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How does SoundCloud need 173 employees to operate? I mean, they laid off 40% and nothing seems to have changed so they clearly didn't. I wonder why startups ten

How does SoundCloud need 173 employees to operate? I mean, they laid off 40% and nothing seems to have changed so they clearly didn't. I wonder why startups tend to run so inefficiently. Has recently happened to Twitter, Etsy, etc. I imagine the companies could still be a lot more lean staff-wise than they are.

revelation 9y ago
Reddit now has 230 employees and their latest (for me) user visible change in a year has been super aggressive broken caching where you post a comment and it doesn't appear until a complete reload.
pcsanwald 9y ago
- Scaling down a company is generally hard and (lately) not done as often. It's pretty difficult to spend 6 years where hiring is your biggest priority (from executive level on down) and then all of a sudden it isn't. - It's quite common for investors to push hiring more people as a way to get more stuff done. The general refrain you will hear from many investors on how to (move faster|fix problem) is to hire for it. - The default thing to do with capital to invest is to acquire/hire. I guess to summarize, staying lean just isn't a priority for these companies or their investors. The expectation is enormous growth or failure. The reality is often quite more nuanced.
- neerkumar 9y ago
  It is really hard to be efficient in terms of headcount. Every single manager inside the organization has a personal incentive in pushing to hire more people cause that's how we measure career growth. So they all come up with all sort of BS to justify hiring more people. The crazy thing is that it should be exactly the opposite. People should get more credit for achieving X with as few people as possible. Instead it works the other way round.
  - artursapek 9y ago
    Interesting insights... thanks to you and parent. I have been thinking about this for a while. It feels very broken.

revelation 9y ago

Reddit now has 230 employees and their latest (for me) user visible change in a year has been super aggressive broken caching where you post a comment and it doesn't appear until a complete reload.

pcsanwald 9y ago

- Scaling down a company is generally hard and (lately) not done as often. It's pretty difficult to spend 6 years where hiring is your biggest priority (from executive level on down) and then all of a sudden it isn't. - It's quite common for investors to push hiring more people as a way to get more stuff done. The general refrain you will hear from many investors on how to (move faster|fix problem) is to hire for it. - The default thing to do with capital to invest is to acquire/hire. I guess to summarize, staying lean just isn't a priority for these companies or their investors. The expectation is enormous growth or failure. The reality is often quite more nuanced.

neerkumar 9y ago
It is really hard to be efficient in terms of headcount. Every single manager inside the organization has a personal incentive in pushing to hire more people cause that's how we measure career growth. So they all come up with all sort of BS to justify hiring more people. The crazy thing is that it should be exactly the opposite. People should get more credit for achieving X with as few people as possible. Instead it works the other way round.
- artursapek 9y ago
  Interesting insights... thanks to you and parent. I have been thinking about this for a while. It feels very broken.