10 ms·

OneTrust lays off 25% Workforce

96 points by jussivee 4y ago

kwertyoowiyop 4y ago
Great!
roansh 4y ago
I wonder how many of layoffs that have happened, the ones coming are actually needed financially. For example: I suspect a lot of companies took the opportunity of the first covid lockdowns to fire some people? Nothing against it since every company is just improving its chances of survival, just thinking out loud about the reasons they share publicly. Also, of course there would be some whose survival was in good shape, but the layoffs were just to increase the profits?
- jussivee 4y ago
  I was thinking the exact same thing. It's easy to say it's because of the market sentiments, but you could also use that as an excuse. Covid lockdowns forced businesses to rethink their operational models. For some remote work etc. turned out to be profitable opportunities - you could do the same with less infrastructure. On another note, their CEO said "There are exciting days ahead for OneTrust as we transform into the Trust Intelligence Platform company." That sounds pretty wtf. Like someone just put some fancy words in line.
- culpable_pickle 4y ago
  Founded in 2016. Raised 926 million dollars. On track for record profits this year. Yeah, IMHO this was just an excuse to slim down the fat. Better returns for investors and better position to swoop in and grab other businesses that can no longer get funding. Shrewd but heartless IMHO.
  - thathndude 4y ago
    I think we’re seeing a lot of this in the economy today. I think a lot of the inflation were seeing is companies that know they can get away with it given the narrative, and taking the opportunity. Same thing here, no one can dispute that the overall macroeconomic picture is deteriorating. So you have cover for some fat trimming
  - TuringNYC 4y ago
    More likely: Worried about runway given difficultly of raising capital, cutting down to ensure burn-rate assumes capital isnt raised.
    - choeger 4y ago
      With profits, shouldn't you have an infinite runway?
      - kabdib 4y ago
        That depends on where your profits are coming from. If a large number of your customers depend (say) on VC funding . . .
      - stickfigure 4y ago
        Yes, so assume the word profits should have quotes around it.
      - TuringNYC 4y ago
        Only if the profits are sustainable and wont go down/away with the recession. Also, with stocks not going up infinitely, comp needs to change to less stock ("free") and more cash, further reducing profits.
      - nytesky 4y ago
        I was confused as well. Did PP mean revenue?
  - thawaya3113 4y ago
    The closest public info I can find is revenues of about $125mm in the past year. With about 4000 employees, that’s an average of about $30k per employee. That sounds pretty low to make any sort of profit.
- parkingrift 4y ago
  Scale up rapidly and then mass fire the bottom 10-25% of performers. This is a well known tactic.
  - onion2k 4y ago
    I imagine this sort of move makes some of the top people leave along with the worst people. If I was in a company that cut 25% of the workforce I'd look for the door regardless of how good I was. Nothing happens in isolation.
    - cupofpython 4y ago
      I think the part about that strategy that bugs me is that the workforce doesnt know they are effectively doing a tryout for the company But at the same time, these are probably the same companies that say "competitive work environment" somewhere on the job application so maybe employees should expect it
      - mandelbrotwurst 4y ago
        > these are probably the same companies that say "competitive work environment" somewhere on the job application so maybe employees should expect it Anecdotally, I've seen touchy feely corporate tone along with this strategy, and would suspect that is a fairly common combination. What you describe certainly exists, but it's not always so obvious.
        cupofpython 4y ago
        ugh, i hate it. "We are a family here" ... "haha jk, get lost"
  - kasey_junk 4y ago
    I keep hearing people say this, but when I worked doing layoffs I don’t think I ever saw a stack ranking happen. It was always either a)every team loses x% or more commonly b) getting rid of a function or location entirely. At the end of the day the differences in employee performance just aren’t that big and everyone knows it’s hard to accurately judge.
- _fat_santa 4y ago
  It could also be businesses reacting to the swinging pendulum of the economy, it's been a crazy 2 years. First we have a booming economy, brought to it's knees by the pandemic. Everything shuts down so businesses lay off. But then it came back, in some places in a very major way, and businesses that were laying off yesterday are back hiring today. But as the economy cooled off again, companies realize they can't afford these inflated workforces and start making cuts again.
  - formerkrogemp 4y ago
    Or, software companies and employees aren't as important as they make themselves out to be?
- abofh 4y ago
