6 ms·

It's especially a dick move when everybody already knows they're hurting for cash, and the official position could be "we just can't afford all these people" wi

It's especially a dick move when everybody already knows they're hurting for cash, and the official position could be "we just can't afford all these people" without the company losing any face. They aren't fooling anybody by pretending it's not about the cost.

datapunk 7y ago
Uber's stock has been going down the drain. Why would they give more reason's for investors to cash out?
- lliamander 7y ago
  You can just say something like "we're restructuring to focus on our core competencies". If you fire a bunch of non-critical staff, you just told investors "our revenue to cost ratio is about to get a lot better" and so if anything investors who have been watching the decline are going to recognize you are doing something about the problem.
- objektif 7y ago
  In most situations market reacts positively to layofss unless there is a BK looming.
  - lliamander 7y ago
    Indeed, HP (or HPE and HP Inc.) has done many layoffs in the past few decades. I just narrowly dodged one a number of years ago. Pretty much always the goal is to simply reduce costs without reducing revenue (as much). Investors don't care how much staff you have, they just care if you are making money.
novok 7y ago
If you're going to lay off people in a cross cutting manner, who would you choose?
- ceejayoz 7y ago
  People who aren't critical to the core product, or whose projects aren't big revenue generators. They might be high performers while being technically unprofitable.
  - balls187 7y ago
    > They might be high performers while being technically unprofitable. Why would you do that vs moving the high performers to the business critical projects?
    - ceejayoz 7y ago
      Any number of reasons. They might be high performers in skill sets not needed in those business critical projects. You might be leery of the time needed to get up to speed on something completely different.
    - lostcolony 7y ago
      So you're saying software devs are just cogs that can be easily replaced?
      - austhrow743 7y ago
        Yes
        lliamander 7y ago
        You can't just swap out members of a team, or add more members to a team, and expect the result to be faster execution (in short run) even if the new team members are high performers. In the first case, you're losing team members with tribal knowledge of the system and its requirements. In the second case, you're exponentially increasing the pathways of communication. In either case, you still have the ramp-up time for new team members.
      - balls187 7y ago
notyourday 7y ago
You can't be a unicorn and not be able to afford the people. This is not a story for people in the tech who know about the industry and the six figure salaries engineers at unicorns make. This is a story for retail that will be buying stock. "We cannot afford X" can be an stock buster.
whateveracct 7y ago
Layoffs are always a failure of leadership, but leadership will always choose to dodge blame if given an out. Hence, "low performers."
- hn_throwaway_99 7y ago
  > Layoffs are always a failure of leadership I completely disagree. Which would you rather have: (a) Business is booming, but leadership holds off on hiring because they believe the boom won't last forever. (b) Business is booming, so leadership hires to support the boom. The boom eventually subsides, so leadership decides to lay off as the business is no longer there. Fortunately, even as an employee, I'd much rather have (b) (assuming the timeframe was relatively decent, i.e. I didn't get hired and laid off in 3 months). I've said this before, but in growing industries, I do not believe lay offs are something to fear. I mean, given the desire for experienced engineers and product people, I have no doubt these Uber folks will get snatched up extremely quickly. (and to emphasize, I certainly do NOT believe this is the case with shrinking industries)
  - whateveracct 7y ago
    My issue is this framing of it as "we're cutting low performers."
  - rhizome 7y ago
    (c) Robot cars were a mistake.

datapunk 7y ago

Uber's stock has been going down the drain. Why would they give more reason's for investors to cash out?

lliamander 7y ago
You can just say something like "we're restructuring to focus on our core competencies". If you fire a bunch of non-critical staff, you just told investors "our revenue to cost ratio is about to get a lot better" and so if anything investors who have been watching the decline are going to recognize you are doing something about the problem.
objektif 7y ago
In most situations market reacts positively to layofss unless there is a BK looming.
- lliamander 7y ago
  Indeed, HP (or HPE and HP Inc.) has done many layoffs in the past few decades. I just narrowly dodged one a number of years ago. Pretty much always the goal is to simply reduce costs without reducing revenue (as much). Investors don't care how much staff you have, they just care if you are making money.

novok 7y ago

If you're going to lay off people in a cross cutting manner, who would you choose?

ceejayoz 7y ago
People who aren't critical to the core product, or whose projects aren't big revenue generators. They might be high performers while being technically unprofitable.
- balls187 7y ago
  > They might be high performers while being technically unprofitable. Why would you do that vs moving the high performers to the business critical projects?
  - ceejayoz 7y ago
    Any number of reasons. They might be high performers in skill sets not needed in those business critical projects. You might be leery of the time needed to get up to speed on something completely different.
  - lostcolony 7y ago
    So you're saying software devs are just cogs that can be easily replaced?
    - austhrow743 7y ago
      Yes
      - lliamander 7y ago
        You can't just swap out members of a team, or add more members to a team, and expect the result to be faster execution (in short run) even if the new team members are high performers. In the first case, you're losing team members with tribal knowledge of the system and its requirements. In the second case, you're exponentially increasing the pathways of communication. In either case, you still have the ramp-up time for new team members.
    - balls187 7y ago

notyourday 7y ago

You can't be a unicorn and not be able to afford the people. This is not a story for people in the tech who know about the industry and the six figure salaries engineers at unicorns make. This is a story for retail that will be buying stock. "We cannot afford X" can be an stock buster.

whateveracct 7y ago

Layoffs are always a failure of leadership, but leadership will always choose to dodge blame if given an out. Hence, "low performers."

hn_throwaway_99 7y ago
> Layoffs are always a failure of leadership I completely disagree. Which would you rather have: (a) Business is booming, but leadership holds off on hiring because they believe the boom won't last forever. (b) Business is booming, so leadership hires to support the boom. The boom eventually subsides, so leadership decides to lay off as the business is no longer there. Fortunately, even as an employee, I'd much rather have (b) (assuming the timeframe was relatively decent, i.e. I didn't get hired and laid off in 3 months). I've said this before, but in growing industries, I do not believe lay offs are something to fear. I mean, given the desire for experienced engineers and product people, I have no doubt these Uber folks will get snatched up extremely quickly. (and to emphasize, I certainly do NOT believe this is the case with shrinking industries)
- whateveracct 7y ago
  My issue is this framing of it as "we're cutting low performers."
- rhizome 7y ago
  (c) Robot cars were a mistake.