turn attracts a disproportionate concentration of high quality workers. Companies then follow and or spring up from the talent pool, and boom, you've got yourself a tech hub and a positive feedback loop.

Living on a private island in the South Pacific is expensive, too, but most companies wouldn't pay a premium to employ you.

I'm not saying that if you pick two random software developers, one from Nebraska and the other from San Francisco, that the SF dev will always be better. I am saying that, if we track a population of 100 developers from Nebraska and SF, more of the top 20 devs from Nebraska than those in the bottom 20 are going to move to SF, and in the SF group more of the bottom quintile is going to leave than in the top quintile, leading to better median developers in the Bay.

game_the0ry• 2 years ago

...is leaving the company due to a policy requiring thousands of corporate employees to relocate to headquarters in Arkansas...
Walmart has asked many of its employees from smaller offices, as well as remote workers around the US, to move to the company’s larger corporate offices. Most employees are going to Arkansas.

Wow. Just wow.

Let me get this straight -- Walmart management actually wants people to up-root their lives, take their kids out of school, re-arrange their routines with childcare, move away from family that may be nearby...I could go on and on...and move to Arkansas?

"Move or go fuck yourself."

Clearly, Walmart management does not care about their employees.

As a side note, while I acknowledge the benefits of RTTO, working remote is something that increased the quality of my life tremendously. But management-types just can't help make their employees miserable -- pathological.

lenerdenator• 2 years ago

When you examine most of the Walton family's shenanigans, it becomes fairly apparent that they're on the narcissistic people-user side of things. This isn't surprising.

mschuster913• 2 years ago

Clearly, Walmart management does not care about their employees.

Well duh. They've been on the top 5 companies with employees on food stamps for years [1] and, like Amazon, just love to set up shop in areas with lots of unemployment to have a captive audience of employees who can't afford to escape.

[1] https://www.foxbusiness.com/markets/walmart-mcdonalds-larges...

dialup_sounds3• 2 years ago

employing an estimated 14,500 workers who received food stamps, according to the GAO report’s findings.

14,500 out of 1.6 million US employees (i.e. less than 1%).

For comparison there are over 40 million people getting SNAP.

brandall10• 2 years ago

There should be some sort of legal/comp guarantees for employees that go through with something this crazy... because the ones that do are the ones that are the most desperate.

I can't imagine what it must be like to do this just to be subjected to an actual layoff within the following year. Out of work in a tech wasteland, stuck with a lease/mortgage in a place no one wanted to be, kids in the middle of a school year, etc.

mikeortman• 2 years ago

Artificially aiming to increase natural attrition through requiring employees to make like-altering decisions (or else) is evil. At the bare minimum, it should be seen as a layoff.

throwaway48476• 2 years ago

Or at least recognized as constructive dismissal.

OkayPhysicist2• 2 years ago

It probably already is constructive dismissal. But we could do better. Ballot measures here in CA only need 200,000 signatures.

yieldcrv• 2 years ago

Who can you get to move from California to Arkansas

especially if they can already afford to live in California

even the few wage workers subject to California’s taxes at higher brackets can become aware of all the other places with lower taxes

jeffbee2• 2 years ago

But on the salary they are willing to pay you can have like five bass boats.

throwup238• 2 years ago

And in Arkansas there’s no salt water, so upkeep on the boats will be a lot cheaper!

That totally makes up for moving to Arkansas.

ErikAugust• 2 years ago

Aren’t the people who make the bulk of what Walmart sells remote workers? It’s not like they go into the office…

Centigonal2• 2 years ago

This isn't your typical RTO story. Walmart is asking their staff to move across the country to the home office in Bentonville, AR.

Bentonville is a company town with not too much nearby. It's a nice enough place, with good schools, a few surrounding towns, and a fantastic art museum, but above all it's Walmart town. If you move there from another state and ever decide to work somewhere else, you're probably going to want to uproot your life again and move your family across the country. It's a great retention strategy for Walmart, and the lower CoL doesn't hurt either. If you prefer a more cosmopolitan lifestyle and the option to work elsewhere without moving, the Bentonville deal is a pretty unattractive one.

At least they've put windows in some of the office buildings now, that's a plus.

from-nibly• 2 years ago

I thought that's what is making this typical. It's a layoff in disguise like most of the other RTOs we've been seeing.

Centigonal2• 2 years ago

I think the "layoff in disguise" aspect is true for sure. I'm saying there's a big difference between Amazon asking people who WFH to hoof it 10-40 minutes each way to their nearest office, versus Walmart asking people who might already commute to a Walmart office to move to Bentonville.

ahi2• 2 years ago

Some 20 years ago I was doing competitive intelligence on them. After finding the third or fourth affair/divorce/chicanery among executives in a week of digging I asked my veteran boss, like, wtf, why is this company so gross? "It's Bentonville. They recruit cosmopolitan MBAs and the only thing to do is each other."

androiddrew• 2 years ago

I am surprised this hasn’t gotten any comments. This sounds like some corporate espionage by a different name. How do I get in on this?

486sx33• 2 years ago

I have to say I’ve driven nearby on the interstate and a side road, highway? That adjoins the Walmart distribution center and my goodness I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many tractor trailers in one place, let alone the sheer volume of the truck and trailer that I’m sure are constantly coming and going. Truly amazing. And I’d want to be at least 50 miles from there

23B12• 2 years ago

Its just RIFs camouflaged as RTO mandates. Management loves this sort of thing, a karmic freebie.

Corpos don't want you to 'put down roots' unless they can keep you from leaving, gives them more leverage over you. Knock-on effect is atomized communities, made worse by internet-atomized culture. It's a version of providing meals/gyms/amenities: check out any time you want, never leave.

Remote work is so obviously better for society, efficiency, and costs that responsible executives and shareholders should demand it. Talented employees should turn down offers and tell recruiters why: RTO mandates are a sign of weak and even impotent management (you can tell by the hand-wavy B.S. they use to justify it btw).

SG-• 2 years ago

its not really RTO, Walmart had a lot of remote sites in different cities and countries and they've decided to shut those sites down.

23B12• 2 years ago

Walmart management is capable of seeing many combinatory benefits regardless of what they're calling it.

Sam's Club CTO to Exit Due to Walmart Relocation Policy

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