  I mean, rarely do companies have a stack of termination paperwork ready just in case - more likely it was handed down to line managers "We're trying to cut X$ out of our budget, you're responsible for Y% of that, please choose accordingly" I've definitely had that list ready to go before (and also been on there fighting to say no, it's not tenable for the business to let Y% of my team go). It depends on circumstances and the team. But yeah, if the company needs to save a few hundred grand off my budget this year, I know exactly who I'm taking off payroll - good enough to not get fired, but more work to keep them on task than they're producing. I'd rather half a dozen juniors that are amenable to direction than a superstar that's a fight to even give bowling bumpers to.
  - tech_tuna 4y ago
    There is always a list. When heads need to roll, the list comes out and heads are selected in some meaningful order.
KoftaBob 4y ago
"I know this news is surprising, especially as you heard last month that the business is on track with record quarters and increasing customer demand. However, capital markets sentiment shifted to a more balanced approach between growth and profitability, and at this time, we have decided the best course of action is to reorganize to position OneTrust for continued long-term success." Translation: we over-hired based on the assumption that VC money would keep being easy to come by, and now that VCs might be tightening their purse strings, we want to preemptively lower our burn rate in case the next round of funding is tougher. I get it, but every pre-IPO company that does this just indicates that their leadership are short sighted and gobble up as much VC money as possible just because they can, rather than raising only the amount needed for their growth goals. This whole "let's over hire while the VC money is flowing and mass lay off as soon as it's not" thing will make talent think twice before applying to your company, and will make your existing talent eager to look elsewhere for more a more secure role.
- missedthecue 4y ago
  Goals are defined by capabilities, are they not? And if you have greater capability (more VC money in this case) your goals will surely be loftier as well.
- laichzeit0 4y ago
  > This whole "let's over hire while the VC money is flowing and mass lay off as soon as it's not" thing will make talent think twice before applying to your company, and will make your existing talent eager to look elsewhere for more a more secure role. It really won’t though. People have short term memories and ego. Also, the next hiring round will most likely be from a fresh crop of graduates that will zero collective memory of what happened since they were still in school.
  - fn-mote 4y ago
    > Also, the next hiring round will most likely be from a fresh crop of graduates Sure, if you're only hiring new graduates. They're always cheap. And frequently those positions are a revolving door. I would be more concerned about hiring senior people, and what they heard through their network.
fasteddie31003 4y ago
The job market for developers right now is tough. My last time interviewing I was 2 offers for 4 interviews. I started looking for a job a month ago and I've gotten 0 offers for probably 10 interviews. It's my first time interviewing over virtual meetings, maybe that's it, but I think it's the general job market. My last feedback was "TL;DR - The general agreement was that you can code, and likely code well. However, there were opportunities to lean into deeper context and alternatives to problem solving." Maybe recruiters trying to only hire the "perfect" candidate with the increased supply of developers in the job market right now.
- adrr 4y ago
  We have 5 open software engineering roles and we haven’t seen any changes in our pipeline.
- cupofpython 4y ago
  are the 2/4 and 0/10 interviews the same level of work? Or are you applying to higher level positions now?
  - fasteddie31003 4y ago
    I'm was looking at senior levels both times.
- bin_bash 4y ago
  If the market was really tough you wouldn’t have found 10 interviews. I’m sorry to hear your search is going so poorly. Do some retrospective and practice the bits you think you might be missing.
- siva7 4y ago
  Then we must live in a different reality. All companies in my circle are struggling to find developers.
  - gitfan86 4y ago
    Same. Just yesterday, I had a company wanting to negotiate employment terms after saying they were passing on me last week.
dzuc 4y ago
OneTrust's cookie consent manager is literally the worst product I have ever used.
- animsriv 4y ago
  Same. I'd have fired all the employees /s
  - superjan 4y ago
    I would say firing 25% would be enough assuming you start from the top down. User hostile software usually hostile by design.
    - Nextgrid 4y ago
      I don't think firing 25% would be enough. Ultimately the entire purpose of the company is to provide a solution that allows companies to pseudo-comply with the GDPR without actually complying. Actual compliance would require removing all the trackers & other bullshit and then you no longer need a "consent management platform", therefore this company ceases to exist and 100% of the employees are let go. If you ask people whether they want to be tracked (in a GDPR-compliant way, which involves listing all the data points collected, how is it stored & used and with whom it is shared) 99% of people will outright say no, therefore the best course of action is to remove the trackers and no need for this company to exist at all.
