SanDisk transfers jobs from Israel to India
SanDisk laid off dozens of employees from its 700-strong Kfar Sava development center, transferring an NVMe SSD project to India. The layoffs, which surprised workers given the company's soaring stock price and record profits, occurred months before an ESPP program that could have yielded employees hundreds of thousands of dollars in discounted shares. The Israeli center will now develop a new Stargate platform.
SanDisk laid off dozens of employees from its 700-strong development center in Kfar Sava, Israel, transferring an important development project for NVMe SSDs for cloud and AI servers to its development center in India. The layoffs surprised workers given the company's excellent financial results: its share price soared 3,400% in a year to $1,596, it reported an 85% margin, and its order book swelled to $91 billion. The timing, just months before a scheduled ESPP program launch, raised a storm on social networks. The program would have allowed employees to buy shares at a substantial discount, potentially worth hundreds of thousands of dollars per employee. Industry sources say the layoffs stem from a management decision to transfer the NVMe SSD project to India, while the Israeli center will develop a new Stargate platform. SanDisk joins other US companies like Intel and Intuit that have increased activity in India. The article quotes Ronen Solomon of altshare explaining the ESPP mechanism and Eyal Solomon of Ethosia noting that India has become a more attractive destination for development work.