> rumor: Last week Synopsys laid off 10% of its workforce globally, with
>        most of the cuts being in North America.
>
>  fact: Probably false.  Lay off 400 now unhappy ex-Synopsys employees
>        and not one of them emails me?  Not likely.  In addition, there
>        is some sort of legal requirement that Synopsys would have to
>        issue a press release for such a large layoff because this would
>        materially affect the company.  To boot, Wall Street absolutely
>        loves layoffs; they cause a stock to rise -- which is even more
>        of a sick incentive to issue such a press release -- which they
>        didn't.  The Big 4 are all in a simultaneous fire & hire mode.
>        My guess is it's the background radiation of employee turnover
>        fueling this rumor.  Or the shorts playing manipulation games.
>
>            - from http://www.deepchip.com/gadfly/gad083006.html


I received a number of emails and phone calls about the Synopsys layoffs
from the "unapproved" sources (i.e. the people who would know.)  Normally
I'd just publish the emails, but on second thought I don't think it would
be right to publish the names of those who just got laid off.  I've been
laid off before.  It hurts enough as it is; the last thing I'd want is it
published.  So, *without* naming names, here's what I know:

    - Yes, there was a Synopsys layoff in August.  From looking at
      the specific names and from other comments, it appears the
      bulk of the layoffs hit the marketing folks in the Synopsys
      Verification Group.  A couple of random people throughout the
      entire company had been cut, too, outside of the VG.  And yes,
      some of the R&D engineers got cut, too.

    - Some of the layoffs were "paper" layoffs (i.e. some unfilled
      job reqs were cut.)

    - The rumored realistic total number of Synopsys layoffs was
      in the range of 80 to 100 people worldwide.  That is, it's
      roughly around 2%.  (Yahoo Finance reports that Synopsys has
      4,756 employees worldwide.  100/4,756 = 2.1%)

    - All EDA companies are reluctant to put out press releases for
      small 2% layoffs because the rule is if you do it for one, you'll
      have to do it for all other layoffs of this size or bigger later.

    - Yes, Synopsys is still hiring in India, China, Hungary, Chile,
      and even in the U.S., Europe, and Japan.

I've also heard an unsubstantiated rumor that Synopsys is restructuring so
all their marketing is now centralized under one czar, John Chilton, their
"former" VP/GM of IP & Consulting; the background radiation of hires & fires
could be part of this internal restructuring.  Traditionally, each of the
Business Units in Synopsys have their own marketing folks.  What makes this
interesting is that if all the BUs lose their marketing people, what's left
is no longer really a Business Unit, but an R&D group.  Of course, this
Chilton part is just one person's rumor, so this speculation based on it
could be wrong.  Either way, if you know John Chilton, please make sure that
you now greet him in the proper way: "All hail, Czar Chilton!"  :)