      - superjan 4y ago
        Yeah, my remark was based on the presumption that there would be a viable product without all the lying and cheating. You’re probably right there isn’t.
  - egeozcan 4y ago
    That reminds me of the Monty Python sketch where the head waiter commands to sack the entire washing staff because of a dirty fork. https://youtu.be/oCLtaK7KLEM?t=72 https://youtu.be/oCLtaK7KLEM?t=72
whostolemyhat 4y ago
They employ ~4000 people? What on earth where they all doing?
- abduhl 4y ago
  Same thing as the other "tech" companies: "tech" stuff and if you can't imagine what that is then you haven't drank enough Kool-Aid yet. Something something products, internal tooling, documentation, yadda yadda.
  - rightbyte 4y ago
    > documentation Oh I wish. I have only heard all these jokes about being forced to write useless docs but I have yet to see a place where there are docs when I try to get into the projects someone left me.
- Nextgrid 4y ago
  Building an engineering playground. It doesn't matter what business problem the tech solves, the tech itself is the goal even if it produces no useful output as long as the (self-inflicted) complexity convinces investors to pour even more money into it. The current recession suggests the investor money is becoming scarce and you actually need to find other sources of income, so all the useless complexity is being cut back.
indymike 4y ago
I'm always amazed with how big tech companies get in terms of employee count. I once wandered the engineering area of the HQ (with an employee) of a FAANG (MAANG sounds... silly) and made a tick mark on my notebook when I saw someone actually coding - or at least having code on screen. There were over 1200 people on the development team and at the time most worked out of HQ. So... when I was done walking, I had 22 tick marks. Lots of email, lots of documents, and very little programming.
- abduhl 4y ago
  Yes, but haven't you heard that productivity has gone up since we've moved to WFH? You'd probably have like 30-40 tick marks now if you toured all their homes.
  - arroz 4y ago
    Yeah i don’t think this is true though people love to say it is true Productivity is a very subjective term Are you making more dollars for less money? This is productivity, everything else doesn’t matter
    - throw123123123 4y ago
      I think a developer productivity is measured by the eng output, not the market pricing of the goods they sell. Im pretty sure LOC/person went down a lot with the pandemic across all companies.
    - hallway_monitor 4y ago
      I would love to make more dollars for less money. I think.
- kristjansson 4y ago
  Its almost like the practice of software engineering in a large organization involves (much) more than writing code?
  - 4y ago
latchkey 4y ago
Interesting, I had a call with one of their sales people a couple days ago. The whole product is a glorified spreadsheet. It is super customizable, which is almost a bad thing since you really just want a product like this to kind of guide you through all the laws and regulations. Instead, it is tailored towards creating a job description for someone to sit there and fill in data that nobody will ever look at.
citizenpaul 4y ago
I often wonder how companies like this exist. Their "Market" isn't really a market but forced government regulation. I suppose its all sweethart deals, kickbacks, lobbying for contracts, and fedramp. Having 4000 employees for what is essentially streamlining the process of filling out government paperwork seems absurd to me. Don't misunderstand I've delt with compliance and know very well how much a headache it is and the mountains of paperwork. Yet I just cannot possibly see how this many employees could be needed or profitable to hire.
- battery_glasses 4y ago
  Their "Market" isn't really a market but forced government regulation. Regulatory compliance is a huge, stable, market. (IDK anything about the specifics of this company, just pointing out that government regulation creates markets.)
  - citizenpaul 4y ago
    Perhaps. I'm not an economist but I would think they probably have some word I don't know that describes this situation.
imroot 4y ago
Discovered this when nobody from OneTrust showed up to our implementation meeting this morning....not a good sign for a new customer.
yevpats 4y ago
Seems like a service company disguised as a SaaS company which says their revenue is coming from "SaaS" but actually they have an internal tool which doesn't scale and 4000 engineers that are doing basically one-off services. But given you say you are a SaaS company you can get 50x multiples (or you could in the past). but the moment there is downturn the "scam" is floating up because every engineer you cut is directly affecting revenue due to the underlying service model. Interesting to see how many more "SaaS" companies like this are in the market
onphonenow 4y ago
These guys all write the same script - heavy heart, hardest decision. Come on. You did some projections, met with the board, discussed at exec level and decided to make this change. Wonder if they will get any payouts on their unused "unlimited" PTO

