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I had some unkind feelings about Patreon when it was announced / made public that they laid off their entire security team. I still think that was a poor move a

by jzb 4y ago

I had some unkind feelings about Patreon when it was announced / made public that they laid off their entire security team. I still think that was a poor move and any company responsible for handling payments ought to have an in-house security team. That said - I've held off on any criticisms around their strategy/execution for the moment (aside from that) since it's unclear what happened. I'm wondering if Patreon is getting hit with lots of people backing off support of artists after a big jump due to the pandemic. Given inflation and a lot of feelings of uncertainty around the economy, it wouldn't surprise me to learn that their revenue went way down in a hurry this year. I back four artists on Patreon, down from five a year ago. In all 4 cases I'm either too busy to get full "value" out of sponsoring (e.g., I don't have time to read the updates or listen to all the demos), or there's not really any benefit other than funneling money to support the artist in hopes they'll continue working as an artist. Each month I look at the bill from Patreon and wonder "do I really need to keep spending this money?" So far I've elected to - but I haven't been hit super hard by inflation or a layoff like many folks...

unity1001 4y ago
They didn't lay off their entire security team. What one person among the laid off ones thought to be 'security team' may not overlap with what their company had been doing since a long time. In startups, its not uncommon to have engineers who have been handling various responsibilities, including security (especially early employees).
- Kalium 4y ago
  > In startups, its not uncommon to have engineers who have been handling various responsibilities, including security (especially early employees). You're right! That said, by the time a company is large enough that 17% of it is more than 17 people the kind of startup organization you have wisely and correctly nodded to will have ceased to exist. So while you are right in that such scenarios have, do, and will continue to happen there's perhaps cause to wonder if that's really the best way to characterize replacing a security organization with specialists with a bunch of engineers who are likely quarter-time security at best. It's akin to firing all your engineers because the sales people can do a little bit of coding each.
  - unity1001 4y ago
    > That said, by the time a company is large enough that 17% of it is more than 17 people the kind of startup organization you have wisely and correctly nodded to will have ceased to exist. Not really. A lot of stuff having moved to services, a lot of stuff being handled in 'no code' manner have simplified organizations a lot these days. Today you can just offload a lot of things to SaaS vendors that can automatically handle those stuff. Instead of having to have entire teams dealing with it like how it was in the earlier decades. You just need a host of capable people to deal with those services on your side, by wearing various hats. So the 'startup format' seems to have become extended to larger organizations.

by jzb 4y ago

unity1001 4y ago

They didn't lay off their entire security team. What one person among the laid off ones thought to be 'security team' may not overlap with what their company had been doing since a long time. In startups, its not uncommon to have engineers who have been handling various responsibilities, including security (especially early employees).

Kalium 4y ago
> In startups, its not uncommon to have engineers who have been handling various responsibilities, including security (especially early employees). You're right! That said, by the time a company is large enough that 17% of it is more than 17 people the kind of startup organization you have wisely and correctly nodded to will have ceased to exist. So while you are right in that such scenarios have, do, and will continue to happen there's perhaps cause to wonder if that's really the best way to characterize replacing a security organization with specialists with a bunch of engineers who are likely quarter-time security at best. It's akin to firing all your engineers because the sales people can do a little bit of coding each.
- unity1001 4y ago
  > That said, by the time a company is large enough that 17% of it is more than 17 people the kind of startup organization you have wisely and correctly nodded to will have ceased to exist. Not really. A lot of stuff having moved to services, a lot of stuff being handled in 'no code' manner have simplified organizations a lot these days. Today you can just offload a lot of things to SaaS vendors that can automatically handle those stuff. Instead of having to have entire teams dealing with it like how it was in the earlier decades. You just need a host of capable people to deal with those services on your side, by wearing various hats. So the 'startup format' seems to have become extended to larger organizations.