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The title says "5400 employee layoff" but the article doesn't seem to mention that. It only mentions that they expect a big layoff. Am I missing some other news

The title says "5400 employee layoff" but the article doesn't seem to mention that. It only mentions that they expect a big layoff. Am I missing some other news or is this title wrong? > Uber’s 27,000 employees I am curious why Uber has 27,000 employees and whether tis is reasonable? Does this number include their other app UberEats too? And do they consider their branches for driver registration verification etc in each city to be employees? I feel like a lot of this can be trimmed down.

irjustin 7y ago
Offline/online takes a lot of people. Global logistics is nothing to scoff at. I'm actually more surprised they have 3,800 engineers. Probably one of the biggest cost centers will definitely get trimmed.
cvaidya1986 7y ago
20%
aprdm 7y ago
Yeah, me too. It is insane the amount of people developing software those companies have. If they can keep afloat while having such a big tech body paying high salaries hats off to them! It still amazes me.
- bathtub365 7y ago
  That 27,000 number isn't all software developers.
avree 7y ago
It includes the number working on their Eats, Driver, autonomous driving, internal products, etc. It's the employees of Uber, the company, not Uber the ride share app.
vitus 7y ago
Article states: > The outlet suggests the discussed cuts could impact upwards of 20 percent of Uber’s 27,000 employees which checks out -- 20% of 27,000 is 5400.
- busymom0 7y ago
  Ah thank you!
wpietri 7y ago
Given Uber's high level of internal competitiveness, their culture issues, and their grow-at-all-costs ethos, I would be totally unsurprised that they have a lot more people than you'd see at a hypothetical saner company delivering the same value. Even if that's true, it doesn't mean that a large cut like this will help anything. It's totally plausible that this will the make culture worse, get staff into a scarcity mindset, and reduce the levels of collaboration and value focus. Losing weight can be good, but just cutting off a limb is not the best way to go about it.
- JMTQp8lwXL 7y ago
  A criticism of the "grow at all costs" mindset: they aren't even executing on that efficiently. Per their GitHub account, they have 162 open source libraries. That's 162 open source solutions they could have found elsewhere and moved on to more pressing business needs.
  - saagarjha 7y ago
    Perhaps the thing didn’t exist and they had to create it? Perhaps the open source thing didn’t fit their needs?
    - JMTQp8lwXL 7y ago
      Perhaps not perfect substitutions, but business acumen is seeing a solution that's 90% of what you're looking for is more than adequate. It seems unlikely the organization identified 162 truly novel problems. It appears some needless reinventing of the wheel may have occurred. It's a common problem that certainly isn't exclusive to Uber. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Not_invented_here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Not_invented_here
      - saagarjha 7y ago
        Licensing can also be an issue sometimes.
mattbillenstein 7y ago
They've definitely over-hired at times -- if you raise a lot of cash, you have to spend it somewhere.
- daveslash 7y ago
  This is true. I've seen startups spend huge amounts of money on things like lavish game-rooms, lavish-company-outings, lavish-xyz.... It really is because they have to spend the money. It sounds crazy (and maybe it is), but a company doesn't always raise money because they need it. They often sell stock at price $Y so they can say X shares at $Y price means that we are valued at $Z - wanna buy us out? They have to spend money that they brought in selling pre-ipo stock at price $Y so that they can show (on paper) that they're worth $Z for buyout (or maybe more stock splits). But when they raise the money and they want to raise more (to raise their company value), then they have to demonstrate that they need it; you don't need money if you already have some in the bank. Gotta get rid of that money first, then show why you need it and how much you'll be worth some day. Source: Done-it (to a small degree).
  - BrandonM 7y ago
    You don’t have to be out of money to raise funds, so I question that you have to spend the money. You can raise with years of runway, provided that you have a compelling story about how you’re going to put the additional funds to use creating value.
    - daveslash 7y ago
      I agree that you don't have to be out of money, and some companies do take the approach that you describe. Honestly, I wish that the world worked more like that...I really do. In my experience, though, that's not how the majority of the dot-com startup-world works. Maybe it was just the decade and location in which I had my run at it (this past decade 2010-2020, SoCal) that's left me jaded. That said, I don't think that a compelling story about how you're going to add value is always enough - in a lot of competitive spaces, in order to be compelling you must have either (a) existing Intellectual Property (IP, aka Patents) that will keep competitors out of market or (b) enough "might-makes-right momentum" (aka money) to keep competitors out of the market. But... in scenario (b), you can't really get money unless you ask for it (or earn it the old fashioned way by having a profitable business model), and you can't ask for money unless you can demonstrate a need.... and you don't need it if you already have some money... It easily and quickly becomes a Catch-22 where you are spending money so that you can show that you don't have any; simultaneously, you can base your company value (and how much investors can should give) on how much you've earned (i.e. your stock price). I'm not refuting your point so much as I'm suggesting that there's a darker underside to how things often work. You're right -- you don't have to be out of money to raise funds; but smoke and mirrors is a lot easier than hard work...and many people/companies choose the latter path.
ezoe 7y ago
I don't know the correct answer but is it that surprise? Uber offers their service in 63 countries. The nature of their business model requires the presence of physical branch office in these 64 countries. In the Tokyo, even the restaurants run by very old people who don't understand what the Internet is support UberEats. That means somebody physically visit these restaurants, negotiate to support it, hand them the tablet with SIM and patiently teach how to use it. I doubt they could do that tasks with just a bunch of contractors.
- busymom0 7y ago
  That's actually what I was wondering whether they have those presence in the countries and UberEats as employees or contractors/third party. I feel like things like background checks can easily be done via third parties.
tanilama 7y ago
The information article says they are going to layoff 800 tech staff from 3,800 in total.