96 points by jussivee 4y ago

Great!

I wonder how many of layoffs that have happened, the ones coming are actually needed financially. For example: I suspect a lot of companies took the opportunity of the first covid lockdowns to fire some people? Nothing against it since every company is just improving its chances of survival, just thinking out loud about the reasons they share publicly. Also, of course there would be some whose survival was in good shape, but the layoffs were just to increase the profits?

jussivee 4y ago
I was thinking the exact same thing. It's easy to say it's because of the market sentiments, but you could also use that as an excuse. Covid lockdowns forced businesses to rethink their operational models. For some remote work etc. turned out to be profitable opportunities - you could do the same with less infrastructure. On another note, their CEO said "There are exciting days ahead for OneTrust as we transform into the Trust Intelligence Platform company." That sounds pretty wtf. Like someone just put some fancy words in line.
culpable_pickle 4y ago
Founded in 2016. Raised 926 million dollars. On track for record profits this year. Yeah, IMHO this was just an excuse to slim down the fat. Better returns for investors and better position to swoop in and grab other businesses that can no longer get funding. Shrewd but heartless IMHO.
- thathndude 4y ago
  I think we’re seeing a lot of this in the economy today. I think a lot of the inflation were seeing is companies that know they can get away with it given the narrative, and taking the opportunity. Same thing here, no one can dispute that the overall macroeconomic picture is deteriorating. So you have cover for some fat trimming
- TuringNYC 4y ago
  More likely: Worried about runway given difficultly of raising capital, cutting down to ensure burn-rate assumes capital isnt raised.
  - choeger 4y ago
    With profits, shouldn't you have an infinite runway?
    - kabdib 4y ago
      That depends on where your profits are coming from. If a large number of your customers depend (say) on VC funding . . .
    - stickfigure 4y ago
      Yes, so assume the word profits should have quotes around it.
    - TuringNYC 4y ago
      Only if the profits are sustainable and wont go down/away with the recession. Also, with stocks not going up infinitely, comp needs to change to less stock ("free") and more cash, further reducing profits.
    - nytesky 4y ago
      I was confused as well. Did PP mean revenue?
- thawaya3113 4y ago
  The closest public info I can find is revenues of about $125mm in the past year. With about 4000 employees, that’s an average of about $30k per employee. That sounds pretty low to make any sort of profit.
parkingrift 4y ago
Scale up rapidly and then mass fire the bottom 10-25% of performers. This is a well known tactic.
- onion2k 4y ago
  I imagine this sort of move makes some of the top people leave along with the worst people. If I was in a company that cut 25% of the workforce I'd look for the door regardless of how good I was. Nothing happens in isolation.
  - cupofpython 4y ago
    I think the part about that strategy that bugs me is that the workforce doesnt know they are effectively doing a tryout for the company But at the same time, these are probably the same companies that say "competitive work environment" somewhere on the job application so maybe employees should expect it
    - mandelbrotwurst 4y ago
      > these are probably the same companies that say "competitive work environment" somewhere on the job application so maybe employees should expect it Anecdotally, I've seen touchy feely corporate tone along with this strategy, and would suspect that is a fairly common combination. What you describe certainly exists, but it's not always so obvious.
      - cupofpython 4y ago
        ugh, i hate it. "We are a family here" ... "haha jk, get lost"
- kasey_junk 4y ago
  I keep hearing people say this, but when I worked doing layoffs I don’t think I ever saw a stack ranking happen. It was always either a)every team loses x% or more commonly b) getting rid of a function or location entirely. At the end of the day the differences in employee performance just aren’t that big and everyone knows it’s hard to accurately judge.
_fat_santa 4y ago
It could also be businesses reacting to the swinging pendulum of the economy, it's been a crazy 2 years. First we have a booming economy, brought to it's knees by the pandemic. Everything shuts down so businesses lay off. But then it came back, in some places in a very major way, and businesses that were laying off yesterday are back hiring today. But as the economy cooled off again, companies realize they can't afford these inflated workforces and start making cuts again.
- formerkrogemp 4y ago
  Or, software companies and employees aren't as important as they make themselves out to be?
abofh 4y ago
I mean, rarely do companies have a stack of termination paperwork ready just in case - more likely it was handed down to line managers "We're trying to cut X$ out of our budget, you're responsible for Y% of that, please choose accordingly" I've definitely had that list ready to go before (and also been on there fighting to say no, it's not tenable for the business to let Y% of my team go). It depends on circumstances and the team. But yeah, if the company needs to save a few hundred grand off my budget this year, I know exactly who I'm taking off payroll - good enough to not get fired, but more work to keep them on task than they're producing. I'd rather half a dozen juniors that are amenable to direction than a superstar that's a fight to even give bowling bumpers to.
- tech_tuna 4y ago
  There is always a list. When heads need to roll, the list comes out and heads are selected in some meaningful order.

