Laid-off Silicon Valley worker kills three: police

[girl gone mad]

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - A man laid off recently from his job in Silicon Valley shot and killed three people, believed to be former co-workers, at an office park on Friday, police in the ailing U.S. technology hub said.

The 47-year-old suspect, identified by police as Jing Wu, was still at large after gunning down two men and a woman shortly before 4 p.m. local time (0000 GMT), Santa Clara, California, police told local media.

Police did not identify the firm, which had employed the suspect, local radio and television reported.

An online business directory listed a man with the suspect's name working at Siport, a semiconductor company at the address of the killings. Siport was not immediately available for comment.

As the U.S. economy has weakened, technology companies have joined the rush to cut costs and lay off workers.

Sun Microsystems, one stalwart of the industry, said on Friday it would cut up to 6,000 jobs, 18 percent of its workforce.

http://ca.reuters.com/article/topNews/idCATRE4AE0WQ20081115

It looks like one of the victims was the CEO, Sid Agrawal.

[AirmensMom]

1. Sad,

but hardly surprising. Head honchos get to keep making the big bucks while the struggling worker bees are told, usually with no warning, not to come back to work tomorrow. No thought is given to the amount of suffering going on in the families of laid off workers.

No, I'm not condoning his actions. I'm just not surprised. I fear it will get worse. :cry:

[Joe the Liberal]

2. The more people become unemployed.....

the more crime you will see, sad to see this happen, its getting ugly out there.

[TahitiNut]

3. While I *LOVED* living in Silicon Valley ...

... it's pretty clear from working there off-and-on over the last 25 years that job stresses are ENORMOUS. Employers in Silicon Valley commit all kinds of abuses ... "casual overtime" from clerical personnel, 50-60 hours/week 'expected' from exempt personnel, boom and bust economics with surprise layoffs, and an almost impossible labor climate for older, more experienced workers. The "instant millionaire" lottery mentality (work in start-ups with stock benefits, praying it goes public with a boom) is rife all over the valley. Cults of personality, insider cliques, and other bizarre cultural factors lead to a very crazy-making work life.

[AirmensMom]

4. Not just Silicon Valley.

Where I worked in FL (huge company, not a start-up), 50-60 hours/week was considered "leaving early." We never expected to be instant millionaires, though. And we were constantly reminded to "just be glad you have a job." Yeah, it was crazy. Good thing they left the state and I chose to stay behind. Next job was much more sane.

[AlCzervik]

5. Cupertino, i am so glad we did not move there, too close to my husbands work.

[TahitiNut]

7. I lived in Cupertino 1983-1992 ... fascinating culture.

Hewlett-Packard, Apple, Compaq, and a wide variety of high-tech companies and government contractors. HP and Apple were VERY different cultures at the time. A very vibrant and extensive Asian-American and immigrant community. Probably the most job-oriented community I've ever seen. At the same time, the quality of life was excellent. Good restaurants, good schools, and great parks.

[AlCzervik]

8. that's where he works--1 infinite loop.

when he's not overseas which he is mostly.

[TahitiNut]

11. Part of the core. Yup. Bluetooth is there, too.

I had friends that live across the way in Valley Green ... good place to hot-tub and sip wine. There was once a good bar between the core and Valley Green on Valley Green Drive at DeAnza Boulevard ... Eli McFly's, IIRC. My favorite Japanese restaurant (translates to "The Lily Pad") is nearby, on Alves Drive and Bandley Drive. Yum!

When I first moved there in 1983, the office park on Industrial Loop wasn't built yet. The Core was on the west side of DeAnza. The Sports Bar and Restaurant right there on DeAnza just south of 280 was owned by a SF 49er ... good place for seeing and being seen. I worked in Sunnyvale and lived in the west end of Cupertino (Monte Vista). I LOVED walking/hiking in San Antonio Open Space, going to concerts at DeAnza College, slurping Jamba Juice at the Oaks, and eating falafels at Vivi's.

[girl gone mad]

9. You might appreciate this:

Here's an article from Silicon Valley Insider, speculating on Jing Wu's working conditions (someone also left a comment stating that Wu's job had just been outsourced).

http://www.alleyinsider.com/2008/11/what-its-like-working-where-alleged-murderer-jing-wu-worked

What kind of workplace drove laid-off engineer Jing Wu to allegedly murder his boss and a coworker at Silicon Valley semiconductor firm SiPort Inc?

Former Valleywag writer Alaska Miller once worked at a very similar "fabless" semiconducter shop -- "the shops are called fabless because they don’t actually own a foundry to physically produce chips" -- of which "there are literally thousands upon thousands" in Silicon Valley.

Now Miller's written a post describing the fairly grim working conditions for a man like Wu. Here's the bulletpoint version:

* There are thousands of these shops, created to "develop either a cheaper copy of an existing integrated circuit design or an amalgamation of multiple designs onto systems-on-a-chip (SoC)." Without foundries, these startups design the chips and sell them to bigger corporations or Asian manufacturers.
* "The risk for this is crazy," writes Miller, "especially considering the extensive time and staff the sales process requires. Although if your business were 85% all one company, such as portable player with Apple, then by all means you’re going to be flush with cash — up to until Apple decides to make everything in-house, then you’re just fucked."
* The working conditions are hellish: "When people describe startups before the go-go days of dotcoms (late 80’s and 90’s you punk kids) these chip companies were the shit that they were talking about. People sleeping under their desks. 90 hour workweeks. You eat, sleep, and die by your company."
* There's lots of industry turnover, but always more work for laid off engineers. "If your company flops there’s bound to another one down the street that’s hiring."
* Imported labor is common. MIller says firms like Intel snap up American engineers before they get out of college. "The second and third tier engineers lack the experience, you need people with master degrees sprinkled with Ph.Ds, to actually research and develop an entire chip by themselves. so what’s one to do? import. h1bs."
* Imported labor "is codeword for slavery." Miller writes that the advantage of imported labor isn't that its good, it's that its cheap and easy to control. "Once they’re brought here you can basically put them into 'corporate housing' which basically amounts to slum apartments that you rent in Milpitas or Fremont. And since the company has sponsored them, their ability to stay in the USA is completely in your hands."
* People snap: "Those with the circumstance to be able to pick up another job will just move on. For them, the lull in between is meaningless. But those that can’t -- those without money and no freedom earned, suffered through the insane production schedules -- those people will snap. People in their late forties who have immigrated to this country in hopes of making it big will outright fucking snap"

[TahitiNut]

10. That's pretty accurate. It's everywhere in the valley, too.

Exploitation of H1B workers is obscene.

[Taverner]

6. Not Sun Microsystems - SiPort

He was a QA Engineer