irjustin 7y ago

Offline/online takes a lot of people. Global logistics is nothing to scoff at. I'm actually more surprised they have 3,800 engineers. Probably one of the biggest cost centers will definitely get trimmed.

cvaidya1986 7y ago

20%

aprdm 7y ago

Yeah, me too. It is insane the amount of people developing software those companies have. If they can keep afloat while having such a big tech body paying high salaries hats off to them! It still amazes me.

bathtub365 7y ago
That 27,000 number isn't all software developers.

avree 7y ago

It includes the number working on their Eats, Driver, autonomous driving, internal products, etc. It's the employees of Uber, the company, not Uber the ride share app.

vitus 7y ago

Article states: > The outlet suggests the discussed cuts could impact upwards of 20 percent of Uber’s 27,000 employees which checks out -- 20% of 27,000 is 5400.

busymom0 7y ago
Ah thank you!

wpietri 7y ago

Given Uber's high level of internal competitiveness, their culture issues, and their grow-at-all-costs ethos, I would be totally unsurprised that they have a lot more people than you'd see at a hypothetical saner company delivering the same value. Even if that's true, it doesn't mean that a large cut like this will help anything. It's totally plausible that this will the make culture worse, get staff into a scarcity mindset, and reduce the levels of collaboration and value focus. Losing weight can be good, but just cutting off a limb is not the best way to go about it.

JMTQp8lwXL 7y ago
A criticism of the "grow at all costs" mindset: they aren't even executing on that efficiently. Per their GitHub account, they have 162 open source libraries. That's 162 open source solutions they could have found elsewhere and moved on to more pressing business needs.
- saagarjha 7y ago
  Perhaps the thing didn’t exist and they had to create it? Perhaps the open source thing didn’t fit their needs?
  - JMTQp8lwXL 7y ago
    Perhaps not perfect substitutions, but business acumen is seeing a solution that's 90% of what you're looking for is more than adequate. It seems unlikely the organization identified 162 truly novel problems. It appears some needless reinventing of the wheel may have occurred. It's a common problem that certainly isn't exclusive to Uber. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Not_invented_here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Not_invented_here
    - saagarjha 7y ago
      Licensing can also be an issue sometimes.

mattbillenstein 7y ago

They've definitely over-hired at times -- if you raise a lot of cash, you have to spend it somewhere.

daveslash 7y ago
This is true. I've seen startups spend huge amounts of money on things like lavish game-rooms, lavish-company-outings, lavish-xyz.... It really is because they have to spend the money. It sounds crazy (and maybe it is), but a company doesn't always raise money because they need it. They often sell stock at price $Y so they can say X shares at $Y price means that we are valued at $Z - wanna buy us out? They have to spend money that they brought in selling pre-ipo stock at price $Y so that they can show (on paper) that they're worth $Z for buyout (or maybe more stock splits). But when they raise the money and they want to raise more (to raise their company value), then they have to demonstrate that they need it; you don't need money if you already have some in the bank. Gotta get rid of that money first, then show why you need it and how much you'll be worth some day. Source: Done-it (to a small degree).
- BrandonM 7y ago
  You don’t have to be out of money to raise funds, so I question that you have to spend the money. You can raise with years of runway, provided that you have a compelling story about how you’re going to put the additional funds to use creating value.
  - daveslash 7y ago
    I agree that you don't have to be out of money, and some companies do take the approach that you describe. Honestly, I wish that the world worked more like that...I really do. In my experience, though, that's not how the majority of the dot-com startup-world works. Maybe it was just the decade and location in which I had my run at it (this past decade 2010-2020, SoCal) that's left me jaded. That said, I don't think that a compelling story about how you're going to add value is always enough - in a lot of competitive spaces, in order to be compelling you must have either (a) existing Intellectual Property (IP, aka Patents) that will keep competitors out of market or (b) enough "might-makes-right momentum" (aka money) to keep competitors out of the market. But... in scenario (b), you can't really get money unless you ask for it (or earn it the old fashioned way by having a profitable business model), and you can't ask for money unless you can demonstrate a need.... and you don't need it if you already have some money... It easily and quickly becomes a Catch-22 where you are spending money so that you can show that you don't have any; simultaneously, you can base your company value (and how much investors can should give) on how much you've earned (i.e. your stock price). I'm not refuting your point so much as I'm suggesting that there's a darker underside to how things often work. You're right -- you don't have to be out of money to raise funds; but smoke and mirrors is a lot easier than hard work...and many people/companies choose the latter path.

ezoe 7y ago

I don't know the correct answer but is it that surprise? Uber offers their service in 63 countries. The nature of their business model requires the presence of physical branch office in these 64 countries. In the Tokyo, even the restaurants run by very old people who don't understand what the Internet is support UberEats. That means somebody physically visit these restaurants, negotiate to support it, hand them the tablet with SIM and patiently teach how to use it. I doubt they could do that tasks with just a bunch of contractors.

busymom0 7y ago
That's actually what I was wondering whether they have those presence in the countries and UberEats as employees or contractors/third party. I feel like things like background checks can easily be done via third parties.

tanilama 7y ago

The information article says they are going to layoff 800 tech staff from 3,800 in total.