KoftaBob 4y ago

"I know this news is surprising, especially as you heard last month that the business is on track with record quarters and increasing customer demand. However, capital markets sentiment shifted to a more balanced approach between growth and profitability, and at this time, we have decided the best course of action is to reorganize to position OneTrust for continued long-term success." Translation: we over-hired based on the assumption that VC money would keep being easy to come by, and now that VCs might be tightening their purse strings, we want to preemptively lower our burn rate in case the next round of funding is tougher. I get it, but every pre-IPO company that does this just indicates that their leadership are short sighted and gobble up as much VC money as possible just because they can, rather than raising only the amount needed for their growth goals. This whole "let's over hire while the VC money is flowing and mass lay off as soon as it's not" thing will make talent think twice before applying to your company, and will make your existing talent eager to look elsewhere for more a more secure role.

missedthecue 4y ago
Goals are defined by capabilities, are they not? And if you have greater capability (more VC money in this case) your goals will surely be loftier as well.
laichzeit0 4y ago
> This whole "let's over hire while the VC money is flowing and mass lay off as soon as it's not" thing will make talent think twice before applying to your company, and will make your existing talent eager to look elsewhere for more a more secure role. It really won’t though. People have short term memories and ego. Also, the next hiring round will most likely be from a fresh crop of graduates that will zero collective memory of what happened since they were still in school.
- fn-mote 4y ago
  > Also, the next hiring round will most likely be from a fresh crop of graduates Sure, if you're only hiring new graduates. They're always cheap. And frequently those positions are a revolving door. I would be more concerned about hiring senior people, and what they heard through their network.

fasteddie31003 4y ago

The job market for developers right now is tough. My last time interviewing I was 2 offers for 4 interviews. I started looking for a job a month ago and I've gotten 0 offers for probably 10 interviews. It's my first time interviewing over virtual meetings, maybe that's it, but I think it's the general job market. My last feedback was "TL;DR - The general agreement was that you can code, and likely code well. However, there were opportunities to lean into deeper context and alternatives to problem solving." Maybe recruiters trying to only hire the "perfect" candidate with the increased supply of developers in the job market right now.

adrr 4y ago
We have 5 open software engineering roles and we haven’t seen any changes in our pipeline.
cupofpython 4y ago
are the 2/4 and 0/10 interviews the same level of work? Or are you applying to higher level positions now?
- fasteddie31003 4y ago
  I'm was looking at senior levels both times.
bin_bash 4y ago
If the market was really tough you wouldn’t have found 10 interviews. I’m sorry to hear your search is going so poorly. Do some retrospective and practice the bits you think you might be missing.
siva7 4y ago
Then we must live in a different reality. All companies in my circle are struggling to find developers.
- gitfan86 4y ago
  Same. Just yesterday, I had a company wanting to negotiate employment terms after saying they were passing on me last week.

dzuc 4y ago

OneTrust's cookie consent manager is literally the worst product I have ever used.

animsriv 4y ago
Same. I'd have fired all the employees /s
- superjan 4y ago
  I would say firing 25% would be enough assuming you start from the top down. User hostile software usually hostile by design.
  - Nextgrid 4y ago
    I don't think firing 25% would be enough. Ultimately the entire purpose of the company is to provide a solution that allows companies to pseudo-comply with the GDPR without actually complying. Actual compliance would require removing all the trackers & other bullshit and then you no longer need a "consent management platform", therefore this company ceases to exist and 100% of the employees are let go. If you ask people whether they want to be tracked (in a GDPR-compliant way, which involves listing all the data points collected, how is it stored & used and with whom it is shared) 99% of people will outright say no, therefore the best course of action is to remove the trackers and no need for this company to exist at all.
    - superjan 4y ago
      Yeah, my remark was based on the presumption that there would be a viable product without all the lying and cheating. You’re probably right there isn’t.
- egeozcan 4y ago
  That reminds me of the Monty Python sketch where the head waiter commands to sack the entire washing staff because of a dirty fork. https://youtu.be/oCLtaK7KLEM?t=72 https://youtu.be/oCLtaK7KLEM?t=72

whostolemyhat 4y ago

They employ ~4000 people? What on earth where they all doing?

abduhl 4y ago
Same thing as the other "tech" companies: "tech" stuff and if you can't imagine what that is then you haven't drank enough Kool-Aid yet. Something something products, internal tooling, documentation, yadda yadda.
- rightbyte 4y ago
  > documentation Oh I wish. I have only heard all these jokes about being forced to write useless docs but I have yet to see a place where there are docs when I try to get into the projects someone left me.
Nextgrid 4y ago
Building an engineering playground. It doesn't matter what business problem the tech solves, the tech itself is the goal even if it produces no useful output as long as the (self-inflicted) complexity convinces investors to pour even more money into it. The current recession suggests the investor money is becoming scarce and you actually need to find other sources of income, so all the useless complexity is being cut back.

indymike 4y ago

I'm always amazed with how big tech companies get in terms of employee count. I once wandered the engineering area of the HQ (with an employee) of a FAANG (MAANG sounds... silly) and made a tick mark on my notebook when I saw someone actually coding - or at least having code on screen. There were over 1200 people on the development team and at the time most worked out of HQ. So... when I was done walking, I had 22 tick marks. Lots of email, lots of documents, and very little programming.

abduhl 4y ago
Yes, but haven't you heard that productivity has gone up since we've moved to WFH? You'd probably have like 30-40 tick marks now if you toured all their homes.
- arroz 4y ago
  Yeah i don’t think this is true though people love to say it is true Productivity is a very subjective term Are you making more dollars for less money? This is productivity, everything else doesn’t matter
  - throw123123123 4y ago
    I think a developer productivity is measured by the eng output, not the market pricing of the goods they sell. Im pretty sure LOC/person went down a lot with the pandemic across all companies.
  - hallway_monitor 4y ago
    I would love to make more dollars for less money. I think.
kristjansson 4y ago
Its almost like the practice of software engineering in a large organization involves (much) more than writing code?
- 4y ago

latchkey 4y ago

Interesting, I had a call with one of their sales people a couple days ago. The whole product is a glorified spreadsheet. It is super customizable, which is almost a bad thing since you really just want a product like this to kind of guide you through all the laws and regulations. Instead, it is tailored towards creating a job description for someone to sit there and fill in data that nobody will ever look at.

citizenpaul 4y ago

I often wonder how companies like this exist. Their "Market" isn't really a market but forced government regulation. I suppose its all sweethart deals, kickbacks, lobbying for contracts, and fedramp. Having 4000 employees for what is essentially streamlining the process of filling out government paperwork seems absurd to me. Don't misunderstand I've delt with compliance and know very well how much a headache it is and the mountains of paperwork. Yet I just cannot possibly see how this many employees could be needed or profitable to hire.

battery_glasses 4y ago
Their "Market" isn't really a market but forced government regulation. Regulatory compliance is a huge, stable, market. (IDK anything about the specifics of this company, just pointing out that government regulation creates markets.)
- citizenpaul 4y ago
  Perhaps. I'm not an economist but I would think they probably have some word I don't know that describes this situation.

imroot 4y ago

Discovered this when nobody from OneTrust showed up to our implementation meeting this morning....not a good sign for a new customer.

yevpats 4y ago

Seems like a service company disguised as a SaaS company which says their revenue is coming from "SaaS" but actually they have an internal tool which doesn't scale and 4000 engineers that are doing basically one-off services. But given you say you are a SaaS company you can get 50x multiples (or you could in the past). but the moment there is downturn the "scam" is floating up because every engineer you cut is directly affecting revenue due to the underlying service model. Interesting to see how many more "SaaS" companies like this are in the market

onphonenow 4y ago

These guys all write the same script - heavy heart, hardest decision. Come on. You did some projections, met with the board, discussed at exec level and decided to make this change. Wonder if they will get any payouts on their unused "unlimited" PTO